India, Sept. 10 -- Turn over the box of an iPhone assembled in Tamil Nadu or Karnataka, and the geography of Apple's imagination is still printed in two lines. Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in India. The second sentence did not exist a decade ago; it now covers about a quarter of the iPhones Apple makes. The first sentence has not moved.

That split was still the story on Wednesday night, when John Ternus, eight days into the job as chief executive, put a foldable iPhone and a rebuilt Siri on a Cupertino stage and said nothing about India as a place that invents. Apple unveiled an unusually ambitious lineup, including the iPhone 18 Pro, a revamped Siri, and its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo.

Ternus called the iPhone ...