Good morning! It’s 8:00 a.m. ET, Apple has lifted the embargo and I can FINALLY tell you all about my week testing the iPhone Duo!
Our big video review is live, featuring everything from a custom-built stress-testing machine that folded the phone more than 32,000 times while I slept to trying out its screens and cameras on the open sea. OK, technically the Hudson River. I had a LOT of fun with this one. Hope you enjoy it!
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A lot can happen in seven days. The world can be created, a week’s worth of laundry can pile up and I can go from loving to hating to loving to hating Apple’s new iPhone Duo. And then loving it again. I think?
Apple’s first folding phone is a beautiful, surprisingly durable piece of hardware. It brings a degree of flexibility to the iPhone that we’ve never seen before. Its matte folding screen is impressive, especially outdoors. It makes taking photos genuinely fun and turns a phone into a tablet, an alarm clock, a tiny laptop and other configurations depending on how you position it.
It's also buggy, occasionally maddening and full of first-generation compromises. Oh, and did I mention it costs $2,000?
For the past seven days and nights, I've been testing the crap out of the Duo. Yes, nights. With the help of a hardware designer and prototyper, we built a folding phone robot that worked all night to test the hinge.
The Duo is one of the most exciting—and frustrating—iPhones I've tested in years. It's a glimpse of where the iPhone might go next for everyone. But whether you should spend $2,000 to get there early? That's a harder question. Here is the good, the bad and the buggy.
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Fun Fact: Speaking of dynamic duos, NASA had one of its own. From 2015–2016, the space agency studied identical twins Scott and Mark Kelly, who are both astronauts. Scott spent nearly a year aboard the International Space Station while Mark stayed firmly planted on Earth. Same DNA, two very different environments. The results are fascinating.
This newsletter was written and curated by Joanna Stern and Adele Lowitz.
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