苹果折叠屏iPhone明日发布，新CEO揭幕

Mark the road to a foldable phone for Apple. Tell us more about this project, codenamed V 68 inside the company. Yeah, this is a long time coming. This is something that started as an exploratory project into foldable screens over a decade ago, evolved into the idea of building an iPad mini that can unfold into a larger screen iPad. And then after Tim Cook got involved in the project, then shifted to Apple, actually building a foldable iPhone at the high end of the lineup.

Uh, Tim Cook came back from Asia. Big trip in 2020. China, Korea, you name it. Saw the wall way in the Samsung fold. Uh, everywhere. Became obsessed with the category. Thought Apple should play into it and really push the hardware engineering team to develop something. Uh, then back in 2023, they had their aha moment, which was this passport sized phone. Shorter and wider. Better for video, four by three aspect ratio.

Also good for e-book reading. And this is the direction they took. This design, this aha moment intersected with the core technologies coming to a place where Apple thought it actually could bring a product to market. Uh, and then they set their sights on 2026. And here we are. This will be debuts tomorrow, not by Tim Cook, but by his successor, John Turnus. And the transition date of September 1st. Uh, that was intentionally chosen so Turnus could be the one to introduce this device and sort of put his face and his stamp on it.

Typically, when Apple does a transition, it's not right smack in the middle of the fiscal quarter like this one. Uh, they do it at the tail end of the year or the very beginning of the year. April, October. So, uh, this is all been tied together very intentionally. How big a deal is it for the old CEO, Tim Cook, and for the new CEO, John Turnus? And also really for the company overall Mark? Uh, well, it's not a big deal for the old guy, uh, because he doesn't have as much at stake, uh, as Turnus.

If you look at their compensation packages, only half of Apple's performance versus, uh, its peer group, uh, comes into play when it comes to Tim's shares. Uh, moving forward for, you know, 75% of apples performance impacts how much he's going to get paid, uh, on a stock, uh, basis. And so it means a lot more for Turnus. Hey, Mark. Um, that would be Tim Cook, not me. Tim. I've, you know, don't have the I of the Apple shares, unfortunately.

Uh, so so, Mark, um, when you think about the tech that goes into manufacturing this, can you can you explain, you know, this is this this is Tim Cook, specialty supply chain, manufacturing, logistics. Can you explain what goes into to making a phone that folds, uh, sort of seamlessly and where it's done? You know, when they launched the first foldable phones, that being Samsung in 2019, there were a lot of problems, uh, I'll actually never forget.

So I was one of the handful of people to get a review unit, uh, of the new Samsung phone fold in 2019. So I flew to New York, I met with them, was all secretive, etc. so I get this review unit, and then you take it out of the box and it has a film on top of it. Um, and I thought it's just the film that comes on any product you buy, there's a film on it, you rip it off the screen, you get using it. But no, no, no. This film that I removed from this review unit was actually tied to the phone.

So I removed the film. And then the next day, uh, the phone is completely broken. Doesn't work anymore. Should be removed. It's not just crazy and there's, like, no warning label or anything on it, and they never discuss this. And so I tweeted pictures of it went viral. Samsung ends up needing to postpone, uh, their foldable phone launch for months and redesign the hardware to make it so the film can't be removed. Uh, you know, long story short, my tweet cost Samsung.

You know, probably tens of millions. Not if not more. Hundreds of millions of dollars and postpone this launch. But, uh, that's all to say that these are very complicated new display technologies. And there's a reason why Apple has waited in the background and worked on this in the background for many years versus just deploying, what, five years ago amounted to a beta, uh, prototype like technology. Now's the time where this core tech gets you to a place where you don't need a big crease, where the phone could be more durable, where it could withstand or in sand, uh, and dust, uh, to some extent.

And the complexities here necessitated, uh, a new type of glass cover, uh, that Apple and Corning, their longtime glass partner, have co-developed for this display. And so it's going to be pretty high tech. And of course, uh, as the, uh, siren says, it's going to be pretty expensive, too. Well, you know, to follow on that, mark, Apple, as we've often said with you, not always the first to market, maybe with something or certainly with a smartphone.

And yet when they do enter, they make their mark and lead the way. Might that be the case here too? Well, they couldn't really enter it till now because people are going to buy foldable phones from Apple three years ago and they're going to destroy them, and it's going to hurt Apple's reputation. And so the stakes for Apple are much different. I think I've told this story on your show before, but, you know, when you were thinking about the Apple Car, what was one of the big reasons why Apple could ever bring a car to market with, because they were worried that every time an Apple car would get into a car accident or there would be an issue.

It would be disastrous to Apple's brand. And Apple's brand is. It is such that they're not going to risk those things. And so they weren't going to bring this foldable phone out. Obviously, it's, uh, much less, uh, dangerous than a car, depending on who you ask, I guess. Um, until this was ready, have you, have you seen it, have you played with it? The. I've been playing with the Samsung foldable phone, the Samsung Z fold eight, uh, which is going to be quite similar.

So if anyone has a Z fold eight, uh, you can imagine that as with the new Apple phone is going to look like. But obviously Apple will have their fit and finish and what have you do you one thing that, uh, I've, you know, we've all found familiar about these Apple events is they, they highlight partners to that, uh, use these devices. So is there going to be, in your view, some sort of maybe software partner, a developer that will showcase the way you can use this phone differently tomorrow when when Turnus takes the stage, I think it's possible.

Um, the new SDK, the EOS 20 sevens. They have a, uh, some new tools in there for testing various new screen sizes, which was an obvious hint that this is foldable phone coming. And so I think developers are ready and developers are prepared and developers are excited, and it gives them a leg up over the Android ecosystem, which until recently has not really done a good job for foldable phones. Um, $2,000 or almost $2,000.

It's to start with, to start with. I am just curious how big a market is this or how big a market size could this potentially be when you come to kind of all cell phones, smartphones, if you will? I mean, the market right now is about 2% of sales in the US. Uh, in terms of all the phones across all smartphones. It's double that in in China, where this category is growing way faster than the overall smartphone market.

Uh, I think Apple is going to be able to produce 7 to 10 million units this year, and they're going to sell everyone they can get, and it's going to become a status symbol, and everyone's going to own, uh, well, everyone be able to afford one. Will everyone be able to find one? That's another question. but you know, the levers are there with the new Apple subscription program and the carriers and trade ins to make this happen for a lot of people.

So I think it would be quite exciting. Yeah, certainly the most exciting iPhone launch in a decade. Okay. Looking forward to that. Uh, mark the the car