Hello again! I come to you once more from my Cupertino hotel room, where I’m recovering from the craziness that was yesterday. More below on my time with the folding iPhone Duo, a recap of the other big Apple news and, most importantly, the final results of our Apple Keynote Drinking Game. See you again tomorrow!
Apple’s new $1,999 iPhone Duo looks like a normal phone when closed, then opens like a book into a 7.6-inch tablet. Or, to use the highly scientific measurement system I developed during my hands-on time at Apple Park: Closed, it’s about the size of a Pop-Tart, a passport and a kitchen sponge. Open, it’s a bit larger than a postcard.
You can see all those size comparisons and my other thoughts in our latest video.
I spent as much time as I could with the Duo after Apple’s event—opening it, closing it, comparing it with Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, trying the cameras and even seeing whether it works as an actual phone. (It does.)
I went into the event assuming I’d stick with the regular iPhone 18 Pro this year. As much as I like testing foldables, I’ve never really wanted one as my daily driver. But after using the Duo, I’m more tempted than I expected to be.
Here are the five things that surprised me most, and the one big question that could still kill the whole thing for me.
Covering a big Apple event means a lot more than showing up and pointing a camera at some new iPhones. There are plane tickets, baggage fees, hotel rooms, new production gear, rental cars, coffee (so much coffee) and an alarming number of other expenses along the way.
And this week, the last thing I want to think about is who spent what, and whether we blew our budget. Thankfully, Mercury makes that part easy. All of it goes on our team’s Mercury IO credit cards, and the expenses are logged right in our app, where we can easily upload receipts.
Plus, Mercury just launched Spend, a new expense-management tool that lets me set budgets for the team and keep track of spending without obsessing over every expense. For instance, I set up a travel budget that caps monthly on-the-road expenses for me and David (our head of video / my very patient producer) at $5K each. Mercury automatically categorizes flights, hotels and more as travel expenses.
So while we’re in Cupertino, I can focus on journalism and making the videos, and not whether someone spent $10,000 at the Apple Store in the name of “research.”
Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.
Fun fact: The most expensive watch ever sold at auction was the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime—auctioned at Christie’s in 2019 for $31.19 million (or nearly $41 million in 2026 dollars). The $799 Apple Watch Ultra 4 is looking like a real steal!
This newsletter was written and curated by Joanna Stern and Adele Lowitz.
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