I think the Duo looks great. And from the few hands on video I have seen I think the Apple presentation actually doesn't do it justice. There is no crease at all! [1]
On the note on this year's keynote. I can't be the only one who feels the whole vibe of the keynote changed. This isn't Tim Cook style keynote and John Ternus wasted no time to try and changed a few things already. I can't wait for John to further shake things up at Apple. But everything so far, all the small minor details suggest they are in the right direction.
I'd wait before believing no crease. My Z Fold 8 had basically no crease for the first week, after it has a slight crease that hasn't seemed to get any worse in the 3 weeks since. It's only noticeable in dark room with dramatic down lighting at certain angles, or when display is off, but it IS there. There has been some talk of Samsung actually having a better anti-crease solution than they opted to include in the z fold 8. Apparently their display division and mobile division are pretty separate and mobile only gets what they are willing to "pay for". It's possible apple ponied up for the better tech where Samsung mobile did not this year. But I'd still want to wait until people have had the thing for a few weeks and put it through it's paces before I believe any "no crease" claims.
I would wait until there's a display model at an Apple Store, then give it a week while it goes through approximately a bajillion fold/unfold cycles, then see what the crease looks like.
Only people who have not used foldables worry about crease. I've used one for 5-6 years, and even with an older generation it has never been an issue. Half the time it's literally bent, so obviously there is a kink. At this point my screen has hairline fractures down the middle and even that doesn't actually bother me.
Was going to say the same thing. I open this thread about the long-awaited Apple foldable, expecting to see discussion of the aspect ratio, and thoughts on why Samsung changed theirs late in the Fold8 development cycle. But no...it's all about the crease. My theory is that spin merchants invent this kind of drama issue in order for the coverage to seem more interesting. Otherwise it would have been "Apple follows market leader Samsung and other Android vendors with their own foldable". Even though crease-gate looks like negative for Apple it's actually not because the point is to create drama. As you say, nobody who is an actual user cares about the crease.
Creases are maybe the "range anxiety" of the fold world? TBH I had been eyeing foldables for 3-4 years before I got off the sidelines and bought one. My main "wait for the tech to mature" worry was the crease. Now that I finally have one, you are right I wouldn't have cared about the crease. But man I'm glad I waited anyway because the passport aspect ratio turns out to really just make the form factor work. It's been years since I've been truly delighted by a phone upgrade but this thing fucking slaps. I suspect apple people will feel the same about the apple version. It's just the right form factor for the job.
- Opened in portrait it has replaced my kindle.
- Opened in landscape it's the perfect tablet - great for media and web browsing.
- Add a GameSir G8 plus and it replaces handheld gaming device like a steam deck
- Dex mode + a monitor on an arm, keyboard & mouse and moonlight/jellyfin to your main computer and now you have a full fat computer at your couch
- Even closed the front screen is just better. I didn't trade in my Pixel 10 Pro XL because I like to keep one backup phone around. Now when I go to keep it charged it just feels goofily tall by comparison.
I'm probably a fold convert forever at this point. I don't think I'll go back to non-folds. But also I don't think I'll ever buy a non-passport aspect ratio phone again ever if I have the option. The ratio is everything, the crease by contrast doesn't matter a bit.
It might be because of all the time and content that Apple put into the crease. It’s an engineering wonder, but they could tone it down a notch.
Also: if you’re going to charge laptop-grade prices for a phone because it… gets bigger? Well, better make it a really good experience, i.e. no crease that develops fractures later.
Fold 6 user of 2 years now. Use unfolded screen daily. I've never had the crease or even noticed it at all because I'm too busy looking at the content.
The Find N6 still has a noticeable crease, it's just much smaller than the average foldable (here's a video of it with the screen off: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ss31thoK7xM).
If someone truly can't tolerate their phone screen being in any way perceptibly different from a single flat pane of glass, then they shouldn't buy foldables. It's something you have to get used to or ignore, with any brand. Especially over time as you bend and unbend the phone repeatedly and the crease deepens.
Creases are overblown. Z7 Fold had a somewhat noticeable one, except... I stopped noticing it after first few minutes of use, and only realized it's there when light reflected off it at weird angle. Didn't get worse over a year.
With Z8 Fold Ultra, the crease is much more subtle and flat enough that I sometimes don't feel it while sliding my finger over it. Doesn't show signs of worsening over a month of rather intensive use (average 27 folds per day, yes there's an app that counts it, and it's underreporting because it took me two weeks to remember and exempt it from background activity limits and battery use optimizations...).
Point being, crease has stopped being an issue for actual use experience at least a generation or two of foldables ago. It's only something you worry about before purchase.
Yep, and at that point it doesn't matter. I mean, I know Apple likes to paint the back of the fence, but the technology isn't quite there for no crease just yet.
I highly doubt they're going to put out a product under their name that has such an obvious defect after six months. Something tells me they cracked this fully, and that's why this phone has been in development for over a year, so they can get actual long-term repeated use of it to see just how much this "crease" will or will not show.
It's Apple, not a budget Samsung. They 100% would not put out a product that starts having obvious lines down the center of it after using it for a couple months. You'll see when the 6-month reviews come in.
I fully agree. I'm just saying we already know the crease is slightly visible on day one and that's the best they could get it at this point. I'm sure they wanted to do better than that but the tech just isn't there yet.
They come with one stock, and Samsung says you shouldn't remove it (which doesn't mean you can't, but I'm not brave enough to try). It's like $20 to get it replaced if you live near a Samsung shop
I removed it on Fold 5-7 and it felt a lot better. It won't kill the product like it did back in Fold 1 days. The screen is a lot more sensitive to micro scratches than your run if the mill gorilla glass though.
Is the factory applied screen protector user replaceable? Or is it a screen protector in the same way that the glass is 'screen protector'? It's just a part of the assembly?
Yeah, I'm interested but I'll definitely give it a year or two for other people to discover any durability problems before committing (plus it's missing a lens option compared to the 18 Pro but that's a minor quibble.)
It does make me wonder if the era of foldable phones is finally here. Apple probably wouldn't bother making one if the tech wasn't there yet, despite the questionable experimentals others have been peddling for years now. Or it's a sign of Apple dropping their standards perhaps.
I don't think the vibe significantly shifted in a positive way. It seemed like it was going to with Ternus' opening statements, but then it was back to the same vibe. Hard to put into words, but kind of a droning boring safe microsoft-y vibe. Craig Federighi brought more energy for his segment but he sounded almost sarcastic at times. John Srouji is a breath of fresh air. I liked Dr. Desai's vibe in the health section more than the average segment.
A real vibe shift might not even be possible if they don't bring back in-person live presentations. Can't believe they flew all these people in to play them a video. Though seeing how John Ternus' hands were shaking during his demo with ishowspeed, I don't know if they have it in them to go back to live presentations.
And what was the surprise in "surprise and shine" anyway? The name of it?
Yeah I was never the biggest fan of Craig Federighi previously but contrasted against the new generation of usual suspects being fielded by Apple, he actually stands out as having character.
But yes the format of the Apple Event was formulaic and way too scripted/produced. Sure there's a place for some scripted content but losing the live unscripted element makes it like a corporate event from Microsoft or IBM. In fact those guys probably do more live unscripted stuff nowadays.
The iPhone Duo is a nice change from formulaic iPhone designs but it's long overdue and is at best a sideways step not a forward step by an Apple that seems increasingly out of touch and driven by cloud service KPI-targets over all other metrics. I wonder how long it will be before the customer revolt manifests, not because I dislike Apple (I loved their products for years) but because I believe that their current business focus leads them to erode trust and play it safe which ultimately alienates the very demographics that made Apple cool and then persuaded all those wanting to emulate that demographic to join the Apple bandwagon. Many of those power users are increasingly moving to Linux or using Mac/Apple ecosystems tactically. It won't be many release cycles for Apple to become the new Microsoft - something you have to use for certain tasks in certain industries but increasingly something you would choose to avoid.
We've been with Apple long enough now to know exactly what their playbook is, and much to the dismay of their competition, they do it well.
They let other tech companies break the ground, release something new and truly innovative and unique -- say a folding phone (it's basically a solidified meme amongst the IT crowd now - "Oh Apple will get all of samsungs features from 2 years ago finally!" -- not realizing that this is intentional), and they will let them front all the risk of whether or not it has staying power -- then they will come in and innovate at the margins and bring it into the Apple ecosystem, which is an advantage in of itself at this point.
Apple has always done that do a degree, that’s not what I’m talking about. iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player, etc. I’m talking about the live announcement/delivery of the product.
FB's main monorepo was named WWW, and you needed to refer to it every 5 minutes, so everyone pronounced it "dub-dub-dub". A surprisingly hard habit to break once you leave their employment
Apple’s strategic position is to be the main device by which apps and AI can gain access to end users. This puts them in a nice position to charge a toll on everything that passes through their device. Now if someone were to come out with a new type of device and a new paradigm that could disrupt iPhone as the main device, Apple would be in trouble.
Not long ago, Zuck seemed really confident about metaverse/AR/VR. Apple took the disruption threat seriously and countered with AVP. Now it looks like metaverse flopped. I suspect the priority of AVP has gone down inside Apple accordingly.
Hadn't the Metaverse already well and truly flopped before the AVP came out? It's a cool device, but when it was released I felt like Apple was a couple years late and 3499 dollars short.
Interesting view, but not quite. The Big Changes in computing happen when both the mode of access, the demographic, and the primary use case change. So historically computing evolved from corporate server + batch -> real time "personal" scientific and technical -> mass market commodified PC for business and gaming -> social media, entertainment, and 'personal bureaucracy' (tickets, bank statements, and such) on mobile.
At each step the tech gets smaller and more physically accessible, the use case gets more interactive and less demanding and serious, and the demographic gets wider and less technically educated.
Apple owned a huge part of the last change with the iPhone.
What's the next step in the series?
Clearly it's not a huge device you strap to your face.
But it's also not an easy question to answer. What is the next step after social media?
From a software POV it's AI, but where's the matching hardware? The next gen has to be even smaller, multimodal, but still physically interactive, likely always on.
Glasses are the closest, but not there yet.
So I think we're still in the early Nokia mobile stage. The concept exists and the current tech is beginning to be workable, but the gamechanger refinement and perfection of the concept is still a way off.
It’s definitely glasses. Once you try any even low res HUD glasses like the Vuzix Z100, or even the Vision Pro, you might realize how annoying it is that phones, tablets, and even books subtly force you to look downwards all day.
There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to for example take a stroll in the park and read my email, song lyrics, etc.. without craning my neck downwards or holding my phone right in front of my face. The content should just be where my eyes are looking. Even laying on the couch to watch a movie is annoying when you have to hold your arm up and shift the balance of your iPad all the time to stop getting tired. Just put it in front of me. For input, I favor a ring you can scroll and squeeze.
I’ve thought about hanging a book-holder from the ceiling by a string for this reason. Maybe a ton of helium or a quiet drone would work too. I think thats’ the frontier..having our current setups but just floating around us.
The tech is workable. The issue is the AVP is heavy and big. So I'd say we're still at the Motorola brick phone not even the Nokia stage yet. Shrink the AVP down to glasses size and I'll agree on the Nokia analogy.
I’d argue the fact that the hardware is still big and clunky means the tech isn’t workable. If it was about as light and easy to get on and off as a chunky pair of ski-goggles I think they’d have been onto something, but big and heavy with no “killer app” or feature makes it a tough sell.
VR gaming is a niche even among hardcore gamers. There’s some value in spatial computing for just being a more ergonomic way to do computer stuff (i.e. not being in a fixed position all day, being able to walk around while you work) but it’d need to be able to hit everything a Mac can do with no compromises to be worth it at that price (and at the cost of making you look goofy). So far it seems like it’s only found real utility in some very specific industrial and scientific research contexts, which is very cool but probably isn’t the lane a mass market consumer products manufacturer wants as their play long-term.
I agree with you, but the critical thing about AVP (just like iPhone, just like iPod, just like Mac) is the user interface. The device is just hardware to deliver the UI.
Apple’s UI work on AVP is under-appreciated. It’s been improving over the years, as real usage showed the need for things like shared world anchors and coordinates, prediction for pose estimation, etc.
The hardware isn’t ready yet. At this point I half-think the UI won’t be truly real until we have BCI (brain-computer interface for the offended party above). But it may well take a decade to really land what an always-on, sometimes-invisible AR UI looks like and how it works.
I found the AVP UI work to be bad honestly. I walked right up to a surface to touch it, you can't. Holding my eyes still so it registers what I'm looking at, not what I'm touching, was horrible and super unintuitive.
Everything has to be half the size or less, 3-4 times faster use less power etc… plus an even better more integrated operating system, not just with the device itself, but with the whole family of Apple devices, ecosystems and there are no shortcuts to get there and the cost will be the cost.
Maybe but Apple doesn’t really have to worry because Meta basically is a website company, operating systems and high end hardware are beyond them (and no you can’t buy your way in there are no shortcuts not at that level), but the Apple Vision has its own problems.
The processors have to be what? Three or four times faster and the battery life has to be at the level of a MacBook Pro with everything squeezed into a device half its current size how many years away is that 3-4 years? And don’t forget the accessory processors that Apple designed specifically for that Vision Pro.
Are smart glasses not the modern, practical implementation of the metaverse. I don’t think Meta were banking on games and low-poly avatars for their next generation of revenue, it was more about building (and then — hold onto your lunch please — monetizing) new forms of social connectivity. The only difference is that your permanent social camera went from being in-game to in-reality.
They failed to come up with a strong selling point. Health is the big seller for Apple Watch. But AVP, at its price point, needs something better than "well you can watch movies on a big screen or work in a café while looking silly".
It absolutely failed to justify its price point IMHO. If it were affordable people would be finding uses for it, but when it is that expensive you basically need a business justification for buying one. That means you won't have a hobbyist community finding new and interesting things to do with it.
This leaves Apple and maybe a handful of subsidized third parties as the only people making applications for it, which is pretty much a guarantee that it will remain a tiny niche industry.
As someone else said, it’s a developer kit. It was supply constrained and priced accordingly. IMO it was a mistake to not just call it a developer’s kit, abd promoting it as a consumer product was just weird.
But I guess the downside of the DK approach is it means telling developers when the “real” device will ship, which I’m not sure anyone knows.
As you note, the concept of a developer kit for a product that doesn't exist makes little sense. Why would I as a company spend the time and money developing for a product that isn't even on the roadmap?
This, 100%. The only other headset I was aware of even remotely in AVP's price zip code was the Valve Index, priced at $999 and the AVP was three times that.
And even then I proooobably would've been able to justify it? But no external connectivity at all just sank it for me. Like if it had a DP port on it so I could hook it up to a gaming PC, I would've probably at least picked one up second-hand, possibly even new when my bonus hit but 3 large for... what? Email in my house? Movies shown in a way that makes it damn hard to eat popcorn?
But remember health was a small thing when the watch was launched. Then the focus was on notifications, communications etc. Fitness was more of a ”oh and it also tracks your heart rate”
I have no interest in using a headset in public or doing work on one.
Watching movies on a big screen would be interesting, but they still do not sell the device in my country in Europe, so I had no way to demo it and judge whether the quality is adequate for a home theater experience.
As a medical device for the vision impaired, AVP has a built-in audience that is used to paying top dollar, especially if paying means just a co-pay. It also eliminates popular disquiet about improper recording--no one will complain about a device that helps the vision impaired get around. Why neither Apple nor Meta went down this path is inexplicable.
I'm partially sighted. I've yet to see an AVP demo that made me want to try one out as an access tool. In fact, everything I've seen so far suggested it would be a hinderance. Can you suggest how it could help? What am I missing?
(I accept, I could book a demo at an Apple Store...)
I think they're kind of saying that's the problem, that intuitively having a screen inches from your face displaying things that are further away in decent detail, with things like contrast and saturation and brightness color palettes being modifiable should have some obvious possibilities for people with limited vision - but Apple wasn't interested in developing for and demonstrating these options.
I'm near-sighted, so I can see how magic glasses that let me focus on everything as if it's six inches away could be nice. That being said, normal prescription glasses work very well for my particular vision impairment, and "You only have to buy glasses once more ever, but they're $3000, weigh over a pound, and need to be recharged" isn't a great value proposition for my needs, but it doesn't take much imagination to figure that being able to toggle even just dark, high contrast, or colorblind modes irl would be nice for some people. Not worth it for me, but possibly for others.
Apple never goes all in for gaming. They are more than happy to base most of its software revrnue on Skinner boxes, but otherwise it feels like it wants little to do with games.
Every 4-5 years they need something to show off their tech and they begrudgingly look to gaming studios to provide some demos for them. They get the demos, get some hype, then put it straight back into the box. Devs move on because they know their audience isn't there anyway. Rinse and repeat. This last time was to help show off their unified architecture with AAA games running on an IPad.
Seriously, this (and pron) is the only use case that will appeal to the mass market for a single user, un-shareable, stupid looking, immersive thing like this.
For nice hardware with hardly any content, not making huge strides to get existing VR content on it was a terrible strategy. And Apple can afford to just buy one of the bigger players to get content too.
I think the lack of a AppleVision non-pro that was just some really good screens and a battery, hooked up to your iPhone/MBA/MBP for use as an immersive display was a miss. I tried the AVP but realized I didn't want/need to strap a Macbook to my face: I have a computing device, I just wanted the display.
Scrap the passthrough cameras, the LCD eyes, and all that complexity.
Yeah? It's just a display for sitting on the couch or in an airplane, watching videos or viewing a huge virtual desktop. Scrapping the cameras would save a ton on size, BOM, and complexity. Basically a "Pimax Dream Air" formfactor.
I'd love the ability to have AVP immersion with my MBP on a flight, and combined with Airpods, you'd be able to block out everything. I don't need to walk around and wouldn't need to interact through it. It's like transparency for Airpods: an overengineered alternative to just taking an airpod out (or in this case, lifting the headset up).
Not if you’re driving it from your iPhone or MacBook. You’ll still need chips, but certainly not a M series processor, coprocessor, tons of storage, etc.
> Expensive boutique manufacturer that basically catered to a niche audience of media professionals.
As much true back then, as it is in 2026, with the added category of some GNU/Linux users buying shiny hardware and then complaining macOS UNIX implementation doesn't overlap with GNU/Linux, beyond regular POSIX.
Seriously? They were tiny, media production niche, crazily priced machines 30 years ago. Almost zero marketshare or mindshare, and most people (in e.g. EU) didn't even know anyone who owned a Mac.
Yes, it was pretty much Atari, Commodore, Acorn and PC over here, plus some lesser known brands, like MSX on Netherlands.
However even today, if you go to the European countries less fortunate with their economies, having anything Apple is usually obtained via credit, or some contract bundling, for example with the cable or Internet operator, naturally bound to a minimal duration of 24 to 36 months contract.
Not something like in US and countries with similar economies where most people don't think twice to get Apple gear, and quickly pre-order new gear after each couple of new product announcements.
> However even today, if you go to the European countries less fortunate with their economies, having anything Apple is usually obtained via credit, or some contract bundling
Given how many iPhones I've noticed suddenly showed up in hands of regular people, including teenagers, in the last couple years in Poland, I imagine there's healthy second-hand/used devices market going too. iPhones have reputation of being long lasting devices (battery shenanigans notwithstanding), maybe the reputation is true.
Not exclusively so. They were 'big' in some schools with their original Apple 2 lines. Even looked good, considering the later models. By school I mean anything between grade 5 and 13.
Microsoft certainly did throw Apple a $150MM lifeline that was sorely needed, else they were looking at bankruptcy within weeks. I would say that "saved" them.
Commodore, Acorn, Arm Holding, SGI, Sun, and Next were relatively small compared to the Wintel juggernaut, but this did not imply that the technology driving them was inferior. In fact, much of it was superior.
What likely saved Apple was the fact that despite undergoing three CEOs, they did not squander the $150 million settlement with Microsoft.
But they still had sufficient funds, equivalent to $2 billion at today’s value, to continue their operations. They also had a team of highly skilled individuals who went on to develop a new operating system, OSX, and build computers with G3, G4 processors. They have also released new iMacs, Mac laptops, and Mac desktop computers to the public.
Does this imply that with $2 billion today, plus or minus $1 billion, one can achieve all these accomplishments and grow into a large technology company? It seems like an unlikely long-shot that Microsoft saved Apple.
In hindsight, it appears that Apple had some exceptionally talented individuals, certainty more talented than the group at Microsoft and Intel.
Because both Microsoft and Intel, in hindsight, sat on their laurels for the better part of two decades.
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this did not imply that the technology driving them was inferior
Does this imply that with $2 billion today, plus or minus $1 billion, one can achieve all these accomplishments and grow into a large technology company?
You're the only one implying those things!
It seems like an unlikely long-shot that Microsoft saved Apple.
Why unlikely? They got into financial trouble due to bad decisions. They needed a bail-out from a former arch-rival to dodge bankruptcy. They eventually achieved huge success due to better decisions. There's nothing contradictory there.
If that’s true, then someone else should catch up real quick is gonna have to have Apple Silicon and at least two operating systems in house I do believe one other company will come up, but you’re not gonna like the part of the world they come from.
Apple Silicon was autopilot. Or more specifically the insanely cool decision happened under Jobs, and everything else is just coasting (i.e. repeating the same business success again and again without taking very many risks). Their first custom core design was the A6 in 2012, a year after his death, but they bought the team that made the design (P.A. Semi) in 2008. It took the team about a decade and change to scale up to something that could power a laptop, but the decision was made very early on and was specifically part of the same set of decisions that Apple has been coasting off of ever since. If Apple hadn't bought its own chip design firm they likely wouldn't have remained competitive long-term, in the same way that their computers got really uncompetitive for a few years before every major architectural transition.
Unless by "Apple Silicon" you specifically meant "the decision to transition from x86 to ARM". There is actual work there, but not a lot of risk. Apple famously maintained an internal x86 port of Mac OS X for years after Rhapsody was shitcanned and renamed "Mac OS X Server", so doing the same with ARM isn't that worse. iOS was derived from OSX; and just having iOS already up and running on ARM is already a good deal of the way towards a macOS port to ARM. In fact, it got easier as iOS got more technology hand-me-downs from macOS.
Especially when combined with competitors' bad decisions. A lot of the stuff Microsoft pulled with Windows 10 and 11 made the Mac platform look attractive.
An authentic Steve Jobs demo presentation would generate 100x more excitement than this canned, blan, nearly AI boring level cringe presentation. I'll just wait for a YouTube review where an actual human you can relate to handles it.
True, I remember years ago, the presenter was doing a demo and ran into a problem. He quickly transitioned to another identical device nearby, and continued almost seamlessly. Didn't seem like much of an issue. Although that might have been WWDC, which is a different crowd.
I’ve seen that happen a couple of times. I know there was an infamous Microsoft one, where the demo BSOD’d on Bill Gates (Not WWDC. I wasn’t there, but I’m sure there’s video). Microsoft used to demo real unstable stuff.
I remember one WWDC, where Ian Diery was giving a demo with a young man, and asked “Where’s the beef?” The kid looked down at his pants, and the crowd burst into laughter.
Diery did not laugh. He was a fairly serious chap, with no discernible sense of humor, so I expect his assistant was sanctioned for that.
I think the last DuDub I went to, was around 2005 (pre-iPhone). I know it was at Moscone. Jobs led that. He was one of the best presenters I’ve ever seen. He could recover from curveballs almost imperceptibly.
The first, was in 1987, or 1988. One of the first.
> Face ID ... didn't quite work as he expected. "Your passcode is required to enable Face ID" popped up, eliciting a nervous chuckle out of Craig and forcing him to switch to the spare demo phone
Everybody is nervous their first few times. Hell, I’d rather see that somebody’s nervous and actually human at this point lol.
Apple’s post-COVID keynotes have been like watching plastic people try to out virtue signal one another as they do their best Zuckerberg imitations. Nervousness and humanity anytime, please.
The first few years of recorded presentation was okay because they were showing the Apple Park building which was pretty unique and the transitions were super cool. But now, it's the same old stuff again and again. It's the same building, same transitions. Live presentations would be so much more authentic.
There is also an uncanny valley aspect to the videos. Outside of the formulaic transitions, I find the scenes where they are standing in various parts of the building distracting, because everything looks fake, as if they are standing in front of a green screen and a CGI version of some internal space is added behind them.
In the later presentations, presenters definitely looked like Autons of the Doctor Who, from the first episode of the Ninth Doctor, where they were CGI.
I really miss the live presentations. They had a lot more humanity.
But I miss the Steve jobs presentations the most. I was watching one of his old presentations the other day from when he was in his 20s - he’s just so engaged and present and speaks from the heart compared to the polished media trained drivel of modern ceos
I coded one of these for whatever was the latest Nokia handset ~2005. Live on-stage reveal and demo to the world's press by CEO IIRC. The software on the phone was supposed to run off our co-host server, but bugfixing down to the wire, so nobody knew but the demo was running off a half-built PC in my buddy's closet connected to his janky cable modem with us watching and sweating and praying. It would have been really, really bad if that demo had failed on-stage.
Unless people are investing their life savings in about-to-expire options, any ridiculous short-term fluctuations in the stock price aren’t affecting them at all.
Valid except for the issue that the live authenticity was part what Apple's culture and cult following attractive to many of the power-users and creatives that made the brand gain enormous value.
Playing it safe with media-trained MBA-centric thinking to avoid volatility works on one level if that's the KPI you're monitoring but it doesn't track the invisible damage done to the brand. Apple is at real risk of becoming a stagnant, Microsoft-like behemoth to the very users that made it cool and that can turn into an exodus that pummels the stock by more than 5-15% for a few weeks and would be much harder to fix.
Ternus hasn't impressed me so far - he's a safe choice and the iPhone Duo is a safe level of innovation alongside the predictable spec bumps to the regular phones and watches. Macbook Neo devalued the brand permanently despite its popularity it kills hardware margins and shows Apple is looking to move all its customers to recurring revenue models using the cloud such that low margin hardware is no longer a problem as it provides a ramp for more customers to the cloud. However that model is now being pushed by Apple like cocaine yet the tech-savvy creatives and heavy weight tech users want something not that. Apple's success or failure medium to long term depends on them not losing relevance to those demographics or the brand value will drop way way way more than 15% for way longer.
I'd say a big part of the problem too is the culture that developed at Apple after they moved into their new Giant Ivory Sphincter HQ building. It's isolated the company from users and allows their internal culture to disconnect from the real world. Such a shame as the HQ could have really been awesome.
At $2000, I'm not going to be an early adopter this time around. I'm concerned about screen crease/debris ingress, and I'll want to see user reports on how useful it ends up being.
That said, I'm much more intrigued than I expected to be, to the point that I found myself thinking "maybe ...". Kudos to the team. The fold/unfold transitions are really slick, and I like what they've done with the extra side space.
I really do love the idea. It just comes down to the idea that a cell phone shouldn’t cost as much as a run down, but serviceable used car used to cost in a world where inflation hasn’t run rampant.
The solution, of course, is the idea of leverage. 12 easy installments, or just lease it bro which apparently we’re doing now..for cell phones. But this solution isn’t sustainable. I’d have rather Apple not brought it to market it at all.
Disagree on it looking great. It doesn't look like an Apple product. It looks geeky and clumsy. Which I personally don't mind, but absolutely not the sleek one is used to from Apple.
I think it's always been the way they talk. When they were introducing Apple News, they were talking as if the fonts and colours were something absolutely revolutionary and talking about the "beautiful typography" and breathtaking style, when in fact it is just a web page.
I think it's a cultural thing to promote everything as absolutely amazing and astounding. Just being "good" is never enough, and it's wearying.
I get that but the sheer ridiculousness of a total non-feature (moving the torch/flashlight icon from the left to the right, which takes 2 seconds to "develop") selling as some kind of accomplishment is bad enough. Telling me this will allow me to "celebrate my picture" was so stupid I couldn't even bother listening to the rest of the sales pitch
Don't charge me 2000-3800$ and insult my intelligence with stuff like this
For an Android user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting two phones, attaching them with a small hinge or case, and using an app to synchronise content between the displays. From a laptop or tablet, the same applications and files could be accessed through existing cloud services
I have a Samsung Z Fold 7. The stock keyboard is split so it's a bit more comfortable to type on with my thumbs. Granted, this phone is the square form factor and not the wide version but I think the concept stays.
My iPad from 2018 still has a full width keyboard so I have to hunt and peck which is annoying. I would hope that apple designs this better for the iPhone duo.
This esim handoff is interesting. Why don't MacBook pros have modem and esim and work even more seamlessly between iPhone and MacBook?
- Because operators wants to charge you for separate subscriptions
Many office workers gets some MacBook and iPhone by their employees. Do they actually need both if the employer can just hand them something like a duo which transforms to a desktop computer via usb-c cable?
Ive said for years there is nothing technical hindering an iPhone to become a something that looks like macOS when connected to large display, its just ui transformation.
But then, apple can't sell you an iPhone, an iPad and a MacBook. This is why they don't go this route I think, and this is maybe the hinder that something like the iPhone duo won't reach the full potential it could have.
This was the stated intention with Samsung DeX - and it almost works but there are just enough pain points in day-to-day use to make it unviable for me, and a thin&light laptop is almost always the better solution, and easier than carrying around a mouse, keyboard and docking station and hoping whatever desk I'm working at has a display on it.
It won’t be gone I agree with you there. However I don’t think this will replace the current phone size as the default. Think will be kind of a niche product.
This Reddit thread shows a slight “bend”[1]. I’m distinguishing between an intentional allowance for bending vs a deformation that shows up later due to folding. But this is obviously splitting hairs because whatever we want to call it, the thing people don’t like about folding phones is the bend in the display where the fold occurs. And it looks like the Duo has that. Maybe the optical and technical tricks Apple has thrown at the problem will make the slight bend so inconspicuous as to be a non-issue. To me, telling that story is more impressive than claiming it doesn’t exist.
To be fair, my Fold 8 didn't have crease either when new month ago. Now the crease is increasing when most of the use is on the cover screen. I notice that when I open the fold, there is noticeable crease but if I read or watch something for longer time, the crease levels and goes more invisible.
To each their own. Personally, I find it horrendous. It’s by far the ugliest iPhone i’ve seen, possibly the ugliest Apple device ever. But then again, paraphrasing The Dude¹ “that’s just like, uh, my opinion, man”. The last time I liked an iPhone (I still use them) was the original SE. I loathe the camera bump; I’d gladly take a worse camera (and cheaper phone) to not have that.
3) The book: an awkwardly squashed phone that folds out into two awkwardly squashed phones taped together. (e.g. https://news.microsoft.com/surfaceduo/)
The trifold fits in your pocket.
The clamshell fits in small pockets (making it popular for women).
The book in a pocket is just uncomfortable (assuming it fits in at all).
They looked at all the folding phone formats and went with the worst possible one: the one that you can't fit in your pocket comfortably.
Further more, they looked at the worst book fold and decided to associate themselves with it by stealing its name, The S̶u̶r̶f̶a̶c̶e̶ Apple Duo: https://news.microsoft.com/surfaceduo/
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Apple releasing this is exactly what it looks like when there's no one helming the wheel.
Anecdotal obviously but clamshell is the only one I've known people using, but it's several who switched from iPhone to Android for that form factor and yeah it's all women which is what really surprised me they didn't go that route as I thought that was the foldable that was most successful, not the Surface Duo phone to phablet size.
The trifold looks cool, and also solves the redundant screen problem - I hope we see more explorations of this form factor!
I think I'd prefer it over having a phone with screens on two sides (and the cost of having two screens over one that's partially used sometimes and fully used at others).
A proper PowerBook Duo of modern day would be a 32" iMac-like monstrosity with a big ass slot (opening on the right) into which you slide the whole MacBook Pro, and a whole lot of ports in the back. The MBP attaches by its thunderbolt ports and magsafe in the back of the slot.
Obviously, if you have macbooks of different sizes, you would need to buy separate duos for each size. MacBook Air might have a 27" dock, incompatible with the rest.
It isn't to me, kind of revolting, physically. Very off putting, likely because of asymmetry when shut closed, but that's not an Apple problem, they all look obnoxious to me. The tech is cool. I do want an iPhone and iPad mini in one, it's that this doesn't do it for me, I expected to be floored :)
Is there a way to do it differently without making it look strange? Perhaps using a different kind of hinge so that the primary screen slides out to a side?
I am looking forward to 3rd party testing on most accurate heart rate. Because I have both Series 11 and Google Fitbit Air and the Air is so much better in everything, from accuracy, when to track and display of information.
I just wish they made a band without all the hassle. I don't use my Watch for anything other than Stop watch, Alarm Clock and Health Tracking.
I will try the Audio note taking, although my current Boss constantly lie and deny she have said something I am not sure how useful will this feature be.
It'd be more accurate to make claims compared to the smartwatches listed in the study, than claiming it's the most accurate on the market.
> Participants wore an Apple Watch on one wrist, and a comparative wrist-based device on the other, while using a Polar H10 ECG based chest strap as reference. Wrist assignment was randomized such that Apple Watch was worn on the dominant hand approximately 50% of the time. Wrist-based devices studied included Apple Watch Series 12, Garmin Forerunner 970, Google Pixel Watch 4, Huawei Watch 5, Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, and WHOOP 5. Oura Ring 5 was also worn on an index finger, per the manufacturer's stated best practices3
I have had many fitbits, but for my mom I purchased an Apple watch because it had sleep apnea notifications. I think that's essential for almost everyone.
I can't imagine why google would skip such a critical feature in Health Tracking.
I am actually quite excited on this iPhone 18 Pro. Seems to pack a a lot of exciting stuff. 2nm A20 Pro, C2. I wish they have N2 but I guess not. 2nd Generation Vapour Chamber. I thought I would have to wait another generation because Apple like to use new product features for two generation before moving on. And it seems this Vapour Chamber along with other heat desperation features are much better built. Much better Camera. And larger battery. With 60W charging that finally matches or closes to a lot of Android phone has been doing.
Never thought they would do it all within one update. In terms of hardware that is pretty much everything I wanted other than Silicon Battery.
I mean, isn’t that how like 90% of new SwiftUI apps are created these days? Just telling an AI what you want? Apple already can’t keep up with the review.
People will buy Macs and iPhones even if they don’t have AI. In fact at this point, based on revealed market preferences, it’s almost a value add. And if the AI capitalization bubble bursts, most people would be ok with OpenAI or Anthropic going bust. Both of them going bust would be really disappointing, but even that wouldn’t be the end of the world. And Meta going bust would almost be a side benefit of a market crash.
But Apple going bust would be a genuine loss for the world. So I’m glad they’re being conservative.
(Not that I would be happy with either anthropic or OpenAI going bust - I hope they can weather whatever is ahead).
Yeah, it ultimately hasn’t hurt Apple much so far. Though eventually expectations may shift as AI gets better integrated into other phones.
Of course, there are a lot of AI features that we take for granted that aren’t LLMs, like speech to text, image foreground extraction, etc. Apple does tend to do this type of AI well.
Besides a better camera what all this along with the past generations have so exciting ? I just fail to see a reason to upgrade. Maybe I am getting old?
Because of a very, very last minute AppleCare replacement (like, 35 months after purchase), I have a year-old iPhone 14 Pro.
I figured there was nothing Apple could introduce yesterday that would turn my head, but the 40+ hour battery life AND the adjustable aperture on the camera are, by themselves, making me consider it. It'll all come down to what discounts or carrier subsidies are available to me, and what the trade-in value is for my phone. But as a shutterbug who travels, those two things are VERY interesting.
It could be as simple as Apple committed to a certain volume with Qualcomm before they were certain they could get mmWave working so they have to keep using Qualcomm modems somewhere while they burn down the commitment.
Personally iSO 26 is so unbelievably glitchy, it's only not embarrasing because you know others spent $$$ on the same thing so everyone pretends it's fine.
They seem to have ironed most of the problems now. You can disable liquid glass if you hate it, and as a result iOS 26 is nearly as good as the previous version. I’m running it on my iphone12. I hated it when it first came out. But it seems fine now.
I don't know how you're using it. The most broken (so it needs to be restarted sometimes) is Podcasts, but Music, Safari, Settings etc have glaring visual glitches too.
Well, it might help that on day 1, I turned off the liquid glass effects in accessibility settings. At first there were several small layout / UI bugs that came from turning liquid glass off. But it seems fine now.
I don't use the apple podcasts or music apps. (Overcast and Spotify for me). I haven't run into any serious problems.
I'm not sure if you're an iphone user or did you root your iphone?
It's NOT possible to turn LG off in iOS 26. It is possible to reduce transparency and motion (i tried with and without enabling those and it's broken anyway).
Oh my mistake. I just reduced transparency and motion. I’m not surprised that some things are still broken. Liquid Glass seems like a promotion ticket someone cashed at the expense of all iPhone users.
I have Reduced Transparency, Reduce Motion, and Prefer Cross-Fade Transitions, all enabled. You have to have Liquid Glass set to Clear for Reduce Transparency.
I do use the Apple Podcasts app, but YouTube Music and DI.FM Radio apps for music.
I never see any rendering issues / glitches, and the UI is smooth & snappy.
0. none of the options you describe really disable LG and the glitches it introduced.
1. you don't need to switch LG to clear to reduce transparency. you can use reduce transparency with any LG theme. you just need to reenable "reduce transparency" after changing the theme. why? ask Tim.
2. in Podcasts you can tap between Home and Library to see the selection jank around the middle New tab. happens every time.
and if you tap to change episode sorting oldest to newest, then change it back, it 100% of the time won't ever change back again, unless you exit and enter the show again.
and semi daily when switching to it from lock screen the now playing layout will be garbled, either just the bottom card or the entire now playing screen is empty (at which point i usually restart the app).
and of course janky layout shifts and adjustments when switching between screens like search, show, episode, transcript, etc (which additionally also all involve sliding motion despite reduce motion + prefer fade on, but i will let that slide)
Interesting on the pricing. You now get some of the best AirPod features all in $129. In Apple's pricing that is cheap.
On the other hand in the past few years I have noticed a lot of people wearing Sony's Wireless headset and Earphones. Apple used to dominate this category when they first launch AirPods. I am wondering what happened they people discovered they could use other brand and Apple's brand loyalty don't quite work.
Apple's product has never been near the top in ergonomics nor sound quality, there's no big mystery. The UX and the ANC were their differentiator but the competition has largely closed that gap.
I had to double check the site because I believed for a second that Apple was doing some pricing sleight of hand by saying "Look, it's cheaper!" and removing half the product...
But this isn't true at all, it's $129 for a normal case, $149 for a wireless charging case.
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