Quick take on Duo: The Duo gets a lot of UI things right, better than many of its competitors. However, it’s still not perfect and I believe will still take some tweaks to get perfect. This is especially true for left-handed users or anyone who uses the front screen a lot for web browsing. A lot of the UI choices seem to push you towards unfolding the device, which I believe is a function of the smaller outer screen. I found myself unfolding the Fold8 way more often than the Fold8 Ultra which has the much slimmer and taller design. However, the Duo like many of its other foldable counterparts still falls short in many ways against a traditional candy bar. The first and most common way is in the camera performance, Apple went for a lower resolution Center Stage selfie camera (12MP) over the rest of the iPhone line including the iPhone Air. I was told this was because it’s a foldable. The main cameras are also a sacrifice compared to the iPhone 18 Pro with no telephoto lens. Competitors like Xiaomi don’t have this problem. Battery life is also a compromise compared to the iPhone 18 Pro Max or any high capacity Android phone. But I will say that in general foldables have become all-day so while battery life isn’t as good, it is good enough. You also lose FaceID which I believe will come in the next generation. But all of these pitfalls aside, the experience of having a large screen whenever you need it and being able to easily run two apps side by side is so great that many are willing to sacrifice the pitfalls. I also believe that this is why Apple implemented Handoff so that you can easily use your phone with the better camera along with the foldable. Additionally, I believe that Apple cleverly figured out that implementing a matte texture to the screen helps with reducing the visibility of the crease. While the crease is not entirely gone, it’s mostly imperceptible to the average person unless they really look for it and the user won’t notice it at all. Ignoring that aspect, many of Apples competitors are in a similar state and will likely add Matt coatings to their next generation to help with create visibility.  Ironically, the $2000 price is actually quite good and competitive with the rest of the market. I believe that Apple would actually be more expensive, which leads me to believe that it wants to capture market share from more than iOS users who have been waiting for a foldable iPhone for the last 10 years. I think the Duo is a good buy for anyone that’s been looking for a foldable but didn’t because they we’re all Androids. But foldables do have a price problem, prior to the chip crunch and memory price increases foldables were starting to get into reasonable and attainable territory thanks to flip phones. I believe that Samsung has the right three-tier strategy to properly serve the market and I expect that Apple will go that path as well, in fact for quite some time flip phones were the highest volume foldables.  I have been testing this phone for the last few days and played with it at launch. I think the biggest delta between those two experiences was finding apps that haven’t been optimized yet. It has been fascinating to watch how quickly apps are getting updated for Duo, but I believe it will be a few months before the majority of apps are properly optimized. I also expected that Apple would drive this kind of rate of improvement and overall visibility for these issues in foldables which I believe will be a rising tide for the whole foldable market. I haven’t done extensive performance testing yet, but all signs point to it being on par with expectations, even if some reviewers have noted some heating.