At $1,999, the iPhone Duo is officially the most expensive iPhone Apple has ever released, and it is not particularly close. That price puts it well above the iPhone 18 Pro Max and firmly into territory that used to be reserved for high end laptops rather than phones. So it was fair to ask Apple CEO John Ternus directly how the company plans to justify that number to everyday buyers, and his answer gives a pretty clear window into how Apple is thinking about the Duo’s place in the lineup.
This interview was originally conducted by Tom’s Guide, where Apple CEO John Ternus and marketing chief Greg Joswiak sat down for an exclusive conversation about the iPhone Duo.
Apple’s Case for the Value Behind the Price
Ternus did not shy away from acknowledging the iPhone Duo costs more than any other iPhone. Instead, he framed the pricing around the complexity of what Apple built, describing the device as an incredibly complex and well engineered product that still delivers strong value relative to what it actually offers. That is a familiar playbook for Apple, which has leaned on similar language for years when defending the Pro Max lineup and the higher end MacBook Pro configurations.
What is different this time is the category itself. A foldable phone genuinely does require more engineering than a traditional slab phone, from the custom hinge mechanism to the nano-texture display finish, to the dual battery and dual logic board layout needed to make a screen this large work inside a phone that still folds shut. Those are real costs that Samsung and other foldable makers absorb as well, and it shows up in their pricing too.
The iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max Also Got More Expensive
It is worth noting the price increase was not limited to the iPhone Duo. Both the iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone 18 Pro Max went up by $100 compared to their iPhone 17 Pro predecessors, and Apple’s marketing chief Greg Joswiak made the case for those increases separately during the same interview. He pointed to the new variable aperture camera system, the faster A20 Pro chip that is shared with the iPhone Duo, a larger vapor chamber for better sustained performance, and meaningfully longer battery life as the reasoning behind the higher price on the standard Pro models.
Joswiak described the goal for the iPhone 18 Pro lineup as taking last year’s phone and pushing every major area forward by a significant margin rather than settling for small incremental gains, which is the same argument Apple tends to make anytime it raises prices across the board.
Is the iPhone Duo Actually Worth $1,999
Whether that value argument holds up really comes down to how much someone actually uses the bigger 7.6 inch display and the multitasking capabilities that come with it. For anyone who has been waiting for a genuinely productive foldable experience on iOS, with real app support from developers who have optimized specifically for the format rather than just stretching an existing app to fit, the Duo may end up justifying its price simply by replacing an iPad for a lot of daily tasks.
For anyone who mainly wants a slightly bigger phone screen without the added bulk and cost, the iPhone 18 Pro Max at a much lower price point is still going to be the smarter buy. Apple clearly built the iPhone Duo for a specific kind of user rather than trying to make it the default upgrade path for most iPhone owners, and the pricing reflects that positioning pretty directly.
