Apple held its autumn event today and issued six press releases: the foldable iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4, AirPods 5, and new health capabilities powered by Apple Intelligence.
Most coverage will be about the foldable. But three other things in those same releases are more interesting commercially, and one of them is what was not shown.
Every detail here is taken from Apple's own releases.
Errors or inaccuracies are possible. Spotted something that looks wrong? Write to me and I will correct it.
What Was Shown and at What Price
| The device | Starting price | Pre-order | In stores |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone Duo | $1,999 | 16 October | 23 October |
| iPhone 18 Pro | $1,199 | 12 September | 18 September |
| iPhone 18 Pro Max | $1,299 | 12 September | 18 September |
| Apple Watch Series 12 | $399 | today | 18 September |
The Duo comes in 256GB, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB, in two colours - "star white" and "night sky" - in polished grade 5 titanium. The official case is $79, and the folio with kickstand $129.
The First Thing: the Silicon
And this is the part worth stopping on, because it closes out a decade-long move.
| The chip | What it does | The figure |
|---|---|---|
| A20 Pro | main processor | 2-nanometer process |
| 6-core CPU, 7-core GPU | ||
| Dual 16-core Neural Engine - 32 cores in total | ||
| double the AI processing power of A19 Pro | ||
| 50% more memory bandwidth | ||
| N1 | wireless networking | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, Thread |
| C2 | cellular modem | 15% less energy than C1X |
| supports mmWave in the US - for the first time |
The important word here is mmWave.
Apple has been developing its own modem for years, but earlier generations did not support mmWave - the technology enabling the highest 5G speeds. That was the last technical gap forcing Apple to lean on an outside supplier in certain models.
Apple names no supplier in the release, and I will not name one as a claim. What I will say is what is written: an in-house modem, with mmWave, in the flagship.
The packaging change is worth noting too: Apple says A20 Pro uses packaging inspired by the M-series chips - the die sits side by side with the memory rather than above it, removing memory from the thermal path and letting the chip attach directly to a vapour chamber. The vapour chamber's surface area is three times that of the iPhone 17 Pro.
The Second Thing: What Was Not Shown
Apple did not show a standard iPhone 18 today.
Two Pro models and the foldable were shown. The non-Pro model - the one sold in the largest volumes - simply was not at the event.
Per reports in the specialist press, it is expected in spring 2027. (That is an estimate from coverage rather than an Apple announcement, so I present it as such.)
And if it is right, this is a structural change rather than a schedule. For nearly a decade Apple built a single September launch cycle that the entire industry around it is timed to. Splitting the line into two dates a year changes what a quarter looks like.
Three consequences worth watching:
- The September-December quarter will look different. Instead of the full line, it contains two expensive Pro models and a foldable that only arrives on 23 October - less than two weeks inside the quarter's first half.
- The price mix shifts upward. If only devices from $1,199 and up sell in the opening months, the average price rises - but the unit count does not necessarily rise with it.
- The year-on-year comparison breaks. Quarter against quarter will not be comparable, and that will make the accounts harder to read for at least a year.
So what will be interesting in the next report is not the revenue line but what Apple says about the comparison.
The Third Thing: How This Gets Paid For
A small detail that appears in both releases and will not make a headline.
Apple's US leasing programme, Apple Upgrade, is provided by Klarna. Per the releases, 12- and 24-month terms, starting from $34.99 a month for iPhone 18 Pro and from $57.99 a month for the Duo.
So the $1,999 device is also sold as a low double-digit monthly payment. That is a pricing decision no less than the price itself: the sticker sets the positioning, and the monthly payment sets who can buy.
And the Watch - and What Is Still Not in It
Apple Watch Series 12 arrives with a new Health Sensing System and the S11 chip, which Apple calls its most powerful wearable chip.
What is there: higher-frequency heart rate and heart rate variability measurement, a new readiness score, and a redesigned Health app arriving later this year with a Longevity tab and a "Health Age" metric. Plus Audio Intelligence features arriving later this year to help users remember key moments from conversations and stay alert to important sounds.
And what is not there: no blood glucose measurement and no blood pressure measurement.
Those are the two capabilities the market has waited years for, and the only ones that would turn the watch from a fitness device into a medical device in a far larger market. The new system is built on heart rate and heart rate variability - a real improvement, but within the same family of measurements.
This is not a criticism of the product. It is a statement about the size of the market it opens.
And Two More Details Worth Noting
The software arrives on 14 September. Per the releases, Apple Intelligence will be available with iOS 27 on Monday 14 September, and Siri AI ships the same day as a beta - in English first, with further languages to follow. The word "beta" appears in Apple's own release.
And the releases carry a quote from John Ternus as Apple's CEO. This is the first product cycle under the new leadership, after the transition covered here earlier this month.
(Apple's closing price on the day of the event was not available in the source I work against as of writing, so I am not quoting it. The prior close, on 8 September, was $316.22.)
הזווית שלי
דעה אישית של אילן אברמוב - לא ייעוץ ולא המלצה
What I take from this event is not the foldable, impressive as it is - the most impressive product Apple has shown in years.
It is that Apple finished something it began a decade ago. It now sells a device in which the processor is its own, the wireless networking chip is its own, and the cellular modem is its own - mmWave included. The remaining external dependency at the frontier is the manufacturing process itself, and that is a dependency nobody in the industry escapes.
And this is not a story about independence - it is a story about margin. A component bought outside is a cost with somebody else's margin inside it. A component developed in-house is a development expense spread across hundreds of millions of units. That difference does not appear in a press release headline, but it appears in the accounts.
And what actually troubles me is the split of the line. If the base model really has slipped to spring, Apple chose to open the year with the expensive products only. That raises the average price almost certainly - and it also means the device most people buy is not on the shelf during the strongest season. I do not know how that ends, and I have not seen the experiment run before.
And what I will look for is one thing: whether Apple publishes unit numbers or continues to report revenue only. When you split a product line across two dates and raise the average price, revenue can rise even as volume falls - and without unit numbers there is no way to tell the two apart.
(It is important to stress: this is my personal opinion only, and nothing herein constitutes a recommendation to take any action. Ilan Abramov, the writer, or parties on his behalf may hold positions in the securities mentioned, and those holdings change from time to time.)
