Day 7 After Cook’s Retirement: Is Apple Finally Caving to Huawei? 📱

At 1 a.m. on September 10, Apple’s fall event is set to take the stage: new CEO John Ternus will make his debut, the iPhone 18 Pro is expected to arrive, and the biggest reveal of all may finally be Apple’s long-rumored first foldable phone.

But here is what you may not know: while Apple is still debating whether it should make a foldable, Huawei’s tri-fold phone has already shipped more than one million units worldwide. At an average price of over RMB 20,000, it is still difficult to get. Just seven days after Cook’s retirement, Apple has more than one lesson to catch up on.

1️⃣ Don’t Rush to the iPhone 18 Headlines. Apple Has Entered a New Era

Apple’s fall event is scheduled for 1 a.m. on September 10. It is destined to go down in history, not necessarily because the iPhone 18 Pro will be extraordinary, but because of the leadership transition happening around it.

On September 1, Tim Cook stepped down as CEO and became executive chairman of the board. On September 9, incoming CEO John Ternus will make his debut.

Only seven days separate the two events. Silicon Valley insiders have described it bluntly as a handover with “zero adjustment time.” In his first week on the job, the new boss has to walk onto the world’s biggest stage and deliver his first answer to shareholders, customers, and the industry.

The timing is even more revealing. Apple has scheduled the event for September 9 under the theme “Surprise and shine.” Yet the line in Cook’s farewell message, “Apple’s next chapter has never looked brighter,” sounds less like a slogan and more like a handoff.

After all, Ternus is taking over a company at an awkward crossroads: a $4 trillion market capitalization, a cash reserve that rivals a nation’s treasury, and a reputation for falling behind in the AI era. Siri is mocked as “artificial stupidity,” Vision Pro has become a niche toy, and Apple still has to rely on Qualcomm for key chips.

On the surface, this is a change of leadership. To industry watchers, it looks more like an admission of defeat. The “operational perfection” of the Cook era has reached its limit, and Apple needs a new Steve Jobs.

💡 Cook spent 15 years turning Apple into a money-printing machine. But in the AI race, even the fastest money printer cannot keep up with a rocket.

2️⃣ Foldables: From “We Don’t Need Them” to “We Have to Make One”

The biggest suspense at this event is not the chip or the camera. It is the device Apple has reportedly been working on for seven years: its first foldable phone.

Supply-chain reports have largely converged on the same picture: a book-style inward-folding design, an outer display of roughly 5.5 inches, an inner display of about 7.8 inches, and a starting price of around RMB 15,000 in China. To tackle the industry’s oldest headache, the crease, Apple is said to have made dedicated improvements and is reportedly promising an experience that is “almost crease-free.”

But look at the timeline and the device becomes something else entirely: a seven-year history of Apple being proven wrong.

• 2019: Samsung launched the Galaxy Fold, while Apple executives dismissed foldables as a transitional form factor.
• 2021: Huawei’s foldable sales reached the top of the market, and Apple still did nothing.
• 2024: In the final major year of the Cook era, Apple was still polishing Vision Pro while its foldable remained under wraps.

Over seven years, Apple’s attitude shifted from “we don’t rate it” to “we are running out of time.” The issue was never simply whether Apple wanted to build a foldable. Its supply chain, manufacturing yields, and ecosystem were not ready.

The irony is that Apple has never been best at being first. It has been best at being last to arrive and then doing the category better than everyone else. The iPod was not the first MP3 player. The iPhone was not the first smartphone. The iPad was not the first tablet.

But this time is different. By the time Apple finally enters the arena, there may be no empty seats left. Chinese manufacturers have already turned “foldable” into “tri-fold.”

💡 Apple’s philosophy has always been to let others go first and then strike. This time, however, it is not entering an empty track. It is facing Chinese competitors that have already been running for seven years.

3️⃣ Huawei Has Sold One Million Units While Apple Is Still Debating the Crease

Apple’s foldable has not even been announced, yet Huawei has already pushed the category into another dimension.

As of August 2026, Huawei’s tri-fold series had shipped more than one million units worldwide, with an average price above RMB 20,000. In the ultra-premium market, the product has created the kind of demand normally associated with luxury goods.

What does that mean in practice? A phone priced at RMB 20,000 has sold one million units globally. This is not ordinary smartphone logic. It is luxury logic: the higher the price, the more people want to get their hands on one.

Huawei’s Mate XT series turned the tri-fold into a status symbol. Unfolded, it works like a tablet. Folded, it behaves like a phone. In between, it can stand up like a small mobile workstation. Richard Yu described the concept as “putting a PC in your pocket,” and affluent professionals responded with their wallets: RMB 20,000, order placed, now wait for delivery.

The product rhythm is even more striking. Apple has spent seven years preparing one foldable phone. Huawei has already reached its second-generation tri-fold, the Mate XT2, made the body as thin as 3.5 mm, and introduced a G-shaped fold with an independent outer display.

One company spent seven years sharpening one sword. The other is sharpening two every year. That is not merely a technology gap. It is a gap in product philosophy.

Apple’s launches tend to say, “Here is what we have achieved.” Huawei’s launches tend to say, “Here is what we have achieved this time.” The first is defensive. The second is offensive.

💡 When Apple presents “no visible crease” as a selling point, Huawei has already shown that consumers may not be asking for a perfect fold. They may be asking for the new identity that a foldable creates.

4️⃣ AI Is the Real Examination Hall: Ternus Faces Three Brutal Questions

The foldable is only the appetizer. The issue most likely to keep Ternus awake is AI. Apple’s $4 trillion ship is trying to turn around in the middle of the AI era, and it is doing so slowly.

Question one: Siri. Apple’s voice assistant has been outclassed by ChatGPT and Gemini for years. The WWDC promise of a “new Siri powered by Apple Intelligence” sounds less like a revolution and more like a long-overdue repair job.

Question two: chips. Apple’s in-house M-series chips are genuinely powerful. But the most valuable computing hardware in the AI era is the category where Apple is missing from the center of the conversation. Nvidia is eating the main course, while Apple did not even make it in time for the soup. AI inference on the Mac still depends heavily on the cloud.

Question three: ecosystem anxiety. Wall Street has noted that the iPhone remains the biggest gateway for AI applications. But a gateway is not the same thing as owning the road. Apple’s own AI is still looking for an exit.

Reuters put the challenge sharply: “Ternus must fend off rivals such as Meta and Nvidia while proving that Apple is not merely a spectator in the AI era.”

Here is the painful contrast. During Cook’s tenure, Apple perfected supply-chain management but allowed AI, the biggest strategic variable of the decade, to become its biggest strategic mistake. Ternus comes from hardware. He understands chips, thermal management, and how to build physical products to an extraordinary standard. But AI is a war over software, data, and ecosystems.

That is why this event is really about more than products. Apple is being asked to announce an attitude: does the company that once defined the industry have the courage to admit that it has fallen behind?

💡 The Cook era was about making what already existed better. The Ternus era must learn how to make what does not yet exist. The second task is at least ten times harder.

5️⃣ Apple’s Catch-Up Era Is Also China’s AI Starting Line

Pull the camera back from this one product launch and a larger pattern comes into focus.

Apple is catching up on foldables and AI. Those are precisely the areas where Chinese manufacturers have been moving fastest.

In foldables, Huawei has already shipped one million tri-fold phones worldwide. In AI phones, Chinese manufacturers are putting large language models on-device, even in budget phones. In smart hardware, China’s supply chain has driven costs down to levels Apple may find difficult to imagine.

For the past 20 years, Apple defined what a good product was, while Chinese manufacturers were often expected to make it cheaper. In this wave of AI-powered hardware, the script is starting to reverse: Chinese manufacturers are beginning to define new form factors, while Apple is taking the role of the follower.

Of course, do not write Apple off too quickly. Its ecosystem, brand loyalty, and $4 trillion valuation remain formidable. The iPhone 18 Pro will probably sell extremely well, and Apple’s foldable is unlikely to be a weak product.

But the trend matters more than the result of a single launch.

When the world’s most powerful consumer-electronics company starts learning from Eastern competitors in product form and AI momentum, it suggests that the tide of innovation has changed direction.

Cook has retired, and one era is ending. The story of Chinese technology, meanwhile, may be arriving at its most exciting chapter, not because China has caught up with someone else, but because it is starting to define what comes next.

Set an alarm for tomorrow morning’s event. This time, you will not just be watching Apple. You will be watching a live broadcast of power changing hands across the industry.

💡 Apple’s launches have always been an industry compass. This time, the compass is pointing east.

🚀 The Bottom Line

On the surface, Apple’s September 9 event is about the iPhone 18 and new CEO John Ternus making his debut. Underneath, it looks like a long-delayed apology tour.

Seven years after dismissing foldables, Apple is finally preparing to launch one. After years of talking about AI, it is finally trying to catch up. Every lesson it needs to study is an area where Chinese manufacturers have already posted results: Huawei has shipped one million tri-fold phones worldwide at an average price of RMB 20,000, while China has pushed on-device AI and supply-chain efficiency to new levels.

Cook spent 15 years turning Apple into one of the most profitable companies in history, but he also allowed AI, the biggest variable of the era, to become the company’s biggest missed opportunity. Ternus has not inherited a crown. He has inherited an exam paper.

The most important thing to watch at this event is not the product itself. It is the sight of the world’s strongest consumer-electronics company taking the stage as a follower for the first time, while Huawei and China’s AI industry wait at the far end of the track.

The tide of innovation has turned. This time, it is our turn to define what comes next.