Foldable iPhone Week: Duo, Chinese Flagships and Everything Else on the Agenda

September on Apple's stage doubled as a changing of the guard: Tim Cook opened the event and then handed the word to the new CEO. More importantly, the company split its phone calendar in two, with the Pro family launching in autumn while the base model and the new Air wait for spring. That framing sets expectations correctly from the start. In my view, drawing this line early was the right call.

The A20 Pro-powered 18 Pro and Pro Max bring no radical exterior change beyond colors, led by burgundy, black, silver and an ice tone. A unified rear material makes color transitions more consistent, and a 2 TB storage option joins the lineup. Apple's official announcement puts the strongest emphasis on the camera, battery life and sustained performance. To my eye, this was a launch of refinement rather than revolution.

The 48MP Fusion main sensor gains four-step variable aperture, bringing light and depth-of-field control closer to the phone. On the battery side there are two wins at once: higher capacity and silicon-carbon cells that pack more energy into the same slim body. An improved vapor chamber spreads heat across the chassis under load so performance lasts longer. Connectivity adds Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 via the N1 chip, while the modem story reportedly differs between Pro and Pro Max.

The night's real star was Duo, the first foldable iPhone: a 5.4-inch cover display when closed, a 7.6-inch inner display when open. According to Apple, it is the thinnest iPhone ever when unfolded, and a nano-texture finish on the inner screen cuts glare substantially. Both panels share one aspect ratio, so content keeps its proportions across the fold. The crease is not fully gone, but coatings and hinge work push it into the background.

Duo's experience details deserve attention too: a fluid cover-to-inner transition animation, titanium frame, IP68 rating and Apple Pencil support complete the package. The under-display front camera trades resolution for invisibility, limiting video calls to Full HD. On accessories, Series 11 and Ultra 4 keep their design language while health tracking and battery improve; the AirPods 5 arrive with noise cancellation at last year's non-ANC price.

Turkey pricing is the week's harshest headline: the Pro starts near 138,000 lira while Duo stretches from 230,000 to 336,000 lira. By the video's math, Duo's entry price lands near double the 1,999-dollar US tag, with the tax burden doing much of the lifting. The video notes the same money buys a full rival-ecosystem set of foldable, tablet, watch and buds. My reading: with exchange rates and taxes as they are, flagships now play in the luxury league.

Xiaomi took the same week's stage with the 17 Fold: around 5 mm open thinness, a 219-gram body, two LTPO AMOLED panels and a Leica-branded triple camera aimed straight at Duo. Its in-house chip and a 6,000 mAh-class silicon-carbon battery answer the thinness-versus-endurance dilemma. Samsung's we already had it posts on launch day read like a childish reflex. Sales figures will settle who is right, with brand loyalty blowing Apple's way.

Huawei showed two different folding answers: the tri-fold Mate XT2 and the Pura X View, which freezes the passport shape into a fixed display. The tri-fold offers a 10.2-inch main panel, the Kirin 9050 Pro and HarmonyOS 7, while its 3,000-dollar-range Chinese price shows this form is still a luxury test bench. The wide-aspect Pura X View sits between a small tablet and a phone and looks more reachable near 893 dollars. The impression that Huawei has recovered on silicon after the embargo keeps growing.

One of September's flashiest partnerships pairs Honor with cinema-camera maker ARRI: the Magic 9 series launches September 28 in Beijing, bringing ARRI color science to phones. A wide color gamut, a log video pipeline, ready-made cinema looks and lossless encoding form the package, alongside what is billed as a mobile-first cinema-grade directional microphone. Hardware talk points to 200MP-class sensors and batteries up to 8,800 mAh. If the video claim holds, this series could shift the balance in mobile videography.

The OPPO Find X10, Vivo X500, OnePlus 16 and iQOO 16 turned September into a Chinese flagship parade. The Find X10 Pro Max is said to carry a triple 200MP array with open-gate sensor use and 8K log video; Vivo pairs a 50MP Sony main sensor with a 200MP periscope; MediaTek's new Dimensity 9600 family powers the wave. Batteries reach the 8,000 mAh band, with 80W wired and 50W wireless charging. Global arrivals usually slip to spring, and Turkey's calendar should follow in parallel.

The hottest off-device headline was Gamers Nexus' claim that LG smart TVs listen through their microphones. LG rejected warrantless-listening charges in a letter published via Tom's Hardware, arguing no conversation is recorded or uploaded unless the user enables voice, and that network scanning is a standard smart-TV function. Independent outlet FlatpanelsHD confirmed the network scans but found the non-consensual recording claim unproven, recalling that automatic content recognition has been documented at every major maker for years. Turkey's agenda added an academics' social-media earnings reminder, the roof-tent Xiaomi YU9 Max Explorer with around 1,500 km of claimed range, and good news for gamers: store listings show GTA 6 with full Turkish interface and subtitles as Take-Two acknowledged the demand. My weekly take: the folding race heats up in hardware while localization wins in software.