iPhone Duo design & MagSafe problems on the AppleInsider Podcast

William Gallagher (0:03)

Hello, welcome to the Apple Insider Podcast. I'm William Gallagher. Sponsored this time is MasterClass. And our topics, well, I don't think you're going to be surprised at all, because I can see it in your eyes.

AirPods 5 That's all you're thinking about all week, isn't it? But I'm sorry, you're just going to have to be a little bit patient, because there's a tiny, tiny matter of the iPhone. I nearly said the iPhone Fold. It's not the iPhone Fold, it's not the iPhone Ultra. Unfortunately, it's not the iPhone Bendy. I was hoping for that. The iPhone Duo is here, and I have the perfect person to talk about. Well, unless you're John Turnison, the second perfect person, Wes Hilliard joins me as ever.

Wes, I'm so keen to look to you this time, because you've been on this dramatic journey. You went from with very good reason, doubting that the foldable existed, down to thinking, well, is it actually worth having a foldable? And now, well, I know you're going to buy one, but I don't know. Is that for work, or because you've joined us? You've joined the fans of foldables.

Wesley Hilliard (1:09)

Well, I gotta say, William, first off, the event was amazing. The dress coordination was great as usual. I always love it when Japanese executives wear their fancy blazers with their anime t-shirts. I'm talking about the Nintendo Direct, where Zelda was revealed for the Nintendo Switch.

That is all I'm going to talk about today. I don't know what you're on, but actually...

William Gallagher (1:33)

I actually thought I liked the outfits people were wearing in this. I noticed those. I was weeping for a minute. I thought, no, hang on. Okay, well, all right, Nintendo something.

Zelda, that sounds really new.

Wesley Hilliard (1:47)

Yes, the event was great. We'll get into our preferences, our likes or dislikes in Apple Insider Plus, of course. We'll stick around for that. The Duo, though, this foldable iPhone.

William Gallagher (2:01)

Yes.

Wesley Hilliard (2:01)

I have a lot of feelings. I think Apple did a really good job pitching it.

There's a lot to get into. So let's just dive right in. It is the squat form factor. It has a hinge.

William Gallagher (2:14)

Right, but hang on.

Wesley Hilliard (2:14)

It has an outer display.

William Gallagher (2:15)

I feel like you're just trying to prolong here. I wanted to know, are you buying it for you or are you buying it for work or are you in two minds?

Wesley Hilliard (2:26)

Are you going to tease me for a little bit? Well, see, this is the trick.

As the keynote was playing, they started with the iPhone 18 Pro and variable aperture. We'll get into that in a moment, but that portion of the keynote made me wonder, am I making the right choice? Am I going to miss out on this really cool photography system? Photography is so important to me. I'm sitting here considering, should I just buy both phones? What's going to happen here?

And we get to the iPhone Duo, and I immediately realized, no, this is the right choice, because it is such an interesting device. I think Apple knocked it out of the park. They did better than even I thought they could do. I know Apple does great with vertical hardware and software integration, but the way they've sold this device and the lack of compromises that are there, there are compromises and we'll get into what that is. But there's not as many as, say, with the iPhone Air, for example. And I just find it a very interesting device. So I think at this point, even if I wasn't working for Apple Insider, it would still be very competitive with 18 Pro, but I think the foldable would went out just out of sheer interest for the novelty of what this is.

William Gallagher (3:46)

And that's enough to persuade you against even variable aperture. I mean, I'm not a photographer. You've been looking forward to that, and you're willing to set it aside.

Wesley Hilliard (3:57)

Well, I don't want to get into it too much here because we'll have our own segment on that. But I'll put this as a little placeholder.

Variable aperture on a phone is interesting. Apple is not the first to do it. Their variable aperture is fairly wide. There's some math that goes into it, but we're going from 1.48, I believe, to 4.0.

It's a range. It's not the widest range in the world. For example, most very good DSLRs, you can buy them going from 1.4 to 20, depending on what you want to do. Once you get past 4, in most settings, the lighting is going to drop off significantly very quickly. There's only so much you can do there, especially on a phone lens that is very tiny. The reason you can get to 20 on a larger camera is because the lens is the size of your face. I get it. I see what they're doing here. Like I said, just to put a pin in it, Apple is always going to show amazing photos, beautiful things that would be very hard to shoot without a model and some lighting and a team, and very good planning. Those are very much planned photos. Those didn't happen by accident, which is I believe what most iPhone photos are, are by accident. People who plan those are great, love you, but like my day-to-day life, I'm not planning a photo shoot of my cat. So I wonder how much effect variable aperture would have on my day-to-day life. Because if it's anything like my DSLR, I'm probably going to set it to its lowest set point, keep it there until I think I need to close it up a little bit and focus on the background some more. Because that is generally how I shoot, and the variable aperture becomes less important as I'm walking around taking photos on the fly. So, and even with that control in mind, will it have that much of a great effect on my photos? I've seen examples already from the demos. It's nice.