QUESTION · MEDIA PRODUCTION Q&A

Jason, how's that shiny new iPhone? Was the Duo tempting?

ASKED BY · Robert Green · LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA · 25 SEP 2026 · ▶ 00:29:27

THE PANEL'S ANSWER

Alexander is upgrading from iPhone 15 Pro Max to the 18 Pro Max. While intrigued by the Duo's folding design and extra screen real estate, he's waiting to see how the product evolves, noting the camera specs on the Duo are less impressive than the 18 Pro.

Bill DavisPANELIST

Bill comments that Apple's shift from perfecting before ship to shipping and iterating is a better approach. He's curious how the Duo will be used in practice, particularly by vloggers as a confidence monitor in live shoots.

Chris Fenwick

Chris notes the jump from 17 to 18 feels radically different in speed and charging, and he's impressed by the focus lock and exposure control improvements.

Jason BachePANELIST

Jason upgraded from iPhone 17 Pro to 18 and finds the speed markedly faster and charging notably quicker. He notes excellent 4K 30 dual recording capability and is exploring the new Aperture control, though hasn't fully tested Polycam 3D yet.

Summarised by AI from what the panel said. Watch the moment for the full answer.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

From the transcript.

Machine-transcribed, so it may contain errors. Every timestamp opens the episode at that second.

29:05I'm super excited to see where this turns. Next question. All right. This one's from Robert Green in Los Angeles, California. Jason, how's that shiny new iPhone? Was the Duo tempting? Jason. Yes. Yes, the Duo was tempting until I looked at the camera specs. And I remembered that I'm a photographer first. And that's the reason that I buy a new iPhone, or at least that's what I tell myself.

29:33I'll give you a sense of this. I have not had a chance to really play with this. But the speed of it is markedly different. Also, the charge is like they weren't kidding. For once, they weren't kidding. The charge is actually notably faster. Here we are 4K at 30 with dual recording and like it's not missing a beat. And keep in mind, this is over AirPlay.

30:04They've really done something cool here. And I admit I have not played with the aperture much, but I look forward to doing it. I've done exactly one polycam 3D thing. I think the app needs to be updated so that it actually can be set for manual input. Don't fact check me on that because I don't think so. Oh, there's CJ playing around.

30:28I'm trying to see if you can see the aperture. I don't think you can. Oh, no. No way. I mean, I can see it with my eyes. Well, yeah, but no. I mean, your lens is still trying to figure out whether or not you're a three-eyed monster. to set up a better shot for that because it's cool to see. It is very cool.

30:51From an industrial and manufacturing coolness, I'm excited that the automatic mode has another choice for how it can manipulate the light that's coming into the lens. How much am I going to actually get out of manually setting it myself? I don't know, but I cut you off. Sorry, Jason. All good. Good. Tlaloc and I actually met in person in a coffee shop and we were playing around with it.

31:18And like, yeah, it took a little bit of doing because, again, like coffee shops are not extremely well lit. But, you know, we started playing around with it. And like, you know, there is absolutely bokeh that's not computational and it probably won't matter. Oh, another thing that is markedly better. CJ, if you've played with Focus Lock, it is shockingly good. a double tap to focus lock and there's a part of the demo where they're like you know even if it's

31:45out of frame right like um i'm not kidding let me try this so let's go to video there it is we'll tap focus tracking right completely out of frame and boom it still goes right back to it and it works pretty much every time there's also a nice um there's also the nice thought that now Now, when you press and hold to lock exposure, you can now very easily double tap and make focus independent of that, which is nice.

32:14They've done a nice they've done a good job of giving you access to a higher degree of granular control without making it easy to get into a mode that's like, ah, when am I taking pictures of? Bill? Bill? I just wanted to make a comment on Apple's kind of recent history of changing from the old glass master, we've got to get everything right before we ship, to get it good, ship it, and then

32:39iterate based on customer feedback. I really think this is a better world. I'm really thinking that the Duo is a 1-0 first attempt that they thought this was the most important stuff to get right. You know, they knew everybody's going to look at the hinge, and they knew everybody's going to look at whether or not it's scratched and how convenient it was and this idea of a screen on the back of

33:00something that people can watch. All these things are kind of obvious for a foldable multi-purpose phone. But now that they've got the first one out, I'm really interested in seeing what kind of actual field feedback they get. Do people like the vloggers really embrace this and use it as a kind of a mini confidence monitor in live shoots? Is that its sweet spot? How are people

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Jason, how's that shiny new iPhone? Was the Duo tempting? — Office Hours Global