Apple has no frontier model of its own, but wants to win again with a foldable
Ternus's debut was about an intelligent personal hub, but the entire event introduced no new AI feature; Apple's AI is propped up by Google's models, while its real bet is on the foldable and a pile of product categories that don't exist yet.
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The biggest difference between Ternus and Cook is willingness to make the call
Gurman says the event was almost interchangeable with the Cook era, with the only difference being that Ternus opened by laying out a view on AI. The mechanism he gives is management style: you bring an idea to Cook and he keeps probing with questions, in many cases not making a single decision — it's collective decision-making; you bring it to Ternus and he gives you a decision, gives you an opinion, you may hate the opinion, but he has a position. Gurman stresses this is exactly the biggest difference between the two men from talking to insiders, and it explains why Ternus talked about AI first thing on stage.
— Mark GurmanThe 2026 event had not a single new AI feature
Gurman points out that Apple held a big product event in September 2026 yet launched no notable new AI feature, and the roughly 15-minute opening just retold the past two years of Apple Intelligence. His explanation: Apple has gone as far on AI as it can and can only tell the best story with the cards it holds; and Apple has no AI-centric device at all, so it has to prop up the iPhone as its AI device until a killer device appears and it can switch narratives.
— Mark GurmanUnder Cook, Apple became an institution
Gurman draws a distinction between the Cook era and the Jobs era: in the Cook era people's relationship with Apple is a relationship with an institution — global, enormous, like IBM; the Jobs era was one new product after another redefining categories. He also corrects the host's read on Vision Pro — every time he writes that Vision Pro is on life support, he gets dozens of reactions close to death-threat level, because some people have built businesses around spatial computing and some consumers paid four thousand dollars for it.
— Mark GurmanApple swapped out the old guard one by one over five years
Gurman reconstructs the rhythm of the handover: in 2023 Cook began saying at every executive meeting that succession had to be taken seriously; at the time the top ranks either had five hundred million in the bank or were billionaires, and were close in age. So they lined up an order and went one by one — at the end of 2024 CFO Luca Maestri retired, replaced by Kevin Parekh; in 2025 COO Jeff Williams retired, succeeded by his deputy; in 2026 the general counsel changed, with Jennifer Newstead poached from Meta; and only at the end of 2026 did Cook hand off to Ternus. Gurman calls this retention strategy Hotel California: you never want to leave.
— Mark GurmanThe chip chief was kept with a title invented on the spot
Gurman says the second most important person at Apple now is the hardware head, who built Apple Silicon, Apple's key differentiator. In late summer or early autumn last year he went to tell Cook he was quitting, right in the middle of preparations for Ternus's succession. Cook had him stay to take part in the transition and promised him the title of chief hardware officer, which Apple had never had, letting him keep his existing team and also take over Ternus's side of the business. Gurman judges this is not a long-term arrangement and that the man already wants to leave again — he conquered the Mac, shed Intel and Qualcomm, and Apple has no next goal, so he may leave within a year or two, at which point the hardware engineering team will have to be split up again, because no successor carries his industry weight.
— Mark GurmanWilling to spend tens of billions on a modem, yet says it needn't own AI
Gurman finds the most absurd thing to be executives saying in interviews over the past year that "we never owned search, we don't need to own AI." He counters: these are two completely different things, and Apple spent tens of billions to own an already commoditized cellular modem, acquiring and fixing Intel's modem business — willing to do that for a modem but unwilling to own AI is ridiculous. The internal idea was originally to partner with Google as a stopgap until it could build its own models, but Gurman says he has seen no evidence that Apple is restarting its own model effort, making big AI acquisitions, or paying AI researchers top salaries.
— Mark GurmanAll-day transcription on the watch stepped on the privacy landmine
Gurman's reaction to the Apple Watch's all-day listening feature was "I can't believe they did it." The feature only transcribes, doesn't record or store, and a double tap shows you the last 15 seconds of what someone said to you, without their consent. He says Apple knows the next-generation interface needs some degree of always-on capture, but the societal privacy problem is unsolved: technical white papers, private cloud compute and encryption can't hold back the social backlash. He thinks Apple could have put audio and visual intelligence together next year and told one coherent privacy story; as it is, it's boiling the frog slowly.
— Mark GurmanFoldables will become the new normal within a decade
Gurman offers a bold prediction: foldables will become the new normal within a decade. He draws an analogy with smartphone penetration — at the end of 2006 smartphones were about 6% of the market, now 85%, crossing the halfway mark five or six years later; the iPhone itself wasn't that source, but it pulled everyone into the smartphone game, and he thinks the iPhone Duo will do the same for the phone market. He also mentions the iPhone's number migration feature, hinting the future may be a combination of a foldable for work and a smaller, lighter phone for weekends with family.
— Mark GurmanIn their own words · checked verbatim
You'll come to him with an idea. You'll come to him with a viewpoint, a decision, opinion, and he'll just pepper you with more questions. He won't make a singular decision in many cases. It's very much communal decision-making, collaborative decision-making, right?
Mark Gurman5:09
Apple held a major product launch event in September of the year 2026 and did not introduce a single notable new AI feature.
Mark Gurman8:20
The comparison I'm making is the relationship people have to Apple in the Cook era is as an institution, right? It's just like this big thing that spans the globe. It's IBM. It has massive scale.
Mark Gurman13:29
So you're willing to do that, to own something like a modem, but you're not willing to own AI? It's ridiculous.
Mark Gurman33:15
I've seen no evidence that they're hard at work on building fresh Apple-made models from the ground up.
Mark Gurman34:16
It's still a surveillance device. I can't believe they, I'll be honest with you. I can't believe they did it.
Mark Gurman48:53
I think foldables will become the new normal within a decade.
Mark Gurman57:05
Figures
| Cook's salary as executive chairman | $47 million | 19:45 |
| Smartphone market share when the iPhone launched | about 6% | 57:05 |
| Current smartphone market share | 85% | 57:05 |
| AirPods 5 price | about $150 | 46:49 |
| Apple Watch transcription lookback | 15 seconds | 48:53 |
Glossary
- Hotel California
- Gurman's phrase for Cook's practice of keeping retiring executives at Apple under various pretexts.
- Apple Silicon
- Apple's in-house Mac chips that replaced Intel processors and are its key differentiator.
- Cook Doctrine
- Cook's oft-stated principle: own and control all the foundational technology that goes into the phone.
How to listen
Founders, investors and product managers watching Apple's strategy, the consumer electronics supply chain and AI device form factors — especially anyone trying to judge the window for foldables and AI hardware.
The roughly two-minute sponsor read and host introduction at the start can be skipped.