Apple Unveils iPhone Ultra: Its First Foldable at $2,299 — Plus the iPhone 18 Pro

by Geth Author

Apple held its annual fall event today, and it lived up to the "Surprise and Shine" billing. The headline? The company's first-ever foldable iPhone — a device years in the making that redraws what a premium smartphone can be.

Meet the iPhone Ultra

The iPhone Ultra is Apple's first foldable device. It ships with a passport-style book design: a 5.5-inch OLED outer screen that handles everything a regular iPhone would, and an inner display that unfolds to 7.6 inches — giving it the footprint of a small iPad when open.

The crease, reportedly near-invisible, uses a revised hinge mechanism Apple calls "FlexFusion." Face ID is gone; Touch ID lives in the side button instead. Two 48MP rear cameras cover the wide and ultrawide angles, and there are two front cameras — one on each panel.

Starting price lands at $2,299, with higher-storage configurations expected above $3,000. Pre-orders open September 13; first shipments are expected September 18.

iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max

The standard flagship gets the new A20 Pro chip, fabbed on TSMC's 2nm process. Apple emphasized sustained performance improvements over the A19 Pro — the 2nm node reduces heat enough to maintain peak speeds longer during demanding tasks like on-device AI inference and video rendering.

The regular iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e are not launching in September — Apple is holding them for spring 2027, a deliberate staggering of the lineup.

Watches, AirPods, and Software

Apple Watch Series 12 adds a ceramic case option for the first time since the Series 7 era, and Apple Watch Ultra 4 brings incremental fitness and durability upgrades. AirPods 5 come in two flavors: standard and a noise-cancelling tier at a higher price point.

The event also locked in release dates for the full software refresh: iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS Golden Gate, tvOS 27, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27 all ship in the coming weeks. Apple Intelligence features expand to more regions.

A New Face on Stage

This was John Ternus's first event as Apple CEO, having taken over from Tim Cook on September 1. He headlined the presentation from the start — a symbolic break from the Cook era and the clearest signal yet of where Apple's product-engineering identity is headed.

The foldable iPhone has been rumored for so long it became almost mythological. Seeing it arrive today — priced aggressively to compete with Samsung's Z Fold line while carrying Apple's characteristic fit-and-finish — is the real surprise Apple promised.