Apple unveils the iPhone 18 Pro at 1,199 dollars and its first foldable smartphone

Apple unveiled on Wednesday, 9 September 2026 in Cupertino, California, the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, during its first major product launch under the leadership of its new CEO, John Ternus. The presentation marks a new chapter for the American company, which is betting on new processors, more embedded artificial intelligence, and a foray into the foldable smartphone market.

The iPhone 18 Pro is offered in the United States starting at 1,199 dollars, while the Pro Max starts at 1,299 dollars. Both devices come with 256 GB of storage in their base configuration, and Apple is adding for the first time a 2 TB option on its Pro models.

The new phones feature the A20 Pro chip, manufactured with a 2 nanometer process, designed to boost computing performance and artificial intelligence capabilities directly on the device. Apple highlights faster execution of Apple Intelligence and Siri functions, with local processing aimed at reducing data sent to the cloud.

The launch comes eight days after John Ternus took office as Apple’s CEO, succeeding Tim Cook. A former head of the company’s hardware engineering, the executive chose the annual iPhone keynote for his first major presentation as CEO.

Apple also introduced its first foldable smartphone, entering a segment already occupied by Samsung, Google, Motorola, and several Chinese manufacturers. This arrival represents one of the most significant format changes for the iPhone since the removal of the physical home button with the iPhone X in 2017.

Apple accelerates embedded artificial intelligence

At the heart of the new lineup, the A20 Pro chip is intended to enable Apple to run more AI models without a constant connection to remote servers. The company presents this architecture as a way to combine performance, speed, and privacy, as competition among manufacturers increasingly shifts toward assistants capable of acting directly within applications.

The iPhone 18 Pro models also benefit from improvements in the camera and thermal management. The processor is designed to support advanced photography functions, video processing, and intensive computing while maintaining performance longer during heavy use.

A strategic launch for the new CEO

The Cupertino event takes place amid a context of strong pressure on component costs, notably memory. Despite this increase, Apple has limited the price hike of its Pro models to 100 dollars compared to the previous generation in the United States.

The company continues to derive a major share of its revenue from the iPhone. According to Reuters, the smartphone accounted for 209.6 billion dollars in sales in the last fiscal year, representing just over half of Apple’s revenue. The commercial success of this new lineup will therefore be one of the first major tests for John Ternus at the helm of the company.