This week, 2 days of the iPhone Duo...
This week's newsletter is a little different. Rather than the usual mix of stories, I've given the whole thing over to the iPhone Duo, and I've written it in three sittings across two days. The first part was written on Thursday as the reviews were landing, before I'd so much as held one. The second covers collection day this morning, and the third is where I've landed after a few hours of actually using it. Think of it as a launch week diary, warts and all.
Part One: The Reviews Are In
The first reviews went live on Wednesday, and it didn't take long for the reaction to become a story in itself. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman described them on X as some of the most brutal he'd seen for an Apple product in a long time, Vision Pro aside, and he took a fair amount of flak for it. That's become a familiar pattern. These days, almost anything Gurman says that isn't overtly positive about Apple gets him accused of being bitter about the company.
I didn't read it that way at all. What I think he was getting at is that the Duo is an unusual Apple product, in that the reviews haven't been overwhelmingly positive. Of the ones I've watched so far, I'd still describe them as predominantly positive, just not the near-universal praise we're used to seeing on embargo day.
The last time I saw a reaction like this was the Vision Pro. The iPhone Air was well received, but I always got the impression reviewers were praising a phone they had no real intention of switching to from their Pros. The Duo feels much closer to the Vision Pro. Price comes up in every single review, as it should at $1,999 / ÂŁ1,999, because this is an expensive device that comes with a handful of genuine drawbacks. And they're the same ones I raised when it was announced in September: having to get used to Touch ID again after years of Face ID, and cameras that simply aren't at the level we've come to expect from the Pro models.
What surprised me most was just how much of the conversation was taken up by app optimisation, particularly from seasoned reviewers who've been doing this for a very long time. It deserves a mention, but it deserves a line rather than a theme. Something along the lines of: apps will need updating, some developers have already done it, some have built Duo-specific apps, many will update on or around launch day, and some will take a little longer.
MKBHD called apps the Duo's biggest downside right now, and was disappointed that a gym app he uses hadn't been updated. Unless that gym is a multinational chain with its own development team, I think that's a slightly unrealistic expectation. Your local gym's app was never going to be first in the queue. I used to bank with the Co-op here in the UK, and it frustrated me no end how far behind their app always was. The same rules apply here. If having optimised apps quickly really matters to you, use apps from developers who have the time, the resources and the inclination to deliver them.
It's also worth remembering that some developers may well have been waiting to gauge demand before committing the work, so now that we know how many people want this phone, it'll be interesting to see whether things speed up. And let's not forget the context. These reviewers were using pre-release units a few days before launch, when plenty of the major developers routinely ship their updates on day one. Even Gurman, in that same post, called the app issue a non-issue that would be resolved in weeks.
To be clear, I'm not questioning anyone's honesty or integrity. I'm questioning their judgement. With the MKBHD review in particular, I'm surprised nobody on his team looked at the script or the edit and suggested it was getting more airtime than it deserved. We've all been around long enough to know this is a minor issue before launch and close to a non-issue after it.
The cynic in me wonders whether, in an era where saying anything positive about Apple gets you labelled a sheep or a shill, some reviewers are now actively looking for reasons to be cross. There's nothing wrong with holding Apple to account when it makes genuinely poor decisions. I just don't think this was the right thing to be picking holes in.
I felt similarly about reviewers treating two-app multitasking as a real negative. What exactly were people expecting? This is a phone. You can call it a hybrid between a phone and an iPad if you like, but it isn't an iPad, and running three or four apps side by side on a screen this size isn't realistic. Samsung lets you do more, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. If you need serious productivity, that's what a MacBook is for.
The point I'm most interested in testing for myself came from Nilay Patel at The Verge, who talked about the muscle memory involved in unfolding the Duo and turning it into portrait. Rotate it the way that feels natural and the buttons end up in the wrong place. Rotate it the other way and everything sits where you'd expect. That matters to me, because I suspect I'll use the Duo in portrait a lot, the same way I use my iPad mini for browsing. I don't see it as a flaw so much as the cost of genuinely new hardware. When the touchscreen Mac eventually arrives, there'll be habits to relearn there too.
Weight is the other one I'll be keeping an eye on. At 254 grams, the Duo is the heaviest iPhone Apple has ever made, and MKBHD pointed out that Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 is around 20% lighter. Apple's fondness for metal and premium materials has caught it out before. The Vision Pro was a great product that was ultimately kneecapped by its weight and comfort, and the AirPods Max are brilliant headphones that become uncomfortable over long sessions. We'll see how the Duo fares.
One final observation from launch week. I've been following Apple closely for the six years this channel has been running, and launches used to follow a fairly predictable pattern: a small, exclusive group of Apple-friendly tech creators, and ten near-identical videos on embargo day. The Duo launch looked much more like something Insta360 would do. The usual faces were all there, but so were lifestyle, home, family and health creators. Apple is clearly positioning this as a phone for everyone, and whatever you think of the approach, it's done a very effective job of saturating YouTube and social media.
Whether that's a John Ternus thing or simply the direction Apple was already heading, it doesn't look like a one-off. The HomeView launch earlier this month came with a creator-heavy "Welcome home" experience in New York too. It'll be interesting to see whether it pays off, and whether the Mac gets the same treatment next.
You Don't Have To Remember Every Feature...
Have you ever watched one of my videos, seen something useful and thought, “I must remember that”? Then, a few weeks later, when you actually need it, you can’t remember where you saw it, let alone which buttons to press.
That’s one of the main reasons I built iPhone Essentials Plus. It gives you somewhere to go when you want help with your iPhone, without having to hunt through videos to find the bit you need.
Inside, you can browse by topic or search for what you want to do. Each lesson includes a video walkthrough, written instructions with screenshots, and a downloadable PDF. So you can watch me demonstrate something, follow the written steps at your own pace, or print the guide and keep it beside you. There’s also Ask PHT, a built-in assistant currently in beta, which helps you find relevant lessons by asking a question in your own words.
And although there are more than 400 lessons, you don’t need to work through them all. Start with something you want help with today. Perhaps a setting you don’t understand, something in Photos you’ve never quite figured out, or a feature you know exists but haven’t tried. Follow the lesson, put it into practice, and come back whenever you need something else.
It’s £95 / US$129 as a one-time payment, with lifetime access and all future additions included. Other currencies are available too. And if you try it and decide it isn’t for you, email me within 30 days for a full refund.
Purchase Links:
Part Two: Collection
I picked up my Duo from the Apple Store in Southampton this morning, which meant an early start to be there for just after 8. Storm Austen made sure the drive was miserable in both directions, so it wasn't the most glamorous start to launch day. The collection itself, though, was brilliantly smooth. I turned up five minutes late for my appointment, walked straight in, and had the phone in my hand in under five minutes.
One thing the member of staff said stuck with me, and I agree with them completely: you're going to want AppleCare on this one. It feels genuinely breakable, and if you're even slightly clumsy, I'd want cover in place even with a case on. I've added mine to my existing AppleCare One plan alongside my iPhone 18 Pro, which is a handy way of doing it if you already pay for that.
As for first impressions, it's a really cool phone. After so many years of iPhones that look and feel broadly the same, it's lovely to pick up something that feels fundamentally different. The biggest surprise so far is the front display. It's passport-shaped, and yet I like it more than I thought I would, and I think I'll use it more than I expected to as well. The catch is that I'll be cleaning it constantly. When you unfold the phone, your fingers naturally rest on that outer screen, so it picks up fingerprints the same way the back of an iPad does.
The muscle memory point I was curious about on Thursday is already very real, and I've only folded and unfolded it a handful of times while setting it up. Working out where the Touch ID button is, depending on whether the phone is folded or open, is definitely going to take some time. There are smaller things I hadn't even considered, too. Folded, in Mail, I'm used to tapping the top left to get back to the inbox. On the Duo it's essentially the top right, which actually suits where your thumb sits, but then it changes again once you unfold it. There's a lot to get used to when you're holding this thing open.
It also gets warm. Nilay mentioned heat in The Verge's review, and I'm already noticing it. I'm not concerned, though. There's a powerful chip in here and a vapour chamber to keep it cool, and any new iPhone runs warm while it's restoring and downloading everything during setup.
And then there's the inner screen. This is my first nano-texture display on any Apple device, and I really like it, to the point where I'd now consider it for an iPad. You can find the crease if you angle the phone looking for it, but in everyday use it's well hidden. Photos and videos on it look fantastic, and honestly, I think that's what this screen was made for.
Part Three - Six Hours In...
I'm around six hours in now, although most of that time has gone on making today's video rather than any selfish playing around. Even so, I can already say this: I love it. It isn't perfect, but I'd push back on the "first generation" label a lot of the reviews have attached to it. It doesn't feel first gen to me at all. It feels like an incredibly polished, incredibly capable device, and more than anything, I'm enjoying using it.
That might sound like a small thing, but it isn't. I'm fortunate that my job means I get to buy every new device when it comes out, but there's been a real monotony to iPhone releases over the past few years. The iPhone 18 Pro is an amazing phone, and yet I wasn't remotely excited about going to pick it up. Before today, I genuinely wondered whether I could justify making the Duo my daily phone, or whether it would end up as a bit of a gimmick I used around the house. A few hours in, that question has more or less answered itself.
There's still plenty I want to dig into over the coming days and weeks. I want to see whether the portrait muscle memorybecomes second nature, how the weight feels after a full day rather than a few hours, and whether the heat settles down now that setup is out of the way. I'm also curious whether I really will use that front display as much as I now think, and how quickly the apps I rely on catch up now that developers can see the demand. I'll report back on all of it in future issues.
Tip of the Week
(There is no tip of the week this week, apologies, the schedule just didn't allow it. Have a link to my brand new iPhone Duo video instead)
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