Apple Kicks Off Terns Era with First Foldable Phone

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. Bloomberg Tech is live from the heart of Silicon Valley with Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.

Ed Ludlow (0:24)

This is Bloomberg Tech, we're live from Apple Park in Cupertino for what could be the iPhone maker's most consequential product launch in years. All eyes on John Ternus making his first major public appearance as Apple's CEO since taking the helm on September 1st. And Bloomberg reports Apple will unveil its first foldable iPhone, a device nearly a decade in the making, marking the biggest change to iPhone's form factor in almost 20 years. We'll bring you the details and analysis throughout the hour. So Apple's kind of treading water down a percentage point on the stock. But really, the story has been about a comeback on the shares since late June. You remember in June, Apple raised prices on everything apart from the iPhone, reflecting higher memory costs. A rally of 15% since then, adding $580 billion or so of market cap is in part reflective of enthusiasm around this latest generation of products with the folding iPhone at the center of it. Let's get out to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who leads our coverage of Apple and consumer technology. And let's just start with the basics, Mark. You've done a lot of reporting on what Bloomberg says will be called the iPhone Duo. What are the specs? What do we need to know?

Mark Gurman (1:33)

Yes. So I'm hearing the phone will be called the iPhone Duo. This is the foldable phone. It'll start at $2,000, 5.5-inch screen on the outside, 7.8-inch screen on the inside, dual 48-megapixel cameras on the back, software-based telephoto, so there's no dedicated telephoto lens similar to the iPhone Air that came out last year. Come in dark blue, come in white. There will be storage capacities up to 2 terabytes, and that model will cost roughly $3,000. And so at the $2,000 price point, they're eating a lot of the memory costs here, and they're going to be passing it on to international shoppers, where the price tags are less influential and less read into by Wall Street. They really want to keep the US price at that $19.99 threshold for effect. And you'll see that be announced today and go on sale in October, so slightly later than the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max that are launching this month.

Speaking of 18 Pro and Pro Max, lots of talk about price increases over the last several months.

Here's the deal, $100 more on each of those models. So not that $300, $500 price increase that some are expecting $100. Why are they doing this? Samsung and Google, they recently raised prices. They did $100. Apple doesn't want to go past that. They want to eat these costs. They're chasing market share here at a time where they really could raise prices substantially.

Ed Ludlow (3:09)

Right.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, stay with us. We have some breaking news on the Bloomberg Terminal out of the US. Treasury. Bloomberg's International Economics and Policy Correspondent Mike McKee has those details. Hi, Mike.

Mike McKee (3:22)

Hi, Ed. Well, all of our bond market friends are getting the information they were looking for.

The Treasury is going to buy back $6 billion worth of 10 and 20 year notes. The question had been, would they go above the $4 billion that they suggested, which was double the normal $2 billion amount? And they have gone over that, maybe to send a message that they are serious about all of this. Starting on October or starting on September 10th rather, they will raise the size to $6 billion.

Tomorrow, we get the first buy backs of the day. And you can see the debt distribution right now of what we have out there that people can pick and choose to try to sell back. These will be off-the-run treasuries that the Treasury Department has been buying back because they say it's a liquidity need. But the market thinks that perhaps the ramping up of the number to 6 from 2 billion is really more a question of trying to bring down rates. And as you can see there, that didn't work immediately. The rates have gone up quite a bit on the 10-year note. Now, this is just early moments, but we'll see how this plays out, the rates right now higher than they were when they first said they were going to do this, Ed.

Ed Ludlow (4:44)

Treasuries falling, UK bonds also extending their drop. Mike McKee, thank you very much. I'm live at Apple Park in Cupertino. Let's get back to Los Angeles and Blumos Mark Gurman. We were talking about the foldable iPhone that you've reported will be called the iPhone Duo. I want to go into some of the backstory, Mark, if we can.