Eshu Marneedi

When one book ends, another folds open

Image: Apple.

It seems like Apple has finally hit its stride again.

At its annual September event on Tuesday, the company announced major updates to its iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods lineups, including an all-new foldable iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro with upgraded camera features, and new Apple Intelligence and health features for the Apple Watch. The presentation, streamed live from Apple Park, marked the beginning of the tenure of John Ternus, Apple’s new chief executive, who seemed destined to usher in a new era of innovation and product focus after a decade and a half of stability for the company. Ternus began Tuesday’s presentation by portraying the iPhone as the hardware “hub” for personal artificial intelligence, strongly suggesting that Apple thinks the smartphone is here to stay amid Silicon Valley’s AI boom.

And indeed, the company advanced its iPhone lineup on Tuesday further than it has since the blockbuster iPhone X launch in 2017, echoing Apple’s renewed focus on iPhone productivity. iPhone Duo — a passport-sized foldable smartphone that opens like a book to a larger display — introduces new software features that put the device in a class of its own compared with the lackluster Android competition. The hardware is refined, elegant, and perfectly Apple-like. And iPhone 18 Pro continues the trend of incremental but useful updates to Apple’s flagship iPhone pedigree: this year’s update introduces a variable-aperture lens system, improved battery life and cooling, and new Photographic Styles. The traditional iPhone line — despite the standard model update’s delay to next spring — is far from dead.

But despite all the excitement, I find this year’s iPhone lineup to be one of the company’s most perplexing in recent years. On the low end, iPhone 17, iPhone 17e, and iPhone Air received price increases due to the AI-driven memory shortage, though I think Apple ought to have reserved them for the rumored spring updates. At the high end, iPhone 18 Pro seems like a rock-solid, reliable device, priced reasonably at just $100 more than its predecessor, but it has unquestionably had its limelight stolen by Tuesday’s more stirring announcement. iPhone Duo, in part because of its $2,000 starting price, sits somewhere in another world: innovative and a joy to look at, but painfully compromised in ways that are simply unacceptable for a device $800 more expensive than iPhone 18 Pro.

That’s not to say there isn’t a clear choice for which iPhone people should buy: It’s almost certainly iPhone 18 Pro for now, and perhaps iPhone 18 in the spring. But Apple’s new iPhone lineup now contains two compromised and pricey — though not necessarily overpriced — devices that don’t fit neatly into the spectrum of offerings. There’s much to discuss about Tuesday’s event, but I’ll return to this fact throughout my thoughts.

iPhone Duo

iPhone Duo, ultimately, is two iPhones Air put together, tied neatly with software. It should go without saying that I find foldable smartphones alluring and intriguing; I’ve previously described them as the future of smartphones in general. But in recent years, as development of Android foldables has grown anemic, I’ve soured on their prospects. While I appreciate collapsing a large display into a small body, I feel the category as a whole suffers from too many compromises. Aside from some niche Chinese folding phones, Android foldables use worse cameras, displays, and processors than their flagship counterparts, are significantly less durable, and cost almost twice as much. For devices most people use all day, these are unacceptable concessions. When foldable smartphones were still nascent, I attributed their shortcomings to novelty, but now that the dust has settled, I’ve largely given up hope of progress.

iPhone Duo has a 5.4-inch outer display with specifications similar to flagship iPhones: It’s organic-LED, has 460 pixels per inch, and includes a Dynamic Island “hole” for the camera in the upper-right corner. The display has rounded corners on the right side but 90-degree corners on the left, where it meets the hinge. Inside, the display is 7.6 inches at 430 pixels per inch — still Retina resolution, but lower than iPhone 18 Pro. The inner display can also show Dynamic Island Live Activities, but it uses an under-display camera that is noticeable only at certain angles. The internal display uses a nano-texture matte finish to obscure the crease through the middle, though the area around the camera is spared from the matte texture. The display is reinforced by a titanium backplate and 10 display layers, though the top protective layer feels similar to plastic.

The device is wrapped in polished titanium and comes in two colors: Night Sky, close to dark blue, and Star White, close to silver. The volume buttons are at the top, attached to the right half; the Side Button and Camera Control are on the right edge, as on any other iPhone. The Side Button, in particular, doubles as a Touch ID sensor because the device does not have Face ID, perhaps its most unfortunate omission. iPhone Duo also doesn’t have an Action Button or mute switch — it’s the first iPhone ever not to. (I’ll return to these omissions and regressions later.) Contrary to some early rumors, the device supports MagSafe and wireless Qi2 charging up to 25 watts, and its USB 3 Type-C port charges it just as quickly as iPhone 17 Pro, but not as quickly as iPhone 18 Pro. It uses an un-binned A20 Pro system-on-a-chip, but it has no vapor chamber heat-dissipation system.

At the back, iPhone Duo has two cameras: a 48-megapixel main camera with older sensor-shift optical image stabilization and the Dual Fusion “virtual” 2× telephoto lens achieved through pixel binning; and a 48-megapixel ultra-wide lens with no optical image stabilization. The outer front camera is 12 megapixels and supports Center Stage, just like iPhone 18 Pro but at a lower resolution. The inner camera’s specifications haven’t been published, but it’s widely assumed to have an even lower resolution than the outer camera. iPhone Duo has neither an adaptive flash nor support for ProRes and ProRaw, Spatial Photos and Videos, or Apple Log. It also doesn’t have a lidar sensor, but night-mode portraits don’t require one anymore.

All of this is to say that iPhone Duo, purely by hardware, is roughly on par with iPhone Air. It uses the same rear camera sensor as iPhone 17e — worse than iPhone Air, which uses that of iPhone 15 Pro, but only marginally — the same speakers, USB-C port, flash, and materials. I note this odd assortment of features because they were, in particular, all of the parts of iPhone Air that were lower quality compared to iPhone 17 Pro. (The exception is the SoC, which is the same as this year’s flagship; iPhone Air’s was binned.) iPhone Duo, by hardware specifications alone, is not a flagship iPhone, though I am glad it at least has an ultra-wide camera lens — iPhone Air is expected to receive one in the spring. I will, once again, return to this point.

Software is where iPhone Duo differentiates itself from its siblings and the Android competition. iPhone Duo’s outer screen is wider and shorter than a standard iPhone’s, but it maintains roughly the same screen real estate in most apps. In iOS, most apps place navigation in a tab bar at the bottom of the screen and additional controls in the top toolbar. Apps optimized for iPhone Duo should instead move the toolbar and tab bar to the right edge of the screen, which serves as the device’s safe area. (This is unfortunate and poorly conceived for left-handed users.) Lock Screen controls and the status bar have also been moved to the right, allowing scrollable content to occupy all available vertical space. Except for this minor quirk, the outer display works just like a typical iPhone display.

When iPhone Duo is unfolded, a gorgeous animation shows the content moving to the larger screen. Properly designed games and apps won’t require people to relaunch them when unfolding the display; they should adapt to the new screen size automatically. The Home Screen now has space for widgets on the left and apps on the right, and the Dock has also been moved to the right edge of the screen. When just one app is open, it’ll occupy the entire inner display, just like an iPad app. If a developer shares code across their iPhone and iPad apps to choose between sidebar and tab bar navigation depending on the device, the inner display will use the iPad design. iPhone Duo can also be rotated into portrait orientation, with apps again appearing much like they would on an iPad mini. In portrait, toolbars are at the top; in landscape, they’re on the side, just like on the outer display.

Apps can also open in Split View, and most are expected to support multiple windows. Developers who support Stage Manager and iPadOS windowing modes should have an easier time ensuring compatibility with iPhone Duo. When using Split View in the device’s landscape orientation, apps are reduced to their inner-display appearance, collapsing sidebars and moving toolbars to the right. In the portrait orientation, toolbars are at the top, and sidebars collapse. The vertical orientation seems handy for most tasks people do on their phones, like looking at maps, scrolling social media, or text messaging while watching a video in picture-in-picture. The horizontal orientation seems best suited for multitasking and watching media full-screen, much like an iPad.

iPhone Duo has special software modes for when the display is half-folded. If it is positioned vertically — like a laptop, with the bottom half lying on a table and the top half upright — video controls appear on the bottom, while content appears up top. When iPhone Duo is “standing” — i.e., when the inner display is facing inward and the front display is visible, forming a pyramid — it enters StandBy, even when it’s unplugged. When using the display half-folded in landscape orientation, the keyboard splits for greater comfort, and the sidebar of the open app takes one half while content occupies the other. Apple considered every situation in which iPhone Duo might be used — folded, half-folded, upright, or in landscape.

Beyond these systemwide considerations, apps can make special use of the new form factor. Camera displays a viewfinder on the outside display. Kid Cue shows cartoon animations on the display to entertain children while they’re having their photo taken. FaceTime shows the call on both screens so everyone in a room can participate — it also streams both front-facing cameras. Zoom can show a live feed of someone’s shared screen on the top half of the inner display, leaving the bottom half for webcam feeds. Developers can use new application programming interfaces beginning in iOS 27.1 to adapt to the different screen sizes and hinge modes. (The software development kit and simulator aren’t yet available.)

Apps that aren’t compiled for the iOS 27 SDK — which is mandatory for all new uploads to the App Store — will be letterboxed. But even if an app isn’t letterboxed, it can still be poorly designed for iPhone Duo, and I fear this will be a nuisance for users. The device seems like it’ll be uncomfortable to use if an app doesn’t move its controls to the right, limiting screen space for content. Other apps — ones that aren’t written using native frameworks, like Uber — may not even resize for the larger display at all. When iPhone X launched in 2017, most apps on the App Store — including those from major developers like Meta and Uber — used native UIKit, perhaps with custom layouts. Those developers were eager to make minor adjustments to their user interfaces because they didn’t see iPhone X as a low-volume product — and indeed, it wasn’t one. iPhone Duo is irrefutably low-volume, and most developers won’t optimize their apps perfectly for it.

My thesis about iPhone Duo, at least for now, is that the software sells the hardware, but that may not be enough. No foldable phone on the market has as many features and design considerations as iPhone Duo, and Apple’s Human Interface Design team — world-renowned for crafting clever, intuitive UIs — has evidently made the product a joy to use and look at. I had never even thought about using the internal display vertically, but as I watched the keynote Tuesday, I couldn’t help but think about how useful it would be to have a large map while walking around or to open webpages on a larger display. In software, iPhone Duo is in a class of its own, but that also makes it highly reliant on third-party developers. Most apps I use on my iPhone are from third parties, and looking around my Home Screen, some of them still haven’t even adopted Liquid Glass. It’ll be years before they optimize for iPhone Duo, and in the meantime, buyers will have to settle for a second-class experience on a $2,000 smartphone.

And this gets to the crux of my argument about iPhone Duo: it’s too compromised. I’m not upset that Apple released iPhone Duo now; I think it’s the right time. But now isn’t the right time to buy one. iPhone Duo makes significant hardware compromises in almost every aspect of the device, from the cameras to the speakers, microphones, USB-C port, charging speed, battery life, and more. If it weren’t for the software, it’d be hard to classify iPhone Duo as even a flagship iPhone, in the same way iPhone Air clearly isn’t. I’m a strong proponent of iPhone Duo, and I truly do believe the product has potential, unlike Apple Vision Pro. But I don’t think it’ll receive broad developer support anytime soon, nor mass-market adoption due to its high price.

The tragic tale of the middle iPhone extends to iPhone Duo. iPhone 12 mini was the first “middle iPhone”: It was compromised in screen size and battery life and retailed for only $100 less than the more capable iPhone 12. iPhone 14 Plus had a larger screen, but at only $200 less than iPhone 14 Pro Max, people just upgraded to that. iPhone Air is easily the most beautiful iPhone Apple has ever crafted, and it feels perfect to use, but it ultimately compromises on the camera, battery life, processor, and other specifications while starting at $1,000, just $100 less than the capable iPhone 17 Pro. iPhone Duo is $800 more than its flagship counterpart, iPhone 18 Pro, with worse hardware in every aspect except the screen. That’s an atrocious proposition, and it leaves us with two mediocre iPhones in the lineup. While there’s room for one, I don’t think there’s space for two — Apple should jettison iPhone Air.

I won’t buy iPhone Duo. Among the many omissions, the lack of Face ID and a flagship main camera are unacceptable compromises to me. I hope and think Apple will address these compromises in a future version, whether that’s next year or the year after, but for now, I can’t use this device as my only smartphone. I suspect many people are in my camp and may either hold onto their iPhone 17 Pro models and buy iPhone Duo just to marvel at it — which is fair — or skip iPhone Duo entirely for iPhone 18 Pro. We all knew iPhone Duo would come with compromises — some unacceptable, even — but nobody expected it to use the same camera sensor as the base-model iPhone.

iPhone Duo goes on sale in late October, giving developers about a month to get their software ready for the device. At the risk of sounding saccharine, it’s indubitably the future of the iPhone, just as I predicted many years ago when Samsung first launched reliable, fully featured foldable smartphones. But as much as I want to love it, it clearly has a way to go.

iPhone 18 Pro

iPhone 18 Pro, the flagship, was the only standard iPhone to receive an update on Tuesday, centering on two things: battery life and cameras. (And a smaller Dynamic Island that now supports displaying three Live Activities concurrently, for the Live Activity multitasking aficionados.)

Apple says battery life is markedly improved this year because of the A20 Pro system-on-a-chip, the same one found in iPhone Duo. The A20 Pro is built on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s 2-nanometer process, much like the M6 from August. It has six central processing unit cores, seven graphics cores¹, and a 16-core Neural Engine, which Apple said will speed up Siri AI and local large language model performance². The internal battery size is unlikely to have changed, since iPhone 18 Pro has identical dimensions to its predecessor, but using a smaller die makes the silicon more efficient. The vapor chamber cooling system, introduced last year after the poor thermal performance of iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro, is now three times larger; Apple claims the new design delivers 40 percent better sustained performance.

Perhaps the biggest upgrade this year, and one discernible in day-to-day use, is the upgraded variable-aperture main camera. Aperture describes how much light reaches the sensor. A wide aperture — indicated by a low f-stop, like 𝑓/1.8 — lets in more light and increases the bokeh, or background blur. A narrow aperture lets in less light and decreases the bokeh. Until now, iPhone cameras have had just one fixed aperture: iPhone 17 Pro’s main camera shot at 𝑓/1.78, which is wide enough for good background blur and low-light performance — two of the trickiest things to accomplish with a small smartphone camera sensor. But fixed-aperture smartphone cameras struggle when a scene calls for a narrow aperture, such as when shooting a landscape, or when a very wide aperture is ideal for a portrait in a dark space.

iPhone 18 Pro’s main camera is equipped with a variable-aperture system that enables it to shoot at a plethora of F-stops: 𝑓/1.48, 𝑓/1.8, 𝑓/2.8, and 𝑓/4.0. iOS chooses the optimal aperture depending on the scene, letting in more light in dark environments. iOS can also choose from two wider apertures for landscapes and outdoor photography. By default, the camera is set to 𝑓/1.8, but will go down to 𝑓/1.48 and up to 𝑓/2.8 automatically. The Camera app in iOS 27 now lets people specify an aperture manually, as well as dial in shutter speed, white balance, and more, adding some features from third-party “pro” camera apps like Halide. (Apple hired Sebastiaan de With, Halide’s designer, in January.) The 𝑓/4.0 aperture is only available through this so-called Pro controls feature.

This feature is not new to smartphones; Samsung had it in the Galaxy S9+ from 2017 but discontinued it afterward. Apple’s hardware uses motorized shutters “thinner than a human hair” to close off the sensor and restrict light. I predict that the result will be the most dramatic change in iPhone photography since at least iPhone 14 Pro, which debuted a new, much larger sensor that could shoot at up to 48 megapixels. Aperture is regarded as one of the primary variables to balance in photography — the others are ISO and shutter speed. By letting the software finally dial in aperture — a physical attribute that can’t be replicated in software — I suppose people will see significantly better shots from their iPhones with little to no work.

Photographic Styles have also been improved to further emulate standalone cameras with larger sensors. One of the most aesthetically pleasing styles in photography comes from film grain: a slight amount of noise in an image that makes a shot look warmer and more authentic. Photographic Styles 3 now allow people to “customize texture and grain” in addition to the tone and color adjustments introduced with iPhone 16 Pro. Peculiarly, Apple positioned these controls as a way to modify skin tone and texture (e.g., “soft skin”), features that historically were exclusive to Android phones designed in East Asia. But whereas those features simply added grain and texture in software, like a filter, Photographic Styles incorporate these adjustments into the image processing pipeline. Still, I find them odd for Western markets.

More camera software features were made exclusive to iPhone 18 Pro, probably because of the A20 Pro’s improved Neural Engine. Cinematic Mode effects can now be added to videos after they’re shot; Audio Mix now supports music; time-lapse videos can now be recorded in 4K, which I couldn’t believe wasn’t a feature until now; and videos shot in low light will now adjust aperture and frame rate automatically for “brighter, clearer footage.”

iPhone 18 Pro isn’t an exciting update to the iPhone, but it’s a good one overall, in part because iPhone 17 Pro was so strong. The price went up by $100 this year, bringing the starting price to $1,200, which is pricey but reasonable — way below what some analysts predicted would be close to $300. I’d say it’s the default iPhone to buy new for most people, at least until iPhone 18 ships next spring. It comes in four colors: Black, which returns after a hiatus last year; Silver; Glacier, similar to Sierra Blue on iPhone 13 Pro; and Burgundy, the hero color for this year’s model. All four colors have color-matched back glass as opposed to last year’s two-toned look, which I thought was the only redeeming aspect of the aluminum design. I’d say the colors are a bit underwhelming this year, but still vibrant compared to previous years. It’s a decent year for the Pro-model iPhone. Pre-orders, unlike iPhone Duo, begin Saturday.

Apple Watch and Health

The Apple Watch this year, remarkably, received one of the most significant upgrades of the keynote. The hardware itself is largely unchanged externally — except for seemingly larger bezels, strangely — but new software made possible by the new S11 system-in-package makes this year’s Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 some of the most compelling updates in the device’s history.

The highlight hardware feature is the new Health Sensing System, a more efficient sensor array that provides higher-frequency heart rate monitoring and more advanced data. Both new models now take heart rate readings every five seconds, and heart rate variability measurements every five minutes. Apple says these new sensors are the most accurate in a wearable device, and that they and the S11 power a new set of software features in the redesigned Health app: readiness, Health Age, and Longevity.

It is unclear whether readiness, Health Age, and Longevity require a new Apple Watch, but the consensus is that they do because they need continuous heart rate readings. (Whether they’ll work with third-party trackers that take continuous heart rate readings is also unclear.) Readiness, swiped from the AI-powered Fitbit Air and Whoop band before it, estimates how refreshed and ready a person is for exercise after sleep. Health Age seems like pseudoscience to me, but it estimates how far someone’s health is from their actual age — a very healthy person could have a health age of 25 when they’re 30. This feature also accounts for blood work from imported medical records; users should also be able to order blood work kits from Quest Diagnostics through the Health app when these features launch later in the year. (Note: Something is rotten in the state of Cupertino.) Longevity consists of various assessments people can do at home with guidance from the Health app, like simple jog-in-place exercises to measure VO2 max, for instance.

The features will be available in the new Health app — again, supposedly coming “later this year” — which promises to use Apple Intelligence models to analyze health data. The new app’s design centers on these summaries and explanations, with a home screen dubbed Insights that prioritizes certain data and statistics throughout the day. A horizontal stack of glanceable cards appears at the top of the screen with brief statistics and glyphs. Individual vitals show analysis and “personalized guidance,” like tips and other recommendations. The new Health app doesn’t require a new Apple Watch, but is only available on iPhones and iPads with Apple Intelligence — iPhone 16 and newer, effectively.

Clearly, Apple sees the next frontier of Apple Watch development as competition with professional wearable devices like Whoop, the Oura Ring, and the Fitbit Air. The Apple Watch currently occupies the general wearable market for people looking for a device that can both notify them of text messages and count their steps, but fitness wearables are more serious. Whoop users wear their bands so often that the company invented a charging accessory so they don’t even have to take the band off to charge. That is the level of dedication Apple finds itself competing for here. It’ll be interesting to see whether Apple finds success in this hardcore market filled with athletes and celebrity endorsements — I surmise it will if Apple Intelligence is worth its salt.

Apple Intelligence was the overarching theme shadowing the Apple Watch portion of the keynote, especially beyond the new Health app features. Just as Apple emphasized on-device AI inference in the iPhone section, it framed the Apple Watch as the natural AI-powered companion to the iPhone. I’ve agreed with this perspective for a while: the Apple Watch —  unlike the Humane Ai Pin, Friend pendant, or any of the other facile AI wearable gadgets debuted over the last four years — has a gorgeous screen, powerful processor, and worldwide adoption. It has apps, integration with iOS, and it’s made by the world’s most influential technology company. Audio Intelligence is Apple’s first take on AI-powered ambient computing — the company realizing the potential of the Apple Watch as an AI device — using the microphone and S11 processor to power a suite of audio transcription features supposedly coming in a future software update. It’s concurrently uncanny and genius.

The first of the Audio Intelligence features, Siri Recap, summarizes in-person conversations. When enabled — and it must be manually enabled through Control Center — the feature transcribes the conversation, sends the transcript to Private Cloud Compute, and saves a summary and key points to Siri. Siri Recap doesn’t store full transcripts of conversations; it’s more of a note-taking tool for meetings. I don’t find this feature objectionable, so long as everyone in a room knows it’s on. In fact, I don’t know why Apple doesn’t just add this functionality to Voice Memos on iOS — it’s seemingly restricted to the Apple Watch, even though Apple could perhaps eliminate the server entirely and process the transcript on iOS if it were available there. (Siri Recap notes are available to view in Siri on iOS, but an Apple Watch is still required to record a conversation — that part, I find strange.) Maybe that’s coming in iOS 28.

Live Rewind does not need to be manually activated, and that’s the point: It continuously records the last 15 seconds of conversation in the background for later reference. Users can double-click the Digital Crown to open the transcript or save it to Siri. I understand why this feature is exclusive to the Apple Watch, since it’s always on and listening, but I feel it goes too far. It just irks me knowing that someone’s Apple Watch could be eavesdropping on my conversation and that people will soon be wearing watches in public that can save random chats. This feature, like Siri Recap, sends transcripts to Private Cloud Compute, but even though Private Cloud Compute is the most secure and private cloud service, sending transcripts there is probably not doing Live Rewind any favors in the eyes of an increasingly surveillance-weary public. I would not turn this feature on myself, and I’d discourage others from using it. It disrupts the sanctity of public conversation.

These two features are scheduled to be released “in beta” later this year because they rely on Apple Intelligence models, also still in beta even after iOS 27’s imminent launch. Two Audio Intelligence features will be available on launch day: always-on Sound Recognition and Shazam. Sound Recognition sends users a notification when watchOS detects a specified noise, like a crying baby; always-on Shazam detects what song is playing, say, in a public place, and places it in a designated Music Recognition widget in watchOS 27. These two features work on-device and don’t require an Apple Intelligence-equipped connected iPhone — just a new Apple Watch.

Perhaps my most salient takeaway from this year’s Apple Watch announcements is that the ceiling is now much higher than it was a week ago, but there’s also considerable room for failure. What I mean is that the Apple Watch is now firmly an AI wearable device, which exponentially expands its capabilities, even without a camera — I’d argue especially without one in the era of digital surveillance. Siri AI alone makes the Apple Watch the best AI wearable on the market, and Audio Intelligence strengthens that case. But that strategy — which I still think is the right one, despite my scruples — has the potential to go awry. One bad health summary or recommendation is enough to undermine more than a decade of the Apple Watch’s reputation for reliable fitness data. One person unscrupulously recording a private conversation using Siri Recap or Live Rewind could be enough to make unfortunate headlines. I rank this year’s Apple Watch updates among the best, but only if everything goes to plan.

This year’s iPhone event is puzzling, but most transitions are. And with a company as stable as Apple, it’s trivial to forget that it’s undergoing one of its longest and largest transformations in recent history. After the sudden AI boom, resulting talent exodus and a lack of product direction, the Apple Vision Pro flub, regulatory concerns worldwide, enervated developer relations, and the Apple Intelligence fiasco that just came to a close, Apple has finally found its footing again. It just may take some time for that footing to pan out. iPhone Duo and Siri AI mark the apotheosis of these few tumultuous years for the company, as one chapter closes and the next begins. And in the meantime, Apple still sells some especially good iPhones, at least still in great colors.