☢️ US Military Had Close Call After Using AI for False Intelligence Report, Sources Say
Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen at CNN:
The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran, immediately set off alarm bells: A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program.
The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode. According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said.
It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying. CNN was not able to learn what the misidentified cargo was.
The report, according to one of the sources, was “entirely false.” But it also “almost started a war,” the source said. Any US operation against a Chinese vessel could have risked spiraling into an armed conflict between the two nations.
This is fine.
🧠 Human Brain is Two Separate Organs
Krista Conger at Stanford Medicine:
The new research finding shows that the human brain consists of two ancient nervous systems cleverly packaged together — a more primitive part that regulates our hearts’ beating, our breathing and other functions, and another that makes us distinctly human, capable of poetry, mathematics and wondering about our own origins.
The discovery could help explain why scientists have struggled for decades to grow certain types of brain cells in the laboratory — and it opens new avenues for studying devastating diseases that affect the brain stem, such as spinal muscular atrophy (also known as SMA) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Fascinating.
This kind of discovery always serves to remind me about how much we don't know, and how much is still left to discover about the universe and ourselves.
✏️ More on the iPhone Duo Pencil
In my previous post about the iPhone Duo I speculated that there was more to the Apple Pencil support story:
Regarding Apple Pencil support, I feel like we don't have the full story yet. Currently, Apple says iPhone Duo is compatible with only the USB-C Apple Pencil which has very few features compared to the Apple Pencil Pro. That's out of necessity; without the magnetic connection hardware, there's no way for the Apple Pencil Pro to pair or charge with iPhone Duo.
But why is Apple Pencil support for iPhone Duo coming later this year? And why weren't there any Apple Pencils at the hands-on event? Even if the feature is coming later this year, why not let at least some of the press use an early beta version?
Here's my wild theory: there's a new Apple Pencil coming in October alongside the rumored OLED iPad mini, and that new Apple Pencil will not just work with the iPhone Duo, but will clearly be the one best suited for it. What I'm hoping for is a slightly smaller (shorter, more pocketable) Apple Pencil with pressure sensitivity that works with some kind of inkwell-like USB-C charging/pairing base.
Wishful thinking? Maybe, but the iPhone Duo Apple Pencil vibes are off. This device would be a killer sketchbook with apps like Linea Sketch and Procreate, or even just Apple's Notes app, but it can only really excel with additional Pencil hardware features like pressure sensitivity. The USB-C Apple Pencil only supports tilt, and while that's better than nothing, but my gut tells me there's another shoe that hasn't dropped yet.
This morning Michael Burkhardt wrote this over at 9to5Mac:
[Apple] initially planned to build a new Apple Pencil for the Duo. It would’ve been smaller and attached to the hinge side of the iPhone Duo.
According to Bloomberg, that pencil ran into “technical problems” prior to mass production, so the company scrapped it and went with the traditional USB-C Apple Pencil.
After the keynote, you might’ve noticed on Apple’s website that Apple Pencil support won’t be available on iPhone Duo at launch. That delay is a result of the fact that the product wasn’t initially designed with the USB-C Apple Pencil in mind, and Apple still needs to test it thoroughly
If true, it sounds like my hopes and dreams of a new iPhone Duo-compatible Pencil dropping soon (alongside a new iPad mini) were, indeed, too optimistic.
It will be really interesting to see the iPhone Duo teardown and find out if there's any Pencil-related magnetic hardware inside.
⌚️ More on Live Rewind and Siri Recap
If you missed it, please read my previous post about these features before continuing.
John Gruber at Daring Fireball regarding Live Rewind and Siri Recap:
Some people are objecting to the very existence of these features as privacy intrusive. I think they’re pretty reasonably thought out. There are surveillance cameras all over the place now. I was walking home from dinner here in Philadelphia a few weeks ago with a friend visiting from out of town, talking about this, and he stopped midway between the restaurant and my house and asked me to count how many cameras we were on at that spot. I think we counted seven or eight. Who knows how many we missed? I’m not saying that’s good or bad, it’s just the world today. So too it’s soon going to be with personal devices recording audio. This is inevitable. I’m glad to see Apple ship features like this early, with pretty limited scope, to provide good examples before other companies ship devices that record and save audio continuously throughout the day. I think it’s better for Apple to lead with privacy-minded versions of ambient transcripts and AI-generated conversation summaries than to follow after other products have hit the market with all-day recordings and whole-life transcripts.
Think back to Apple’s announcement of AirTags. A lot of people had a perfectly reasonable “Hey I don’t know if it’s a good idea for a product like this to even exist” initial reaction. But having Apple lead the way actually proved good. I suspect Live Rewind and Siri Recap will turn out like that.
"There are surveillance cameras all over the place now," and, "I’m not saying that’s good or bad, it’s just the world today," line of thinking is a perfect example of why Apple shouldn't be helping to further normalize having surveillance devices everywhere.
I also sincerely hope that John is wrong about ubiquitous audio recording by personal devices being inevitable. There are a lot of ubiquitous bad things that once seemed inevitable or entrenched, but have nonetheless been greatly reduced or eliminated for the public good. Leaded gasoline, ozone-depleting chemicals, and smoking come to mind. We collectively decided we didn't want to all breathe tobacco smoke everywhere we went, and I hope we all collectively agree we don't want a bunch of watches listening to what we say everywhere, too. Just because we have to put up with something bad now doesn't mean we have to put up with it in the future. The world is what we make of it.
That said, like the examples above, we may have to live with the bad for a while until we decide to eliminate it. I would like to live in a world where Apple proudly and loudly refuses to create surveillance features like Live Rewind and Siri Recap, and then have the rest of the industry follow their example, but I recognize that's probably not the world we live in.
Apple building and releasing privacy- and security-focused versions of these features—as flawed as the specific implementations are—is the safe move. I agree with John that it may result in better implementations of similar features from other companies. A tangible release people can actually use, explore, and purchase is almost always going to be more compelling and persuasive (especially to competitors) than an ideological refusal to cross a line. If Apple tried to set a good example by refusing to build these features, the rest of the industry would probably ignore them and build (or, in some cases, continue to build) surveillance features that are privacy and security nightmares.
Probably, but not certainly.
At some point there will be a catalyst for change that nudges the industry in a better direction. Apple might be influential and powerful enough to be that catalyst. Yes, being the change you want to see in the world is a risk, and I see why Apple is choosing the safe path, but I'd rather see them draw on some of their courage and take a stand.
Back to the rest of John's thoughts on Live Rewind and Siri Recap:
It’s also interesting to think about why these two features are only on Apple Watch, not iPhone. I think it’s because once an Apple Watch is on your wrist and unlocked, it remains a “trusted device” until you take the watch off. An iPhone is only a trusted device while it’s unlocked. It’s locked, and thus untrusted, while it’s in your pocket or bag, or even just sitting on a desk. I leave my iPhone unattended in our kitchen all the time. I’m often not in the room for conversations that take place in the kitchen while my iPhone is there, sitting on the counter. I shouldn’t get summaries of those conversations. And, thinking more nefariously, I shouldn’t be able to hide my iPhone on or near someone’s desk, or in a conference room, or in a car, or anywhere else, to get Siri Recap summaries of conversations where I’m not present. Making this an Apple Watch exclusive feature avoids that. Thus, I think Apple Watch can be trusted to “listen” ambiently, all the time while it’s unlocked on the wearer’s wrist, in ways that even an iPhone can’t.
That's a good callout, and something I didn't think about until now. If your iPhone could also listen that would indeed make Siri Recap far worse. Making the listening part of the puzzle exclusive to Apple Watch is another point in Apple's favor, but I still maintain that there shouldn't be a feature like this on any device in the first place.
🗣️ Write It Like You Told It
I'm really enjoying the stuff Mike Monteiro is writing lately:
[...] An LLM will never write it like you told it. It might give you a reasonable facsimile, and the most dangerous thing about a facsimile is that it will eventually convince you that it’s the real thing. It’ll eventually convince you that its voice is your voice.
So while the temptation to use this shit is understandable, the price is too high.
Eventually your LLM will write your child a note and their LLM will write a reply and neither of you will actually know each other’s voices. Neither of you will know what is actually in each others’ hearts. And that is brutal.
The whole thing is well worth a read, as are many of the other things you'll find at Mike Monterio's Good News. His writing has a somewhat visceral quality (complementary) that's hard to find anywhere else.
🪞 Mirror Universe Shit
This is a screenshot I took on my iPhone this morning:
This looks like it's straight out of a mirror universe episode of Star Trek, but sadly it's a real story:
The US has confirmed it deployed a space weapon in Earth's orbit, the first time it has acknowledged such offensive capabilities.
US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said the "on orbit" weapon was necessary to safeguard US forces against hostile enemy action.
Speaking at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference on Monday, Meink said the US was ready for "evolving threats", but did not elaborate on the weapon's capabilities or when it was put into orbit.
[...]
A 1967 treaty banned weapons of mass destruction in orbit. Since then, key powers including the US, Russia, and China have been exploring other capabilities outside of the treaty, such as targeting rivals' satellites - which are key for military communications, surveillance and navigation.
I'm ready to stop living in interesting times whenever everyone else is.
👂 Features that Shouldn't Exist: Live Rewind and Siri Recap
Apple recently announced Audio Intelligence on Apple Watch, an umbrella term for several audio- and AI-related features. Some of these features provide clear benefits, utility, and have little to no downside, like Sound Recognition:
Sound Recognition detects important sounds like sirens, alarms, and doorbells, and notifies you — even when your iPhone is not with you. This is especially useful for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Sound Recognition is new to Apple Watch, but has been available on iPhone since iOS 14. HomePods also have the ability to send an alert when they hear smoke and carbon monoxide alarms go off. Great, useful stuff that even has the potential to save lives.
Music Recognition is another nice feature:
Music Recognition with Shazam automatically detects the song playing in the background and displays the title and artist name in the Smart Stack, all without tapping the widget.
It's not going to save lives, but it's nice to have. Shazam has existed in various forms for many years, both before and after Apple bought it, and the new implementation on Apple Watch sounds handy and convenient.
The new Live Rewind and Siri Recap features, on the other hand, aren't clear-cut wins. These features do provide clear benefits and utility, but they also come with significant downsides.
Here's Apple overview of Live Rewind:
Live Rewind¹ recalls what was just said in the last 15 seconds by showing a text snippet on your Apple Watch when you double-press the Digital Crown, so you can catch something you missed or are less familiar with. You can ask Siri about the content of the snippet or simply save it to the Siri app.
And Siri Recap:
Siri Recap¹ ambiently takes notes on your conversations throughout your day and creates high-level Apple Intelligence–generated summaries that you can use later to jog your memory, so you can stay present in the moment. Your summaries auto-delete after 7 days if you choose not to save them.
The ¹ in both of those overviews points to this footnote:
- Siri Recap summaries and Live Rewind text snippets are generated using Apple Intelligence and may be incomplete or inaccurate. Important details may be omitted, misunderstood, or summarized incorrectly. When accuracy matters, confirm important information with the people involved or another reliable source. Siri Recap is designed to limit certain potentially sensitive content, such as financial information, government-assigned identifiers, and more, but automated filtering may not remove all sensitive information.
When you look at the more detailed privacy overview Apple provides for Audio Intelligence, it's clear they put a lot of effort into making these features very secure and private. They even created special hardware for it: the Secure Exclave. Audio captured by Apple Watch is only processed in the Secure Exclaves on Apple Watch and its paired iPhone, and that audio is not accessible to other parts of the system on either device. For Siri Recap, full transcriptions are condensed on-device, and only the condensed version is sent to Apple's Private Cloud Compute for summarization. Everything is end-to-end encrypted, including on-device encryption with periodically rotating encryption keys.
That's all great, and demonstrates a level of effort around privacy that no other company I'm aware of would even come close to if they implemented something similar. Unfortunately, it's not enough.
Apple Watch is a very popular product. Apple sells millions of them every year, and if you're looking for them when you're out and about you'll probably see several being worn by those around you. That kind of ubiquity imparts a certain social and civil responsibility on Apple, including the responsibility to not turn these devices into surveillance equipment.
It doesn't matter that everything is encrypted, secure, and only accessible by the Apple Watch's owner. What matters is that this kind of surveillance, at this scale, shouldn't be something the only big privacy-focused company in the tech industry should be offering to its users. Apple should be setting a better example for their peers and the world at large.
To put it another way: a device commonly worn by a significant fraction of the population should not be able to listen with the intent to create a record—be it a verbatim or summarized record—without providing the following:
- Clear indications to everyone in listening range that they're being listened to
- A reasonable way for them to opt-out of being listened to
Neither of these features are provided by Live Rewind or Siri Recap. Live Rewind comes closest; it emits an audible and visual indicator, but only when it's used:
How Live Rewind respects those around you
When activated, an audible chime plays from the speaker on your Apple Watch, even if your Apple Watch is on silent or you have headphones connected. A full-display animation and microphone indicator appear on the Apple Watch display, and a distinct double-press gesture is required to activate Live Rewind. This is to alert those nearby that the feature has been activated.
This only lets people know what they said was transcribed after the fact. It doesn't provide a way to opt-out of the transcription happening in the first place.
Letting people know it happened after the fact is better than nothing, but Siri Recap doesn't even do that:
How Siri Recap respects those around you
By design, Siri Recap does not create a recording, does not produce a verbatim transcript, and does not identify and attribute speakers. The output is a brief, high-level summary, comparable to notes a person might write after a conversation. There is no audible signal because no raw audio is retained, and there is no way to reconstruct the original audio from a Siri Recap or share raw audio with anyone.
While Siri Recap doesn't create a recording, it does create a record. It's a condensed, summarized record, but a record nonetheless. There's no way for those being listened to to know when that record is being made, how accurate that record is, and that's no way for them to opt-out.
The socially responsible way to implement Live Rewind and Siri Recap would include continuous visual and audible indicators when a device is listening. Those indicators would explain, via text on the screen and a clear speaking voice, that the device is listening. These indicators would also provide a way for everyone who sees or hears them to easily opt-out of being recorded.
For example, when Apple Watch is listening, the display could pulse red and have a, "I'm listening. If you don't want me to listen, say 'stop listening' at any time." And, because Apple Watch is often concealed by a sleeve, body, table, or other object, it should also audibly announce the same message periodically while it's listening.
The counterargument, of course, is that constant visual and repeating audible indicators as described above would be too annoying and impractical to implement. And that's true, they would.
The problem is that when Apple realized that impractical measures—like those described above—are the only way to responsibly implement features like Live Rewind and Siri Recap, they didn't abort. Instead, Apple built those features anyway, and decided or figured out a way to justify too many social and ethical compromises. Apple decided it was okay to compromise on consent. Apple decided it was okay to limit opt-in and opt-out privileges to the owner of the device that's listening. Apple decided it's okay for the people being listened to by its device to not have opt-out or opt-in privileges (many of whom are, ironically, probably also Apple users).
They key difference between Live Rewind and Siri Recap versus other listening features like Sound Recognition, Music Recognition, and devices listening for wake words or phrases like, "Siri," or "Hey, Siri," is the intent to create a record of what happened, of what was said. Knowing a fire alarm went off, that a particular song was played, or that a wake word was used when no other details are recorded are very different applications of listening technology than writing full transcripts or producing detailed summaries.
Again, it doesn't matter if what's produced and saved is a verbatim recording, full transcript, or a summary. A detailed record of some kind is still being made, and it's being made surreptitiously by design.
If you're thinking that your own memory, in its own way, records and summarizes everything you experience, how is that different than Siri Recap? Apple is thinking along the same lines in the quote I shared above. Here it is again with emphasis added:
How Siri Recap respects those around you
By design, Siri Recap does not create a recording, does not produce a verbatim transcript, and does not identify and attribute speakers. The output is a brief, high-level summary, comparable to notes a person might write after a conversation. There is no audible signal because no raw audio is retained, and there is no way to reconstruct the original audio from a Siri Recap or share raw audio with anyone.
The implied reasoning is that Live Rewind and Siri Recap are nothing more than technological extensions meant to augment our inherent human functionality. They're designed in a way that lets them go just a little bit further than what we'd be capable of on our own. Live Rewind lets you peek back at the last 15 seconds if you were distracted. Siri Recap lets you stay focused instead of trying to manually take notes at the same time. So what's wrong with that?
There are two problems: the lack of disclosure and the precedent these features set.
It's one thing to know you're being listened to by a person, but it's another thing to have a device listening. People inherently know how other people work. We have millions of years of evolution to draw on when dealing with other people. It's also obvious when someone is or isn't taking notes about what's being said.
On the other hand, not everyone knows how Apple Watch works, or what its capabilities are. How much better or worse can Apple Watch microphones hear than a human? How will that change in the next model, or the one after that? Is the person sitting at the next table wearing the Apple Watch that listens all the time or an older model? How much of what was said will be dropped when the audio is condensed, or what will be incorrectly represented in the transcript or summary that's produced? What happens if Private Cloud Compute isn't as secure and impenetrable as Apple claims it is?
The lack of disclosure of the device's capabilities, and when it's listening, are huge omissions. By making these features available, Apple is essentially putting the onus on the owner of every Apple Watch with these capabilities to use them responsibly, let everyone around them know their device is listening, and provide them the option to opt-out. That's irresponsible because doing those things is impractical for the same reason the persistent visual and audible alerts Apple could have built are impractical. If you have Siri Recap enabled you're not going to announce it to the crowd every time you do things like enter a store or step on an airplane.
Then there's the precedent these features set. Apple—who again is the only big privacy-focused company in tech—is setting a really bad precedent at a really bad time by creating and releasing always-listening-to-everyone features like these. The existence of these features helps normalize persistent surveillance at exactly the point in our history when we should be doing the exact opposite.
Other tech companies certainly don't need permission or approval from Apple to build always-listening-or-watching features, but the existence of Live Rewind and Siri Recap make it easier for them to build and sell similar features. The potential customers of those companies will be more accustomed to and accepting of these kinds of features if Apple has them, too. This goes double for surveillance-focused companies and other surveillance apparatuses, like governments. Many of those entities want as many people as possible to be as comfortable as possible with constant surveillance, to the detriment of the public at large. A world where most people are used to and accepting of persistent surveillance is a very dangerous world to live in. By releasing Live Rewind and Siri Recap, Apple is helping us all take one big collective step closer to that world.
The other surprising thing about these features are the risks Apple is willing to take to implement them. One scenario is that there's a security issue or data breach surrounding these features, where sensitive transcripts or summaries end up in nefarious hands. I don't think that's very likely, but it's certainly possible.
A more likely scenario is that these features, once more people become aware of their existence, tarnish the reputation of Apple Watch and Apple itself. Today, most people who take note of someone wearing an Apple Watch probably do nothing more than think things like, "that's a cool band," or, "I see those everywhere, maybe I should learn more about them." In a world where a news story explains that new Apple Watches are listening to and summarizing everything they hear, people will start thinking, "I wonder if that thing is recording me right now?" Yes, they'll technically be wrong about it "recording" them, but that won't matter. What matters is their perception, and what they'll perceive is that they're being surveilled, and that Apple Watch is creepy. And they'll be right on both counts.
Sometimes risks are worth taking, but it surprises me that Apple is willing to risk so much potential reputational harm—both for a specific product line and for their privacy-focused image as a whole—because they've decided that 15-second transcripts and LLM-generated summaries of your day that "may be incomplete or inaccurate" are somehow worth it.
🐄 Clarus is Back!
Benjamin Mayo at 9to5 Mac:
Many have complained that Apple design has been sapped of some of its trademark whimsy in recent years. Well, here’s the latest example of how the tides seem to be changing.
Buried in the Settings app on iOS 27, Apple has hidden an easter egg that hails back from classic Mac OS; Clarus the Dogcow. Here’s how to trigger it …
This also works in macOS 27, and presumably iPadOS 27.
Moof!
📱 iPhone Duo: Initial Thoughts
Even though I keep an eye on Apple rumors, a lot about the iPhone Duo announcement surprised me. It has fewer compromises than I though it would, it's more compelling than expected, and it stands out as a joyful and thoughtfully-crafted product against the dreary backdrop of the tech industry and world in general right now.
Compromises
Compromises are non-negotiable in the world of folding phones, and while iPhone Duo is no exception, it concedes very little. While watching the event I was disappointed, but not surprised, when they didn't mention MagSafe. I figured dropping MagSafe was one of the inevitable compromises, but it turns out MagSafe is alive and well on iPhone Duo. I also thought the displays might suffer in areas like resolution, refresh rate, or color depth, but both the interior and exterior displays seem to be top-notch. They both have 120Hz refresh rates, P3 color, and pixel density at 430 DPI and 460 DPI, respectively.
So what compromises were made?
There's no Face ID, but there is Touch ID and unlock with Apple Watch. That's not a problem for me, and in fact it might be a boon. Face ID requires me to hold my iPhone up high and at a slightly awkward angle when I'm wearing a mask (my partner and I have been masking since the pandemic began), but Touch ID won't have that issue.
Compared to the iPhone Pro lineup the main cameras aren't as good, but I can't complain about the two-lens system on iPhone Duo. If you need to choose just two primary cameras, a 26mm main and 13mm ultra-wide are the ones I'd pick. Not having a telephoto means you have to zoom with your feet, but that's better than not having the ability to take macro and wide-angle shots due to a lack of an ultra-wide camera (which is one of the main reasons I returned my iPhone Air in favor of the iPhone 17 Pro).
The two selfie cameras on iPhone Duo are a mixed bag. The 12MP Center Stage camera on the exterior display is solid. I love that camera on my iPhone 17 Pro, and I'm happy to see the same camera included on iPhone Duo. The camera under the internal display is, on the other hand, not that great. It looks like it will do in a pinch, but the video I've seen from it looks muddy and very webcam-like. Apple hasn't provided a lot of technical details about this under-display camera beyond the ƒ/1.8 aperture and that it will record 1080p video, and I'm guessing the reason why is that those specs just aren't that great.
My biggest concern with the under-display camera isn't the quality of the images it captures, though, but the combination of how visible it will be when not in use and its physical location. In a lot of the hands-on videos it looks pretty visible in a lot of shots, but that doesn't match up with people at the event saying it's almost completely invisible. I'm guessing (hoping) the camera is just more visible in video than it is to the naked eye, but time will tell. If the camera is visible when not in use, I'm worried it will be a constant and awkward annoyance due to its physical location right at the top of, and slightly overlapping(!), the first row of icons on the Home Screen.
The other minor compromise that stands out for me is the lack of a LiDAR sensor. I use my current iPhone 17 Pro to measure the length of things all the time, and without the LiDAR sensor those measurements probably won't be as accurate.
Joy and thoughtfulness
The software for iPhone Duo looks surprisingly polished, and feels more like a mature 2.0 than an initial release for a new form factor. There are so many thoughtful details and nice touches, from the animation when opening and closing the device to the numerous new ways you can use the camera and everything in between. It clearly has more utility than a traditional iPhone, but it also looks like a lot more fun, too.
Camera features like Duo Preview (where you can see what's being captured on the outer display when the device is open) and Duo FaceTime (where people can see multiple camera feeds on a call) are great, but Kid Cue (where Snoopy and friends entertain kids to get their attention) is the one that makes you smile no matter how old you are.
The way Apple implemented split screen with two apps side-by-side feels exactly right. The gestures look intuitive and natural, and it feels right that each app takes up exactly half the display; being able to adjust the split ratio seems too fiddly on a device this size (but take that with a big grain of salt; I have yet to see or handle an iPhone Duo in person).
Some other thoughtful software touches that stand out to me are the new combined battery, signal strength, and connectivity icon and the expansion of Standby mode (which now finally works even when you're not charging). Standby goes beyond just the software, though, given how it interacts with the hinge of the device, with different modes depending on how far iPhone Duo is open and what orientation it's in.
The hinge and the Pencil
I'm really glad Apple is taking full advantage of the hinge at every angle. Tent mode for Standby is great. The tiny book and laptop modes are delightful and look genuinely useful. The fact that you can place the hinge at any angle to act as a stand, get the right camera angle, or hold it in a way that's most comfortable for you is a welcome treat.
Diving deeper into the hardware, I'm shocked iPhone Duo has an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance. I'm also surprised to see Apple Pencil compatibility; Apple seems really confident about the durability of this device in all kinds of wet, dusty, and stabing-the-screen-with-a-Pencil conditions.
Regarding Apple Pencil support, I feel like we don't have the full story yet. Currently, Apple says iPhone Duo is compatible with only the USB-C Apple Pencil which has very few features compared to the Apple Pencil Pro. That's out of necessity; without the magnetic connection hardware, there's no way for the Apple Pencil Pro to pair or charge with iPhone Duo.
But why is Apple Pencil support for iPhone Duo coming later this year? And why weren't there any Apple Pencils at the hands-on event? Even if the feature is coming later this year, why not let at least some of the press use an early beta version?
Here's my wild theory: there's a new Apple Pencil coming in October alongside the rumored OLED iPad mini, and that new Apple Pencil will not just work with the iPhone Duo, but will clearly be the one best suited for it. What I'm hoping for is a slightly smaller (shorter, more pocketable) Apple Pencil with pressure sensitivity that works with some kind of inkwell-like USB-C charging/pairing base.
Wishful thinking? Maybe, but the iPhone Duo Apple Pencil vibes are off. This device would be a killer sketchbook with apps like Linea Sketch and Procreate, or even just Apple's Notes app, but it can only really excel with additional Pencil hardware features like pressure sensitivity. The USB-C Apple Pencil only supports tilt, and while that's better than nothing, but my gut tells me there's another shoe that hasn't dropped yet.
Cases
With the exception of the original iPhone and iPhone 3G, I've almost always used a case with my iPhones, but I don't think I would want a case for the iPhone Duo. There might be some interesting and innovative third-party options, but Apple's cases don't look appealing to me.
The iPhone Duo Folio is the most appealing—especially the way it expands to cover the hinge when closed—but I don't think I want something to cover the outer display. That display has so much utility regardless of the phone being open or closed it seems like a cover would get in the way more often than not. Maybe if your primary use case is tiny laptop mode it makes sense, but it's not for me. I also don't think the kickstand is of much utility given the iPhone Duo can already stand on its own in multiple ways.
The iPhone Duo Case (which could use a better name) looks too bulky, and it doesn't cover or protect the hinge in any way. It sounds like it's made of a lightweight polycarbonate material and will probably be a fine choice for a lot of people, but Ceramic Shield 2 has proven to be pretty amazing, and Apple hasn't exaggerated the durability claims of their devices, so I don't feel a need to add a case for protection.
The main reason I'd want a case on the iPhone Duo is to make it more comfortable to hold, but I don't see a case helping much in that regard. On top of that, the iPhone Duo gives me the strongest "don't put a case on me" vibes I've had since the iPhone 5c.
Unanswered questions
There are, of course, many open questions. How does the display look and feel in person? How will the hinge and display hold up over time? How practical is one-handed use given this slightly-smaller-than-a-passport-when-closed form factor? How long will it take to get used to the volume buttons being on the top?
One big question I had was around battery life, but I'm not too worried after seeing the battery life of the iPhone 18 Pro lineup relative to their battery capacity. It seems like there are significant efficiency gains with the 2nm A20 Pro and C2 modem chips, so I don't think battery life in the iPhone Duo will be anything outside of what Apple claims, and what they claim sounds fine to me. That said, it will be interesting to see how open vs. closed usage impacts battery life, especially when all of those displays are used simultaneously.
Miscellaneous thoughts
I'm really glad they went with the iPhone Duo name and not iPhone Ultra.
$1,999 is an expensive base price, but I thought it would be higher given... waves hands vaguely at everything. If it's as good, fun, and useful as it appears—and if there's more to the Apple Pencil side of things—I think it's actually a decent value if you'll get real utility from the form factor and the additional functionality if provides.
This isn't specific to the iPhone Duo, but I was sad to find out that several of the new pro camera controls in iOS 27 are exclusive to the iPhone 18 Pro lineup. I was really looking forward to being able to lock white balance on my iPhone 17 Pro and the iPhone Duo, but no such luck. I can understand controls that require new hardware being absent, like the new aperture control for the iPhone 18 Pro, but existing devices have the ability to lock white balance as demonstrated by third-party camera apps, so why not give us the option in the built-in Camera app?
Overall I'm far more interested in iPhone Duo than I expected to be. If my theory about the Apple Pencil pans out I'll almost certainly get one. If not, I'll have a lot of thinking to do. In any case, the real decision will be made only after I get one in hand and spend a little time with it. One thing I'll need to keep firmly in mind when that happens: no matter how satisfying the hinge feels, and no matter how satisfying a snap it makes when I close it, it does not make sense to spend two grand on a fidget toy.
But, also, while it's not exactly Penny's computer book—an object I've coveted since I first watched Inspector Gadget decades ago—it's not not that, either, if you know what I mean.
Finally, if I do end up getting an iPhone Duo, I hereby reserve the right to use the title "Don't Mind if I Duo" for a future blog post about it.
If you'd like to see and hear more about iPhone Duo I've found these videos to be especially interesting:
🖼️ CleanShot 5.0
Version 5.0 of CleanShot, my favorite screen capture tool by a mile, has a new studio mode for capturing and editing screen recordings:
The new Studio Mode is all you need to turn a simple screen recording into a polished, professional video - all with the quality you expect from CleanShot.
There's a short teaser video and a longer seven-minute walkthrough that shows some thoughtful attention to detail.
I'm excited about this release, but I'm even more excited to see how they iterate and improve on this over time.