455: ‘I’m Thinking X, Not X’, With Andru Edwards

Andrew, straight off a plane, so I have to reopen my aviation grievance: why is every daytime flight a dark tube? I understand glare and screens, but at noon above the East Coast, I want to look out and think, wow. Instead, one person peeks, then shuts the shade because that is apparently the cabin vibe.

Pick a lane: aisle or window. If I’m in the aisle, the window-seat owner decides. If I have the window, I’ll shut it to edit or use Vision Pro. But reaching across someone for their shade? That’s like taking their drink. After forty-six flights this year, I’ve noticed shades are down before boarding. Maybe people think that’s the rule.

At the Apple event, I sat as close and centered as my badge allowed, above the camera rig, because I want the room. First-timers should choose: sit forward for the keynote, or back for immediate demo access and B-roll. Apple also made us shuttle to a “twenty-minute” content building that was definitely more like thirty-plus. No quick Uber; you had to replay the whole Apple Park level.

Apple is making a pop-culture launch, not merely a press briefing. Of course it invites creators and celebrities with huge audiences. IShowSpeed can stream to nearly a million people and already cares about iPhones. Still, I dislike calling everyone an influencer. I’m there to report and review. And not everyone gets a free phone; only a limited group receives review hardware because we need it to do the job.

Mark Gurman’s echo-chamber concern is fair, but I don’t think Apple replaced hard-question people with bigger online names. It seems to have cut employee seating in a roughly thousand-seat theater. Media changes. I was once the weird young blogger among print people, and Walt Mossberg was generous to me. Today’s young stars come through YouTube, TikTok, and livestreaming. Apple would be foolish not to adapt.

The prerecorded keynote may bore us, but the wider audience gets a polished show. The event around the film is alive: crowds, cameras, celebrities, broadcasting, and hands-on-room electricity. For the first foldable, Apple needed more outside attention. I wondered whether John Ternus would show more personality, but he inhabited the familiar role. Maybe that changes outside September, Apple’s Oscars.

The iPhone Duo swallowed attention, but the ordinary products were solid. AirPods 5 has two models only twenty dollars apart; I’d hand buyers the extra money for wireless charging, better battery, and stem volume control. On the Watch, durable glass may be the quiet hero. The question is whether audio intelligence feels useful or like another thing listening.

After smart-glasses surveillance backlash, I’m curious. The Watch has a stronger trusted-device case than a phone: it locks when it leaves my wrist. Its rewind is a fixed fifteen seconds, not a saved transcript; silence uses the buffer. But at a doctor appointment, I may need an exact number, not a loose AI summary I cannot inspect.

These transcription tools are coming, so I’m glad Apple is entering the category. Wrist use blocks the obvious creepy case of leaving a phone in a room. Brief protected memory is meaningfully different from permanent storage. But privacy is also what people believe, and Apple must explain this plainly. People think phones feed conversations to ads; behavioral targeting can be creepier without literally recording anyone.

Apple sometimes assumes its privacy reputation explains everything. It doesn’t. Many people see Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon as one data-slurping blob, so a lock icon is not enough. Explain it, then repeat it. I’m skeptical until Watch summaries work. Siri can answer complicated personal-data questions, then stumble on turning on a light. I want the result before I finish the sentence.

Battery life is the boring answer everybody wants. The regular iPhone 18 Pro now outlasts last year’s Pro Max, enormous if you hate giant phones. My burgundy Pro Max was bulky, but I could hammer the camera all day. My normal phone triggers Low Power Mode around thirty percent; the 18 Pro scarcely did. Small annual gains compound, and people notice surviving the day.

The A20 and variable aperture are cool, but the simple benefit is dramatically more light through the main camera, then control when a scene needs it. New photographic styles are fun, though I do not need fake grain. My annoyance: Apple said styles would reach older Pro phones, then quietly changed that. I don’t believe last year’s top chip cannot handle them. That feels like segmentation.

I’m a grain man, but Apple’s default is a salt-shaker prank: give me a little, not a sandstorm. Styles are reversible, more like instructions attached to the original than destructive filters. The camera must serve one-tap people and semi-pro users. Burgundy is fine, but it lacks cosmic orange’s joyous new-phone energy. Keep one properly bold Pro color every year.

The Duo is genuinely new. Apple’s difference from Galaxy, Pixel, Motorola, and OnePlus is not folding; it’s consideration around every interaction. Opening preserves context, and the aspect ratio feels thought through. It is not an Ultra: not the best cameras or battery. It’s a standard iPhone that unfolds into something new. The inward-folding nanotexture display is especially smart and avoids slab-phone scratch concerns.

My relatives gave the market analysis: three asked whether I had the new iPhone, meaning the foldable. I showed the blue 18 Pro and got, oh, not that. I like the Duo as a small tablet that folds into a phone. The passport-shaped outer screen will take adjustment, but its simple iPhone-style split screen feels more usable than iPad window management: dismiss one side, replace it, done.

My worry is compatibility. A two-thousand-dollar device cannot be a giant screen with tiny old iPhone apps. Developers can optimize, at least build with current tools so apps fill the display, or leave black areas and a postage-stamp experience. Top apps must be ready. Netflix gave me confidence, and Apple clearly did more developer-relations work. The folded-laptop reflection effect is exactly the polish people notice.

The Air likely helped make the Duo plausible through thin titanium, thermal, and battery work. New eSIM handoff also feels intentional: carry a Duo, keep a Pro nearby for camera or battery, and move your number. Apple would love two-phone owners, sure, but people already own phones and iPads. This may be a fun iPad mini that folds into your pocket. We’ll see whether reviewers get time, Pencil support is ready, and people want to live with it.