APPLE JUST CHANGED THE SHAPE OF THE iPHONE

Apple events normally follow a familiar pattern.

New iPhone. Better camera. Faster processor. New Watch. A few beautifully filmed videos involving mountains, sunsets and people apparently living without extension leads.

This year feels different.

Apple has unveiled a completely new folding iPhone alongside the iPhone 18 Pro range, new Apple Watches, AirPods 5 and a much more ambitious version of Siri.

For once, the phrase "new iPhone" really does mean something new.

If you want the full presentation, start here.

If you would rather see the highlights without sacrificing a large chunk of your evening, there is also a much shorter recap.

This is the headline product.

After years of Samsung, Google and others experimenting with folding phones, Apple has finally entered the folding phone market with the iPhone Duo.

Closed, it works like a normal iPhone.

Open it and you suddenly have something much closer to a small iPad.

The larger internal display gives Apple far more room for multitasking, photography, video, maps, editing and entertainment.

And because the phone can support itself when partly folded, it can also be positioned for photos or video without needing a tripod.

That could be brilliant for travel photography, filming, FaceTime and content creation.

The interesting thing is that Apple has waited a long time before entering the foldable market.

That normally means one of two things.

Either Apple was late.

Or Apple was waiting until it thought it could do the idea properly.

The Duo will probably tell us which.

The iPhone Duo could turn out to be one of Apple's most important products in years.

Not necessarily because everyone will buy one.

At around two grand, most people definitely won't.

But because technology developed for the Duo could eventually appear across the rest of Apple's products.

The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max look much more familiar.

But there is one upgrade photographers should pay attention to.

Apple has introduced a variable-aperture main camera.

Instead of relying entirely on software, the camera can physically change the amount of light entering the lens.

That could give photographers more control over depth of field, low-light photography and the overall look of an image.

For anyone interested in photography, that is far more exciting than simply adding another handful of megapixels.

The new Pro phones also bring Apple's latest processor, improved thermal management, better battery life and more Apple Intelligence features.

For someone already using an iPhone 17 Pro Max, this is where the upgrade decision gets interesting.

Ignore the new colour.

Ignore the yearly "fastest iPhone ever" routine.

The things that actually matter are:

The camera.

The battery.

And the new AI features.

One of the biggest changes is not a piece of hardware at all.

It is Siri.

For years, Siri has been very good at timers, weather forecasts and occasionally misunderstanding perfectly simple questions.

Apple now wants Siri to become a proper AI assistant.

The new system is designed to understand personal context, information on your screen and what you are actually trying to achieve.

That could mean Siri becoming capable of doing things rather than simply answering questions.

Imagine asking:

"Find the photo I took of the caravan last summer and send it to Dave."

Or:

"When was that campsite booking Fiona mentioned?"

Or:

"Show me the best photos I took in Norway."

That is the direction Apple is heading.

If it works properly, Siri AI could actually be more important than the new iPhones.

Phones are already incredibly fast.

The next big leap is making them genuinely useful assistants.

Apple Watch continues moving further into health and fitness.

Series 12 introduces improved health sensing alongside new recovery and readiness information.

Instead of simply telling you what exercise you have already done, the Watch is becoming better at helping you decide what you should do next.

That could be especially useful for cycling, walking, running and general fitness.

Rather than just chasing rings every day, the Watch can begin looking at recovery, heart rate information and recent activity to give you a better picture of how ready your body is.

The Ultra remains Apple's big adventure watch.

It is designed for people spending long periods outdoors, cycling, hiking, running, diving or generally wandering somewhere a charger is unlikely to appear.

Ultra 4 gets the latest health and fitness features together with improved battery performance.

For ordinary everyday smartwatch use, the normal Apple Watch still makes more financial sense.

But for long bike rides, camping trips and outdoor adventures, the Ultra remains an impressive bit of kit.

It is basically what happens when an Apple Watch puts on walking boots.

The iPhone Duo may get the headlines.

AirPods 5 could quietly become one of Apple's biggest sellers.

Apple has improved noise cancellation, transparency mode, Spatial Audio and voice features while keeping the familiar open-ear AirPods design.

There is also deeper integration with Siri AI and Live Translation.

Live Translation could become particularly useful when travelling.

Imagine walking around Europe while your AirPods help translate conversations in real time.

That is the sort of technology that sounds slightly futuristic until suddenly everyone is using it.

Apple launches can sometimes feel like an avalanche of specifications.

Processors.

Megapixels.

Nits.

Battery figures.

Letters and numbers everywhere.

But strip all that away and there are really four interesting things happening here.

The iPhone has finally changed shape.

The camera is becoming more like a proper camera.

Siri is becoming an AI assistant.

And Apple's devices are becoming increasingly connected to each other.

That last point is important.

The iPhone, Watch, AirPods, Mac and iPad are no longer really separate products.

They are becoming different windows into the same Apple system.

The iPhone Duo wins the event simply because it is genuinely different.

Apple has spent nearly twenty years refining the basic rectangular iPhone design.

Now it has finally added a hinge.

Whether people want to spend around £2,000 on one is another question entirely.

For most people, the iPhone 18 Pro will probably be the more sensible choice.

The new camera technology is particularly interesting, especially for photography and video.

Apple Watch continues getting better at health and fitness.

AirPods 5 quietly look excellent.

But the technology that could ultimately matter most is Siri AI.

If Apple can finally create an assistant that understands what you are doing, understands what is on your devices and can actually perform useful tasks, that could change the way we use all of Apple's hardware.

The iPhone has learned to fold.

Now Siri needs to learn to think.

Now apparently it folds in half, shoots professional-looking video and talks to artificial intelligence.