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Good morning from balmy New York City, where the talk of the town is—what else?—Apple’s new foldable iPhone. (Read more about it below.) What do I think of it? This elder millennial is getting Motorola Razr V3 flashbacks, naturally, but as a person who has always preferred to stuff his phone in his front jeans pocket, it just seems too big. (Apple’s new device, when closed, is about three quarters of an inch taller and more than an inch wider than the reigning phone king of the mid-aughts.) But hey, what do I know? Though the “standard” size iPhone remains Apple’s most popular format, higher-margin “Plus” and “Max” models still count for 2 in 5 iPhones the company sells.
It’s not hard to understand why: Easier to see, easier to type, easier to throw into a bag. Different strokes for different folks, as they say. The news, below. —Andrew Nusca Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Fortune Tech?
Drop a line here . Apple unveils the foldable iPhone Duo Apple's new iPhone Duo, closed and open. Apple Apple has officially entered the foldable game.
The company announced its first foldable model, iPhone Duo, on Wednesday. The long-rumored phone vaults Apple into its next era and caps one of its most consequential product launches in recent memory. In a packed theater, new CEO John Ternus unveiled the foldable through a video presentation.
The phone has a 7.6-inch display when opened and 5-inch outer display when closed. It will also work with Apple Pencil, and it can be placed in several display modes, including half-folded on a table. The phone can also be used as a display monitor for calendars or clocks, like how people use Amazon’s Echo display products.
It will cost $1,999 for the 256 gigabyte version and be available Oct. 23. The foldable model vaults Apple into its next age by introducing a new form factor after years in which it has iterated on its original iPhone. Its long-awaited arrival helps Apple compete in a market set by Samsung and hands Ternus a flashy new product to tout as he begins his tenure.
Apple isn’t abandoning its traditional bar type iPhone design, by the way. It also unveiled the new iPhone 18 Pro on Wednesday, the latest version of its premium iPhone model. But the company’s base model, the iPhone 18, is not expected until Spring 2027. —Sebastian Herrera Insilico chief: ‘We might have a chance to stop biological aging’ Children born today could see average life expectancy pass 100 years within a generation, healthcare executives predicted at the Fortune Leaders Forum in Macau on Tuesday.
Yet the bigger problem may be figuring out how to pay for it. “The question is not the availability of all these new technologies. It’s how we’re going to make good medical care accessible to millions, and how we’re going to make it affordable as we age,” said Kelvin Loh, group chief healthcare officer at insurer AIA.
One in four people in Asia-Pacific will be over 60 by 2050, up from around one in seven now. That shift will put even more strain on healthcare systems due to a greater incidence of chronic conditions. AI drugmakers are betting they can ease that burden by tackling aging at its source.
“We might have a chance to stop biological aging,” said Feng Ren, co-CEO of Insilico Medicine. On Monday, the AI drug discovery startup announced that patients taking its experimental fibrosis drug showed signs that their predicted biological age had declined by roughly three years on average. Loh’s take was more measured: “We may not cure aging, but we are going to extend life.” Medicine is already turning some terminal diagnoses into manageable ones, Loh added.
“Cancer is no more a death sentence,” he said, adding that stage 4 lung cancer patients once given six months to live can live for 10 years or more. “It’s important that we don’t live longer; we live healthier,” said Keith Choy, president of Asia-Pacific at consumer health company Haleon. —Danny Vincent Asia developers are rethinking data center design On Sept. 4, Thai authorities suspended construction of 49 data centers as regulators draft new rules on resource use and safety. It’s the latest sign that the backlash against the AI boom—long simmering in the U.S.—is gaining ground in Asia.
The AI boom had persuaded many Asian governments to aggressively court data centers by offering tax breaks, discounts on land and easy access to power and water. Big tech companies such as Microsoft and Amazon have pledged billions of dollars for new data centers and AI infrastructure across Asia. But there are hurdles.
Although companies are clamoring for capacity, “there are physical limits to how quickly you can build data centers at scale,” Kevin Guan, chief investment officer and executive vice president of Bain Capital-backed Bridge Data Centres, said Tuesday at the Fortune Leaders Forum in Macau. John Taylor, global critical facilities leader and principal at the architecture firm Gensler, said it’s “only right” that data center providers respond to pushback. “We need to move data centers from being perceived as industrial infrastructure to being something which is part of the civic infrastructure, which serves a community,” he said.
In land-constrained Asian cities, data centers are already being built up to heights of 10 or 11 stories and sited close to residential areas, Taylor said. Clients are also experimenting with diverting excess data center heat to warm swimming pools in winter. Despite efforts to improve their sustainability, though, data centers continue to rely on energy generated by fossil fuels.
Roughly 56% of the energy consumed by data centers worldwide comes from coal and natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency. —Anjali Tsui More tech — There are two new Apple Watches , too. — Humain turns to outside investment. The Saudi AI firm prepares for an IPO as the kingdom reins in fiscal spending — Did Nvidia sidestep antitrust scrutiny in its Groq deal? The U.S.
Department of Justice is investigating. — Jeffrey Katzenberg and two Silicon Valley vets are reportedly working on a startup to train AI video models for filmmakers. — Consensys spins off its flagship MetaMask wallet . No word from the crypto giant on an IPO, though. — Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg accuses CFO Mark Davies of conspiring with board members to place him on leave. — Salesforce reportedly mulls acquiring Listen Labs , an AI-powered customer research platform, for $2 billion.
Source: Fortune
