YOUR Reactions to the iPhone Duo!

Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast

In this bonus episode of Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast, Ellis, Andrew, David, and Adam take to the streets of Cupertino just after Apple's iPh

Key takeaways

• The iPhone Duo's thinner profile and folding mechanism have sparked curiosity about real-world usability and heat management.

Main topics

• iPhone Duo design and folding mechanism
• Pricing and value perception

Notable quotes

"I'm really curious to see how durability will hold up and also how hot it's going to get." – Kavi

Conclusion

While the iPhone Duo generated excitement around its innovative design and

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile with your summer price forecast. Now, unfortunately, we're seeing rising costs across the country with possibility that big wireless hates you. 100%. Now over here at Mint Mobile, we're seeing sunny skies and dropping prices. Every plan to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Speaker 7 (0:20) Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. See terms. Speaker 2 (0:30) I have Italian installed and I'm going to hit start translation. Would you like to speak Italian to me? Speaker 8 (0:35) Let's say that these gentlemen are asking me very interesting questions about the F1 and Apple, so let's understand a little bit what to do in the next... times? Speaker 2 (0:55) What is up, people of the internet? Welcome to the... Wow, I've never done this before. Nice. What is up, people of the internet? Welcome to another episode of the Waveform Podcast, a bonus episode. I, right now, am your host, Ellis, and I am with... I'm David. And I'm Andrew. Wow, all right. I'm Speaker 7 (1:13) David, Speaker 2 (1:13) I'm Adam. And this is officially the second hottest outdoor Waveform Podcast of the year. It is not 100 degrees, but it is... Very close. Pretty damn close. Almost Speaker 5 (1:22) as hot as in the studio when we don't run the AC. Yeah. I think like Speaker 2 (1:24) we train all year for this moment. That's so true. So you're probably asking, where are we? You're probably not asking that because we are in Cupertino. The iPhone event just finished. Marques and David are in. Apple's like real campus getting briefings, shooting the event, shooting the devices, getting hands on, doing that whole thing. Dapping up speed. Dapping up speed. It just happened. Go watch the VOD. I'm hip. I know what it is. So since we are not actually allowed inside Apple campus to see anything, we are doing the second ever edition of Waveform Man on the Street live from Cupertino. And we're just going to poll random people. And see what they think about the event, about the iPhone Duo, about that new thermal placing inside the A20 that lets us directly touch the... I thought you were going to say the new CEO who also... Oh, yeah. Yeah, whatever. You know what I mean. It's someone else's turn. So... Yeah, first guess? Yeah, should we find our first victim? Well, we're lucky Speaker 5 (2:29) enough that... Two people have already shown up and they're returners from last year, so we have to have them on. Who wants to come first? Speaker 2 (2:37) True Waveform superfans may recognize him. His name is? Kavi. Kavi, welcome back. Thank you. Last time you were here, pretty much all we had to talk about was a vapor chamber and the color orange. Right. Now you're back and there's a ton to discuss. There's a new CEO. There's a whole new device. The watch isn't ceramic. I don't know. I guess we'll kick it off. How do you feel about the duo? What thoughts are racing through your head about this thing? I Speaker 4 (3:06) thought it was pretty interesting. I'm really curious to see how durability will Speaker 2 (3:09) hold up and also how hot it's going to get. Yeah. The the internals of the phone are in the pill or a lot of them are I Speaker 5 (3:18) mean it really feels like they're doing the iPhone AirPlay again, right? Like it's it seems like I haven't gotten to confirm it yet, but the battery doesn't have a vapor chamber It's all day battery life, but worse than like it's this new hardware spectacle with potentially not as great specs. Yeah Speaker 2 (3:35) I Speaker 4 (3:35) forget, did the main camera on the Duo also have that variable aperture thing they brought in on the Speaker 2 (3:41) Pro? No. It did not. Which we kept trying to figure out what iPhone camera they plucked. for that device. I think Andrew... I Speaker 5 (3:49) think it's the iPhone Air. I think Alex called it. He was like, this is just the Air's camera plus a telephoto. I guess that makes Speaker 4 (3:55) sense. Speaker 5 (3:55) I think it does make sense because it's the thinner. They're used to doing it on that camera bar. It's almost exactly the same. It's the thinnest iPhone ever, which we all were assuming we were going to get iPhone Air 2X. They gave it a haircut and made it a little shorter. It is interesting. I'm wondering what crease will look like. Obviously, they're not going to show a crease in any of the renders of things. But what are your thoughts on price? What were you thinking before you saw the price? And now what are your thoughts of seeing the 1999? I Speaker 4 (4:24) think it's about what I expected. Really? Yeah, I thought maybe it would be a bit more like... Speaker 4 (4:30) A little more expensive. Yeah. Speaker 5 (4:32) Like, Speaker 4 (4:32) I don't know, $2,300 or something. Okay. But I'm not shocked to see it here. Speaker 5 (4:37) Really? I am. I'm shocked to Speaker 4 (4:39) see an under Speaker 5 (4:40) two. I mean, at two. Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:42) We all around the office were like, there's no, this is going to be $2,500. It's going to be $2,700. We were expecting like a big, big giant price. Right. You have an interesting perspective. I feel like everyone uses folds in sort of different way. There's not like one use case. But... super fans may remember, you are in flight school pursuing a commercial pilot's license. And last time you were here, we talked about all the different ways people use iPads in the cockpit. Do you think pilots will be using an open iPhone Duo in the cockpit? Speaker 4 (5:15) I think it could be really cool to see if like ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, they provide an update to make it work. Speaker 4 (5:24) If they can get it to work, I think the primary concern would again be just cooling. iPads already overheat. Like when you're flying over Bakersfield or something, then come back here. Bakersfield mentioned. Hopefully it's not too much of an issue with the folding phone. But if they can solve that, I don't really think it would be too much. I Speaker 5 (5:45) see it as pretty likely. This might be a dumb question. I'm not a pilot, which should be painfully obvious. When you use an iPad in the cockpit, you also have your phone. Now if your phone is the tablet, I don't know how often you're potentially using your phone while you're flying a plane, does that pose an issue? Are most people used to not their personal device being the tablet or screen for being a pilot? So now your personal device is being used for that. Is that an issue? Speaker 4 (6:17) I don't think so. The same app, ForeFlight, people... can use both on iPad and iPhone. I know some people who would just fly without an iPad and just use their phone. But I think most people would use an iPad. So no, I don't see it as being an issue if it's both devices being in one. I would have loved for you to tell me that Speaker 5 (6:39) nobody ever looks at their phone while they're flying a plane. Speaker 5 (6:44) But okay cool. I hope more people use this so Speaker 4 (6:47) they're not primarily looking outside but like instead of primarily Yeah, I wish it was all the time. Speaker 2 (6:53) The IFR conditions exist man. Yeah, it's it's supervised We cannot escape the elephant in the room this was our very first John Ternus hosted event How do you think he did? I think he did pretty well. I didn't hear Speaker 4 (7:10) a good morning in the beginning. I Speaker 2 (7:11) know. I know. Well, Speaker 5 (7:12) we were wondering if it would be a new thing. He said, hello and welcome. Do we think that is just a, um, a, sorry, I got distracted. Speaker 2 (7:23) Now that we're cut. Do Speaker 5 (7:25) we think that was just an intro right now and he's going to keep it? Or do we think this is going to be a stick? I liked it, honestly. Hello and welcome. I'm down. I think it'll be a stick. You think he sticks with it? I think I probably thought about it. So we didn't, did anyone see any video of, cause usually they come out on stage and say something. Do we think he said any, he also said hello and welcome. I don't Speaker 2 (7:47) know. I didn't miss it. Tim Cook has so much, like he's able to say so much and, and also say so little at the same time, like his Southern accent, this sort of like very stern face. but it's like stern but friendly he puts on. I feel like it's so easy to think about who he is on the inside while watching Tim Cook speak. And I don't get that from John Ternus yet. He sort of just feels like blank executive. I don't remember what the first Tim Cook one of these was like, but I'm really curious if we'll eventually form this vision. Admiration. The first thing I saw when he came on is I was like, what are those sneakers? I feel like every tech exec ever has those exact sneakers. I know, except Tim Cook, who always came out with fire. Speaker 5 (8:36) One more thing about the event is this is, as far as I can remember, the first time we didn't get the base iPhone at all mentioned. We went straight to the pro. All the rumors are pointing to base iPhone comes out in spring, which is now presumably a second event or a third event. I don't even know, with DubDub. Do we think that's weird? Do we think we're just in the new age of... You know, September event is just the big dogs. Although we got random AirPods. I'm confused. The more I say it out loud. Speaker 4 (9:06) Yeah, I think it's a little surprising. I'm not sure how many other companies really do that. That's a good. Yeah. Like Google Speaker 5 (9:15) does the A series later, but Apple's always done the SE or the whatever version E now at a different time. So I guess we're going to get like base iPhone E. Maybe air in like a spring event kind of thing. Speaker 2 (9:30) I'm cool with that, man. As someone who for the past few years has had to make what felt like 10 million iPhone videos every September, the fact that I can spread out my year a little bit, you know, maybe we'll get new color. Like it'll, I don't know. Arguably the best Speaker 5 (9:44) part about this event was going home and knowing for main channel we only have to make two videos. Like, we might even get to cover AirPods or something. And those two videos Speaker 2 (9:52) are AirPods 5 and Watch. And Ceramic Watch Series 12. Ceramic Watch. Dude, thanks so much for coming on again. It's always a pleasure to see you. We're going to go search the seven seas for another victim. And by search the seven seas, he's standing right here because he also came to join our party. Dude, I need a towel. I'm sweating so bad. This is great. You better leave that in. We are back with another guest. Still Ellis. Still Andrew. But now we have... Emily. Emily, thank you very much for joining us. Yeah. You are a unique guest because you say you only watched the first 40 minutes of the event. Speaker 7 (10:30) I did. I sped run it on like three times speed as I was driving over here. Speaker 2 (10:34) That's awesome. And what did you think? Speaker 7 (10:39) I think Mr. Ternes did a great job. The handoff was cute. I Speaker 2 (10:44) was really hoping they would do the Apple like where you touch the phone. The CEO position would transfer over, but no. Speaker 7 (10:55) That would be a great use of that feature because I'm not sure that anyone uses that in real life. Speaker 2 (11:00) I've tried to use it a lot. And sometimes it even works. My problem with it is you can't select. And I know every time I say I have a problem with text, someone's like, Ellis, you're wrong. So I know it's going to happen again. But I keep giving, accidentally giving out like really personal information because you can't choose what parts of your contact get transferred over. So like I'll be doing like a random business thing. And then it's like, oh, you have my home address now. Speaker 7 (11:25) But you're sharing your, you are actually trying to share your contact information. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 (11:29) But I wish it would just share my name, my phone number, and my email. I'm sure I can change this. And I'm just. Speaker 7 (11:33) It only happens when I like stack phones with friends and then it will accidentally happen. For Speaker 2 (11:40) me, it used to happen all the time. Also, when I wore an Apple watch, I would accidentally initiate it between my watch and my phone all the time. And it would drive me insane. Okay, back to the event. This is event talk. So you got iPhone 18 Pro. Sure. Yeah. Thoughts on the colors? We haven't talked about colors yet. We haven't talked about colors yet. Speaker 7 (11:57) I thought they looked nice. I'm repping the blue 13 Pro Max, so it's kind of reminiscent of Apple Speaker 2 (12:06) back in the day. Yeah, it is a really similar blue. Speaker 7 (12:07) I like the burgundy. The burgundy was Speaker 2 (12:10) good. Speaker 7 (12:10) I Speaker 2 (12:10) don't know Speaker 7 (12:10) if my shoes are in shot, but I'm repping the burgundy Speaker 5 (12:13) shoes. Speaker 7 (12:13) They are very, Speaker 5 (12:13) yeah. Speaker 7 (12:15) So the colors are trendy. I like that they're a little bit more muted, but still like. really rich and like dual toned. Yeah. Speaker 2 (12:24) The pros are allowed to have fun this year. Speaker 7 (12:26) Yeah. Speaker 2 (12:26) Did you say jewel toned or dual toned? Jewel toned. Okay. Cause a conversation we were having is on the, on the 17 pros, there's sort of this two tone thing that happens between the glass and the aluminum. And it seemed like this year they're flush. Speaker 7 (12:41) Yeah. Well they made a big deal about that, that the like aluminum and the glass are like tone matched. Speaker 2 (12:47) I like my Panda iPhone. I was a little bummed. Well, you Speaker 7 (12:51) guys are caseless, right? Speaker 2 (12:53) I thought you said tasteless, and I was like, you're right, but that's a bold thing to say. This is the first phone in my life that's had a case on it. Not in my life, but since middle school it's had a case on it. I don't know why. It's because you didn't care about your Mini and you finally care about this phone? No, Speaker 5 (13:09) it's because the Speaker 2 (13:09) Mini was indestructible. It was because I think I was planning on trading this in for a fold, and I don't know if that's... Speaker 7 (13:15) Oh, okay. I Speaker 2 (13:17) bought this phone with the intention of giving it up in a year for, because I think I bought this like right after it came out. No, a few months after. Oh, sorry. No, no, you go. I Speaker 7 (13:27) was going to transition to the phone. She's Speaker 2 (13:29) locked in. Speaker 5 (13:29) All right, let's see. What was your segue? Speaker 7 (13:31) Oh, no. Come on. You had it. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was just going to ask why you're not really. like planning on going with the Fold now that you've seen the release? Speaker 2 (13:41) It's like the least tech reviewer reason ever. It's because I really want to buy like a turbo beefcake GigaChad MacBook Pro right now. Like I want a home computer that just like chugs. And I just, if I'm going to spend like six grand on a computer, I can't justify adding $2,000 to that for like a weird iPad. thing but dude the alarm clock you didn't see the alarm clock thing oh yeah so what do Speaker 5 (14:10) you clue us in on what you do know about duo so Speaker 7 (14:13) i know it's passport style i know Speaker 7 (14:18) That's about it. It has like the rounded corners on the outside corners. On one side, but the other side, we Speaker 5 (14:24) didn't mention that. It's like a D almost, which is D for duo. I don't know if they meant to do that. This proves that none of you guys listen to me when we're all watching the event together, probably because I'm talking to Speaker 4 (14:34) them. Speaker 5 (14:34) Wait, Speaker 4 (14:34) did Speaker 5 (14:34) you say that? Yes, I said it exactly then. Okay, it's very squat. It's got curved on the side. It's two cameras. The cameras seem to be from the iPhone Air, like the... 48 megapixel fusion wide whatever and then a telephoto. It is a choice. Battery life all day. No surprise. Who knows what that means. And then did you see the price? I Speaker 7 (14:57) did. So I also saw your short where everyone was kind of overshooting it. Alex Speaker 5 (15:03) was spot on. Yeah. He said $19.99. Yes. Speaker 2 (15:07) We're never going to live that down at home. How did they make it so cheap? It must have no RAM. It must just be RAM-less. Speaker 7 (15:14) Well, the cameras. Speaker 2 (15:16) Yeah. It's Speaker 5 (15:17) the AirPlay. It's the iPhone AirPlay, but now just two of them and a haircut because it's way shorter. Speaker 7 (15:24) Which might be the smart move if they want to lower the price to get people to buy it. I Speaker 5 (15:30) agree. Speaker 7 (15:31) But you're kind of losing out on people like Ellis who want the beefy phone, right? No, I don't think I... I don't know. Speaker 5 (15:37) I don't know what I want. Speaker 7 (15:40) Looks to camera. Speaker 5 (15:42) So question, you're on a 13. Yes. Are you thinking of upgrading soon? Absolutely not. No? No. Okay. Speaker 7 (15:50) I'm planning on riding with this phone until it gets to the state of Ellis' 12 Mini. I Speaker 5 (15:57) do think more people should do that. I feel like we treat cars like run until they literally won't drive you anymore. We're the worst people to say that because none of us follow those rules. Maybe Ellis a little bit. Speaker 2 (16:09) Not anymore. I will say a piece of advice. Make sure whatever your life is like that financially you're able to make this a snap decision because as somebody who ran a phone into the dirt, one day either the phone will make that decision for you and you won't have a choice or one day something will happen that makes you so angry that the only way to cure your anger will be to go and buy a new phone. Right. I think for me, I was literally out and about and I was like. No, I'm done. Yeah Speaker 7 (16:38) done Speaker 2 (16:38) and I went straight to the Apple store and bought this phone Yeah, Speaker 7 (16:41) so at least how my phone's running right now. I feel like I got at least another two years You have liquid glass on that thing. No, okay. Oh, well, yes, actually. Yes, I do The like UI stuff, yeah Like doesn't like impact how it runs much They made it Speaker 2 (16:58) seem like you needed a crazy GPU to do all that like light processing the developer beta was like Speaker 5 (17:05) this thing's not going very well and then they optimized it a bit better to have that. I don't know. But we mentioned before, before we got into the Duo, Alice mentioned standby mode. So the new folding version is kind of sweet. You open it up a little bit, tent it, and now you have this standby. But also, like, the inside screen glows. to Speaker 7 (17:26) reflect Speaker 5 (17:27) the colors on the... I'm just wondering if it's going to lock into place or is it at my nightstand slowly going to open until it goes face first onto the ground. But I thought that was one of those like Apple makes folding phone shows that they care a little more than everyone else who's made folding phones and like throws some features out people haven't thought of yet. It's Speaker 7 (17:46) a nice touch. I Speaker 2 (17:47) just think like, and I've said this before, I think standby mode... I forget what it, I think it's called standby mode, is like the coolest feature Apple has ever put in a phone. Like the fact that your phone is able to just like seamlessly integrate with a room. And so the fact that they took it even further, I was just like, this is what I need from them. I do hope they make the hypothetical triangle shaped upside down. taco wireless charger that would like complete it. It would charge from the inside? Somehow. Oh. They'll figure it out. Who are they? They've got a mold. Emily's our new host. You don't know what you're talking about. They've got trillions of dollars, literally. Okay. They'll figure it Speaker 7 (18:29) out. Speaker 2 (18:29) And Speaker 7 (18:29) they Speaker 2 (18:29) didn't make AirPlay work. Or what is it? AirPower. AirPower. Yeah. That's true. But some things are just impossible. But this. But not this thing that I just thought of right now. Not this thing. Live translation, maybe. Speaker 2 (18:43) Do you have any final thoughts on? Speaker 7 (18:46) Well, I wanted to ask on what you guys thought of the name because Speaker 5 (18:50) we're familiar Speaker 7 (18:51) with the name. Yes, thank you. Speaker 5 (18:52) Okay, I think that's why none of us are allowed to like it because Microsoft has spoiled the name. But I do think the name makes sense to the average audience. I will always look at it poorly because Speaker 2 (19:02) Duo was one of the worst products that have ever come out. Speaker 4 (19:05) I Speaker 2 (19:06) kind of wish they called it a fold. I wonder if Samsung, like, trade, like, no one else can call it a fold. It just feels so generic. No, no, everyone calls it a fold except for Apple. What am I talking about? Speaker 7 (19:15) Yeah. Speaker 2 (19:15) What do you think of? Speaker 7 (19:17) I mean, you can't name a folding device the Duo and not, like, think of the Speaker 5 (19:25) Surface Duo. Apple likes to not think about anyone else and pretend none of them exist. Although they did mention other folding phones a bunch, which they usually just would be like. This is a folding phone. Speaker 2 (19:38) Never done this before. Speaker 5 (19:38) Never Speaker 2 (19:38) seen this before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is true. You said that when we were watching the event. I didn't clock it. But yeah, they never ever even acknowledged that other companies exist until today. And even today, they were just like, yeah, other, it's there. I don't know. Speaker 7 (19:53) I thought it was interesting that they didn't put a number behind it. Speaker 5 (19:57) Not yet. I guess the Duo 2 is going to be kind of redundant. The Nuo. Speaker 7 (20:03) And then do you think they're going to call it the two or are they going to slide it in like the Pixel Fold did with the rest of the lineup? Speaker 2 (20:11) Oh, like... Speaker 5 (20:11) I Speaker 2 (20:12) think they're going to do it like Nintendo does Mario Bros. And it's just always going to be the new iPhone. Which they've Speaker 5 (20:18) done with iPads for a while, but it doesn't match with the rest of their lineup on phones. And this is clearly a phone unless they consider it an iPad. And the iPads have Speaker 2 (20:25) is confusing, man. I'm always like, do I have a ninth or a 15th generation iPad? Like, what? Huh. That's Speaker 5 (20:32) a Speaker 2 (20:32) good question. Bets on what you think Duo 2 is going Speaker 5 (20:34) to be called? Speaker 7 (20:36) I mean, the 2 needs to be the Duo Duo. The Speaker 2 (20:39) Duo Duo. The Duo Speaker 7 (20:41) Trio. The Speaker 2 (20:42) Duo Trio? Oh, my gosh. All right. I'm in. Yeah? Speaker 7 (20:46) I'm in. You might have a career Speaker 2 (20:47) in marketing ahead of you. Oh, Speaker 7 (20:49) really? Speaker 2 (20:50) This is kind of next level. Well... The Duo Quattro? The Speaker 7 (20:54) Duo Quattro. Speaker 2 (20:56) At what point do you reset and then make it the iPhone Trio? Uno and then Trio Duo. Well, the Trio Speaker 7 (21:02) would be. Speaker 2 (21:04) Apple trifold confirmed? Emily, thank you so much for coming on. Wait, wait, wait. Speaker 5 (21:09) We have one more Speaker 2 (21:10) question. You told Speaker 5 (21:11) us something