On September 9, John Ternus — a hardware engineer who spent twenty-five years rising through Apple's ranks — stepped onto the keynote stage for the first time as CEO, barely a week into a role inherited from Tim Cook's fifteen-year tenure. The moment carried the weight of more than a product launch: it was the opening statement of a new era, one in which Apple would finally enter the foldable phone market and attempt to close a widening gap with rivals in artificial intelligence. In the longer arc of technological history, this keynote asked a quiet but urgent question — whether a company that