Today’s the day! 10 AM Pacific…
Rumors are that the “iFold” base price will be at least $2500, made even more expensive than Apple wanted due to sky-high memory prices.
It will be an interesting day with he new guy in charge, the bifold, and maybe more, unclear whether OS 27 is ready, yet… Will be trying to watch it unfold, but have another meeting at 10:30 (Pacific), so maybe tape it, pick it up later… Between the live feed & CNBC, and all the other sites, lots of tidbits to sort out… World events have the Markets all screwed up, on top of it…
I stand corrected: after watching the event, the base model is “only” $1999! I was quite impressed by the engineering and features. I hope the hinge doesn’t prove to be its fatal Achilles’ heel. I dread JuryRigEverything’s brutal tests!
I missed the middle of the event, will have to catch up later, but did snag this screen shot on the Duo, impressively complex…
David Pogue’s take:
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And a new Apple Watch -
iOS 27 Date!
Pogue and some of the commenters on his notes are already griping that the camera system, with only a 2x zoom is inadequate for a phone that costs 2k. I sort of agree. I’d have put in the same camera improvements that are in the iPhone 18 Pro but I’m sure there are good engineering reasons for why that wasn’t possible… yet.
I’m still at the 15 Pro Max level, but I do like the 18’s camera details, agree the Duo had had to limit its camera a but, for now… A lot of horsepower behind all the features, but it leaves me looking more at a 18 Pro Max if I were to move up… But then again, I don’t seem to be taking as many photos lately, so maybe it’s a bit of a waste for me to update, for now…
And…
I like it,(duo) but would wait one whole year for all issues to be ironed out and yes, only 2xzoom would bother me. Take lots of pics. Would accept x5. Look forward though to seeing one in the flesh.
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My personal takes:
- At $1999 base, it’s definitely not for me. At that price, I could get a couple of other Apple devices.
- The folding screen strikes me more as a gimmick. I know others really like their folding phones from other manufacturers, and I don’t doubt there are some Apple device owners who’d like it. But for me, I expect I’d get over the novelty of opening and closing it after a week or two.
- The iOS changes to accommodate the Duo are cool and may be an advantage over other folding phones. I don’t know, but whatever they can do, Apple can do better. But I am under the impression that non-folding-specific advances will make it to other iPhones.
I just can’t see a reason for me to buy it. I bought the iPhone Air and really like it because – for me – it harkened back to Apple’s best industrial design days. But if the Duo cost the same as an iPhone Air, I still don’t think I’d buy it.
Does the Duo feel like Apple is reclaiming its industrial design highs? Hard for me to say. It feels like Apple is doing it primarily because other manufacturers have been doing it, so Apple is doing it too and hopes to capture a big part of that market segment on the basis of superior software.
-awlabrador
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My personal take as a current 15 Pro Max user, I’d snag the 18 Pro Max, rather than the duo, the variety of updates, improvements got my attention… Then again, my 15 isn’t broke or having issues so… But DW;s 15 Pro does, has had charging issues for her, so maybe we beed a fall update to the 18’s… Duo, I do like the microscopic level of tech in that folding screen, so many layers, looks like decent battery life as well…
The Market seems to like the overall launch today, so far, one more milestone, next the OS’s,
weco
The good news, from my view, is this:
Despite long-running rumors of Apple transitioning to “solid-state” haptic buttons that don’t physically move, traditional mechanical buttons are still present on the iPhone 18 Pro generation…
The 18 Pro may turn out to be my next phone after all. Maybe next year, my 14 Pro Max is doing alright for now.
I have the ultra slim iPhone Air which has a single lens. I am not a big picture taker but there are still moments when I miss having better. That said, I bought it for the form factor, the lightness, the thinness and that’s what I want. When I look at the bulges on the backside of Mrs. Goofy’s phone I understand what was given up; it actually takes some thickness of lenses/and or focal distance to give you that extra visual horsepower.
So I’d guess that since this folding model is, uh, really thin (so it can fold and not be thick as a brick), they gave up a little of the photography side in favor of being able to put it in your pocket.
I would just note that I don’t think anyone believes this will be a huge seller for Apple. It will, however, give them a marker in this segment, and more to the point, will bring in thousands of the faithful to the stores to take a look (I will be one of them) and while there maybe drop some coin in the good ole’ Apple slot.
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Since we always put cases on our iPhones, thinness hasn’t been an issue for us, as dropping seems to be a habit by my DW, not an Otter, but at least the thinner ones, actual Apple one the last time… I imagine there has to be a really creative case for the Duo, one side had to be the charge side, or use USBc all the time.. I do that now anyway, simpler to copy photos, do backups…