Now that we’ve had a few days to mull over Apple’s newest iPhones, it’s time to share our initial thoughts.
Some things are as clear as day – Apple will still sell every new iPhone that it manufactures, and it’s almost a 100% certainty that it will struggle to keep the iPhone Duo in stock.
With that out of the way, here’s our hot take.
Apple took its sweet time with its first foldable, and it shows
Apple is said to have been actively working on its first foldable since at least 2019. Reportedly, Tim Cook came back from a trip to China, apparently very energized about foldables.
We heard Apple would launch its first folding phone in 2023, then 2024, then we were almost sure it was going to happen in 2025. But it finally happened in 2026. And it’s clear that Apple made smart use of all that time.
In typical Apple fashion, the company arrived late to a significant product, but made it more refined than everyone else. And it made it its own way. The iPhone Duo looks to be a finished device, with a nearly crease-less inner display, solid and uncompromised build quality – it’s one of a very select few dust-proof folding phones.
The inner display has an anti-reflective coating, similar to the Honor Magic V6 and Galaxy Z Fold8’s, a hardware trait we usually see on a product’s sixth generation, not its first.
But where the extra refinement and polish is most obvious is the iPhone Duo’s software. The transition animation when opening and closing the Duo is reason enough for some people to buy the phone. The left-aligned dock is also a unique usability adjustment that could make using this phone nicer than any other foldable.
Apple also said that Apple Pencil support is on its way, which is impressive!
But the Duo is still very flawed
The iPhone Duo is made for right-handed people. Early hands-on impressions suggest that the dock can’t be moved over to the left (yet, hopefully).
Apple placed the volume button on the top of the Duo, and the jury’s still out on whether that’s a successful move or a dealbreaker.
The $2,000 Duo’s main camera looks to be the same one from the $700 iPhone 17e – an inferior 1/2.55-inch imager with a narrower 26mm lens, not the 48MP 1/1.28-inch unit from the Pro models.
Apple went with an in-display camera on the inner display. These cameras are seriously inferior to a simple punch-hole alternative.
We’re also not sure if the name Duo has a good ring to it. Also, as a certain YouTuber said, it’s 2026 and Apple has a device named Duo and one named Neo.
The iPhone 18 Pro models get a solid, if boring, processing and battery bump
The A20 Pro SoC is impressive. It’s the world’s first 2nm chip and is all about on-device AI. The processor is up to 20% faster, the graphics processor is 40% faster and has 1 more core, but the Neural Engine (the one that handles AI) has doubled the cores compared to the A19 Pro – 32 cores over 16 cores. The A20 Pro also reportedly increases memory bandwidth by 50%. This isn’t a mere yearly spec bump; it’s a major generational leap forward.
The batteries on both Pro models are also increased, and so is runtime – the iPhone 18 Pro Max increases video playback by 6 hours over its predecessor, while the 18 Pro adds 3 hours. However, both phones get the same, slow, by 2026 standards, charging.
A variable aperture lens on a phone is mostly a gimmick
The camera system is more or less unchanged. There will be some people who will be convinced that the new four-step variable aperture lens on the Pro models is a game-changer, but it really isn’t, not on a phone anyway. We’ve had dozens such lens-equipped phones in the office, and we can’t say it brings a worthwhile improvement to image quality.
Technically speaking, closing the aperture to increase depth of field can be useful. But a tiny phone sensor and lens combination already has a huge depth of field in almost any scenario that isn’t close to the minimum focusing distance (aka macro). So, in practice, shooting anything beyond 1 meter with a 24mm-equivalent lens on a 1/1.28-inch sensor at f/1.4 or f/4 won’t produce a dramatic difference in depth of field. That’s especially true for a landscape shot, where most of the scene will already be in focus.
I can smell the comments section already!
No iPhone 17 Pro owner in their right mind will upgrade to the 18 Pro
We have a few of those at the office, and nobody is jumping out of their seat to pre-order an 18 Pro model. There simply isn’t enough to warrant buying the newer model over its predecessor, unless you really, really like Burgundy.
Everything is more expensive, especially so for non-US customers
Apple increased the prices of its 18 Pro models by $100 in the US, but it increased them by €150 and £100 in Europe. But there’s more to the story – the base iPhone 18 Pro Max ($1,300, or an equivalent €1,120) in the US costs less than the base iPhone 18 Pro (€1,450) in Germany. Non-US buyers seemingly get the memory price hike tax to cover Apple’s US market price difference.
In China, prices are up by CNY 1,000. In India, they’re up by INR 30,000. And in Japan, prices are hiked up by JPY 40,000.