27:17
When I got the iPhone Duo in last week, I was super excited to try it. But as I was pulling it out of the box, I had this thought. How is Apple going to pull off a folding phone for the masses? Like, this is Apple. It can't just appeal to tech nerds like me, right? It can't just be cool because the technology. It has to work for millions of normal people, many who've never even seen a foldable phone before. And spoiler alert, I think they did it. I think that the user experience on the Duo is so good, but the way that they achieve it is through something that is actually really annoying. It's like a very Apple way to do it. They force you to use this phone in a very particular
way. And many interactions are entirely different on this phone compared to like a decade of normal phone use. So, right off the rip, there is no Face ID. The only biometrics you can use to log into this phone is with the sidemounted fingerprint sensor, the Touch ID here. Now, it works reasonably well, but we've been spoiled with like 8 n years of face biometrics logging to devices, and it just feels so archaic and primitive. You might think like, oh, who cares? We've had Touch ID devices in the past. Those worked wonderfully well. A sidemounted one is different because it forces your finger to be on the side off the screen. And in the beginning, it's weird because you'd open the device ready to use it.
You'd see this white bar down here and you'd have a reflex like swipe up and you're like, "Oh, I still have to log in." It's a bit of a learning curve. And once you're in, you have your dock. So these four buttons, like these like quick access buttons are typically on the bottom of a phone. So it doesn't matter what it is, an iPhone, an Android. There's like that dock at the bottom of your screen that would be Well, here's a iPhone that has it, but these are the four buttons, right? Uh sometimes there's five depending on the phone, but this requires these buttons like the iPhone 2 requires these buttons to be on the right. There is no way to reposition them. Uh, and there's no way to even add more than four. Even though
there's space, it's locked to specifically four. But I think Apple does this because they want your thumb in this exact position. Like, this is the right way to hold this phone. And once you unlock it and you're in, and those four buttons on that dock are right there without changing your hand position or your fingers, it's very easily accessible. And Apple forces you to use it like this because they think they know best. This is how this phone is meant to be used. And even like the the volume buttons on the top, like they're mounted in a way that's not immediately obvious as to which is volume up or which is volume down. You get used to it all, but that initial like learning curve is quite steep and frustrating, but then after a little
while, it just you get used to it. And I don't know if it's like Stockholm syndrome, but it kind of made sense. I'm like, hey, I kind of like that this is how Apple has made me use this. It sounds disgusting, but this is just how it seemed because you get used to it and suddenly it kind of made sense. So on the Samsung ZFold 8, the dock is still on the bottom. I always like that it was on the bottom because I'm just used to it being down there. And if I want to pull the edge panel out, there's like a side panel here that you can load up with whatever apps that you want for like the easiest access, right? Because your thumb's right there. But the standard dock is just right on the bottom where it's always been for
basically every phone for the past decade. and I like it there. But then if you think about it from the perspective of developers, so Android developers know that the user base has choice. So when it comes to designing their UIs, they could place their stuff wherever they want. There's no strict rules because there is no set position that the fingers and thumbs are likely going to be. And the result is 7 years of foldable phones with no real system to the user experience. But on the iPhone Duo, your thumb's right there. They make you like they force it to be there. The dock is also forced to be there. And then when you open it up again the doc is right there. But then for developers
they are also encouraging or almost forcing developers so that all of the UI buttons appear on that side as well. So apps look and behave a very particular way. So for developers if they build their app in the current SDK their toolbars and navigation buttons automatically get put into a vertical column on the right. And this is the Apple way where Apple will take away users choices and options and developers choices and options and the result is just one experience that in theory should work everywhere for everyone. It's a very particular way of using it but in the foldable space it has value because we've seen what seven years of like you know developers and users can do whatever they want what that leads
to. This it's contained but once you're used to it the user experience is pretty smooth. Like you saw this before the animation of like when you open that front glass like this is it still amazes me. Like it's so simple but it's just it's so cool. Like and depending on the angle that the glass is tilted like depending on the angle that things open it will affect the refraction like the diffusion. So it just looks like it's a pane of glass but when you open it's like the thing that you were looking at on that front screen is right there. And same with when you close it. And it seems like, oh, you know, it's just a cool animation, but it's it's not just an animation. It changes how you
interact with this thing because I feel like Apple's done everything in their capability to remove the friction of using a foldable device because there's inherently friction. Like, you actually have to spend time to open these things. But the less you have to move your hand and adjust things around, the better. Uh, there are some things that I still find a little bit annoying or weird. Like in the Safari app, you still have to like stretch quite far to get to the address bar. I feel like this should be easier to access from just the right side of the Safari app. Now, another thing that kept popping up for me is
that when I was closing the device, like I would press onto the screen to close it. And as I would do it, because I held onto the app or like something on that screen, it would register that hold. And as I would close it, it would like because of the continuity of the inside screen to the outside screen, you would now see whatever it was. Like just right now, it thinks I'm trying to move an app. Uh, I would do it again. Like I'm I'm holding on to this. I close it and uh oh, it thinks I'm trying to do a secondary function on the thing. I found it very frustrating. It's an easy software fix, I would imagine. But yeah, that kept popping up for me. Now, the inner screen is great for multitasking.
So, you got like a spreadsheet next to a website or your mail. It takes a couple seconds. It's really intuitive and it's very nice for like watching a video while doing something else. or a video and a game is like it's the most degenerate thing to use for a $2,000 phone, but it works really well. Uh video is where the Duo really shines. You get a nice big screen and how much bigger it is from a regular slab phone depends on the aspect ratio. So, regular 16x9 content gets a lot bigger, but wider aspect movies, not so much. In general though, everything you watch is bigger. Uh and the stereo speakers, they're on opposite corners, so you get nice stereo sound, and they do sound
pretty good. For gaming, 2D and light 3D titles are awesome on the Duo screen. It's what I think to be like the best aspect ratio for mobile games. And closing at Midame just works. You're able to transfer it from the inner screen to the outer screen smoothly. On Android foldables, there's sometimes a setting that allows you or at least attempts to allow you to do this. And I mean, I've tried it on so many devices. Usually, it doesn't work. 3D titles, when you close it on an Android device, like usually the app just closes and you just have to reopen it on the outside screen. And you might be wondering, why are you even closing your screen in the
first place? Sometimes when you're playing and you're like you're tapping or you do something, you just press in the middle of it because there's sensors on these hinges to allow you to be like, "Hey, this guy's closing the phone." It'll just kill the game. It's happened so many times on Android phones, but it never happens on this thing because it can be closed and you can continue playing it on that outside screen. Have your titles do have the occasional performance hiccup because keeping a device like this super thin, well cooled, is extremely difficult. There's not a lot of surface area. They are running a vapor chamber and apparently there's like graphite pipes that spread
the heat between the two halves. Like there's a lot of stuff going on, but it won't have as good thermal performance as the Pro iPhones. Some thoughts on the screens. So, this front screen is 5.4 in. And during their keynote, Apple was saying that this has 90% of the screen real estate of the iPhone 18 Pro, which is technically true, but you lose a ton of screen real estate because of the right bar. So, if I'm like in any app, this is Spotify, but like you see this chunk on the or the right here, it's like I want to say it's 10% of the screen, it's gone. Every app that you use, uh, it's always there. You're just looking at black bar and just an unusable right portion of the screen.
Now, they do it because they want that continuity. As you open up the device, you also have that thing right there. They always want it present. It's not on the calculator app, but it's pretty much everywhere else. I feel like having one that popped in and out would have been awesome and it would have like given you more screen real estate, usable screen real estate on the front, but that's seemingly the price we have to pay to have controls on the same edge on both screens. The inside screen is 7.6 in and this has that matte finish nano texture and this is nice to touch, but this finish or this texture definitely cuts down on the reflections and it also does a very good job at masking or hiding
that crease down the middle. It is technically still there and you can kind of feel it when you run your finger over it, but it is for all intents and purposes not visible. And I think that most people looking at this will not be bothered by any kind of like visual artifact or visual line down the middle. It's very hard to notice unless you're like really looking for it. I think the screen is really nice. It's OLED with the matte finish, but games look really nice in it. Same with shows, movies. The colors aren't as poppy as a typical OLED because of that matte finish, but unless you're on a really steep viewing angle, I think it looks good. I also think that the nano texture is something more
companies, if they can, should adopt as well. Like, it's something that I thought would be strange, but I'm like, the more I use it, the more I'm like, this is the way that foldable should be, particularly because of the way that you interact with that screen. Like, you slide it around. And supposedly this texture makes the screen more durable. Uh, I don't know how much truth there is to that and it's really difficult to test that in just like a week of use. But I will just say from an anecdotal thing, this [clears throat] screen material like the nanoexture, I had a candle that it fell on my MacBook and it left a streak on the nanoexture screen of my MacBook Pro and no matter what I did, I tried like
alcohol, soapy water, halfozen cleaning products. I could never remove that waxy finish off of that MacBook screen. Uh, it's just like a little mark that's always there. I think it's like the wax. It rubbed off and it like went into the texture of that finish and just couldn't be removed. But I took that same candle, rubbed it in the corner of this and it came right off. So, there's obviously a difference between the two screens in terms of like the actual finish, but I don't know. It seems like this screen is easier to maintain than the nano texture on the MacBooks. The matte finish can look a little hazier when you're outdoors with a lot of ambient light,
like you have to bump the brightness a little bit. And because it's a thin foldable with stricter thermal limits, you probably can't maintain that peak brightness outdoors as long as like a typical slab phone. Uh, okay. In terms of like the size and weight, this is definitely a little bit chunkier of a phone and because of the thickness, it can feel a little bit heavier. It fits fine in pockets, but you will notice the weight. Uh, phone calls sound good on it. Reception is good. It's just always strange to hold like a wider device to your head, but uh, it's the nature of a passport-shaped foldable. Now, in terms of the hinge, this is a very cool hinge. So, it holds basically every angle you
could throw at it. Uh, I think you can get to like you get pretty wide, wider than a Zfold 8. Uh, but this is a hinge that's also IP68. It's a very dust and water resistant hinge. I think Apple's so confident that this hinge can keep dust out that even their first party case doesn't even cover it. If you want full protection, the Dbrand one covers the hinge as well. And that thing doesn't have like springs or moving parts. It's just one piece that covers that back. Now, using this phone in Apple's like prescribed way does give you a very fluid user experience. The learning curve is a little bit annoying and the lack of Face ID is actually super frustrating even after you've gone
used to all. Uh, but one thing is very apparent. This is not a phone that is built for left-handed people. There's no way to adapt it to like proper left-hand use. You would have to be like, you just have to get used to manipulating your phone with your right hand as a left-handed person. Like, you know what? Another thing I just I should mention, normally when you have Touch ID on an iPhone, I would normally register two maybe three fingers at most. But on this one, I've used all five slots. And I wish I could have more because like you'll open the phone in many different ways. is like if you're holding with your left hand, you can use your middle finger to unlock it or maybe your index
finger to unlock it and then your thumb as well as like when it's open, you'll want to register it. But then I've also found that when you have it mounted on like a if it's charging or something and on Mag Safe and you want to touch with your left hand, you like you would just grip it with a different finger. I've used all five slots. I wish there were like another two slots because it's just this is the thing with Touch ID that's in one spot on a asymmetric device, right? You just wish I had Face ID. Oh my god. Um, okay. But yeah, not for left-handed people. There's no action button anymore, which is something I miss because I used to launch Claude all the
time with it. They do still have camera control, but this is not going to be as customizable uh as the action button, at least not without using like shortcuts and stuff. Uh, now in terms of those volume buttons I was talking about before, the right one is volume up. This one is volume down. Uh, and it allows you kind of like maintain that as you open and close it. The typing is like most foldables where you have the split keyboard. And this is the first time I've seen Apple do a visible double letter like that. There's G's on both side. Uh, they've had like invisible ones where you could just like move your finger, but no. Yeah, this is a good keyboard. And yeah, it types like you would
expect. Apple Pencil support isn't here quite yet, but it is supposed to be coming for the end of the year. There's two cameras on the back. There's a 48 megapixel main and a 48 megapixel ultrawide. There is no telephoto. There's like a cropped sensor that gives you 2x. You can stand it up while it's half open to take photos and stuff. It's something that, you know, I'm sure has a ton of utility for certain people, but I personally would never use it. It does. It's got perfect functionality. It's just I wouldn't use it like this. It is cool though if that's something that you're looking for. Uh the selfie cam on the inside is under the display and it's noticeably muddier than the one on the
front screen. It gets less light data because the sensors underneath that pixel grid. Unfortunately though, this is probably the camera that most people would want to use in terms of selfies on this thing because you get this nice big screen to work with. Uh if you're doing like FaceTime calls, you want to be on this screen, but unfortunately you are getting the worst image quality of the two front-facing cameras. It's not terrible. It's just it is slightly worse. Battery life seems pretty good. It depends a lot on which screen you use, but if you use the big screen at full brightness and you're like playing a game, it drains really fast. Uh charging speed is pretty good. And you
also have Mag Safe charging if you want. Now, in terms of apps and stuff, there are fewer apps that I thought would be running on this and like updated at this point in time, but I just feel that because Apple's so strict with enforcing all of the kind of this is how you should do it, the apps will catch on very quickly. So, at the very least, you could just resize a regular app so it just takes up the full real estate. This is like the kind of worst case scenario. It's like the laziest way to take advantage of what a bigger screen device could do. But the more robust and just like purposebuilt apps look really nice on this thing. All right, this is, as you would expect, a very expensive
premium foldable. It's like a hundred bucks more than the Fold 8. Apparently, when the pre-order is open on Friday, these things sold so well that the ship dates are like 2027 at this point. It's pretty crazy. Now, I think foldable phones need to be tried. If something like this fits your budget, you got to just go pick one up and just be like, test it for a week and just see if it actually does what you want your phone to do because everyone's going to be entirely different. It's so dependent on like what you actually do, how you do those things, and like do you actually care for bigger screens? Everyone's entirely different on it. And like anyone any video that tells you otherwise is just blowing smoke out
their ass. Uh this is super subjective and it very personal to everybody. Okay. Uh I will say that of the foldable phones I've used, this is I think this is the best one in terms of like the actual experience of what the average person would want out of a phone. Okay. There you have it. That's the iPhone Duo.
