Breaking Change

Positive comments from The Real Reviewers

Lance Ulanoff at TechRadar:

'Satisfying' is the best way to describe the feeling of repeatedly opening and closing the iPhone Duo.

Britta O'Boyle at Tech Advisor:

The paper-like texture makes long reading sessions a pleasure, too.

Chance Miller at 9to5Mac:

Even after a week of using the iPhone Duo, that "wow factor" hasn't worn off.

Lisa Eadicicco at CNN, via KQ2:

The Duo's inner screen is best used when dedicating the whole thing to a single app like Netflix.

Mark Spoonauer at Tom's Guide:

Overall, though, I think the iPhone Duo is the best designed foldable yet with the most polished, intuitive and fun software experience.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball:

For me, by far, it's my favorite tablet experience ever.

Andrew O'Hara at AppleInsider:

The side-aligned dock is very comfortable to use, but it does stick out a bit on unupdated apps.

Stefan Vazharov at Popular Mechanics:

While I wouldn't recommend dropping the iPhone Duo, its extra-tough hinge made me feel more confident.

Nicolas Lellouche at Numerama (English translation from French):

The iPhone Duo is a tremendous success.

David Phelan at AVForums:

This is an unbeatably elegant and appealing phone and is all you could want from a foldable

Max Weinbach at Creative Strategies:

Being forced into just 2 apps means both apps are given better space.

Robert Leedham at British GQ:

The more I use the Duo, the less I want to go back to a normal iPhone.

Sean Keach at The Sun:

Gaming and entertainment are both elevated, and the larger keyboard makes it possible to actually get some work done on it too.

Gut check: what I said about Vision Pro

From Breaking Change v4, 4:45:

What is the Apple Vision Pro? I think it's clearly the future, and I feel even more strongly that way now that it's clearly the future because it is definitely not the present. It is coming in hot. It is not ready for prime time. And it's probably a good thing that Apple isn't going to make a whole lot of these or sell a whole lot of these. It's probably appropriate that they priced it the way that they did to not entice a lot of people to want to buy it right away. It's not to say it's not worth it, it's not to say I'm going to return mine, it's not to say it's bad.

Critical comments from The Real Reviewers

Nilay Patel and Allison Johnson at The Verge:

Switching from the Duo back to one of our standard slab phones to get something done often felt like a relief.

Kenny Yeo at HardwareZone:

The Fold8 is surely the more compact and svelte phone, and it fits pockets more comfortably.

Ben McKimm at Man of Many:

Still, my overarching takeaway after a week is that the Duo is a stunning piece of hardware that I simply need more time with.

Julian Chokkattu at WIRED:

The trackpad works OK, but I could only get it to work after turning on AssistiveTouch in iOS' accessibility settings.

Sam Rutherford at Engadget:

But a lot of apps still need fine-tuning to look their best on Apple's first bendy iPhone.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball, on authentication:

I don't think Apple should have released the Duo before they figured this out.

Jaron Schneider at PetaPixel:

I just don't think it solves any problems the iPad doesn't already address and revives old ones the iPhone long since solved.

Brett Williams at Men's Health:

The foldable display is fun and works well, but I still don't think I'd be missing out if I didn't have it.

Nicolas Lellouche at Numerama (English translation from French):

On the downside, we still found an abnormal number of bugs for a new Apple product.

Munechika Nishida at AV Watch (English translation from Japanese), on multitasking flexibility:

Conversely, those wanting freedom here should choose an Android foldable, rather than the iPhone Duo.

Max Weinbach at Creative Strategies:

iOS feels buggier than normal iOS.

Jason Snell at Six Colors:

Even the apps I chose to place in my Dock were wrong, because the Dock serves a different purpose on the iPhone Duo!

Jason Cross at Macworld, first-day impressions, on the inner camera:

If this is the cost of an under-display camera, I don't want it.

Britta O'Boyle at Macworld, October 24:

The trade-off is reduced contrast, so darker scenes lose some depth, and smudges are easier to spot.

One last palate cleanser

Tiny Computers

As always, send me your takes at [podcast@searls.co] or justin.searls.co/feedback

Unlike Sam Altman, I sat down and did the math by hand to calculate that it
would actually be less time to produce the show if I were to livestream it
than to edit it after the fact and upload it. The fact I recently got upgraded
from 30mbps to 2000mbps upstream might allso have something to do with it:
welcome to the first ever LIVE episode of Breaking Change!

I regret to inform you the episode is now over. You can listen like you always
do or watch what remains of the recording on YouTube.

It was particularly fun for me to build a production pipeline with updating
chyrons, a dynamic salt meter, and on-demand generated stock videos. It's like
having a production team, except it manages to crash halfway thru the stream
without notice.

















As always into the show at podcast@searls.co or via the feedback form.

Stuff we talked about, in order of me talking about them:

The Odyssey

Paseo

Pebble Index 01

Steam Frame

iPhone 18 Pro

Apple Watch Series 12

Apple Watch Live Rewind

iPhone Handoff

iPhone Duo

Aaron's puns, ranked

How AI gutted Kenya's essay-writing industry

Gallup's global AI sentiment survey

Matthew Butterick: Big AI to Humanity: Drop Dead

Jeff Bezos predicts three-day workweeks thanks to AI

ZuckOff

Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses

Meta VR Glasses

New Smash Bros. and Nintendogs games are reportedly in development

BlizzCon's StarCraft announcement

The trailer

World of Warcraft: Forever

Vibe-coded browser ports of games

Maurice Heumann on game decompilation

GameStop's used PS5 Pro listing

Nvidia reportedly discontinuing the RTX 5090

Silicon Valley falls in line with Trump's attempt to rename AI

The executive order

First look at LG and Apple's reported smart-home products

Apple's October 13 launch

The rumored Apple and ADT partnership

Leaked Apple TV 4K, HomeView, and HomePod mini details

Kurzgesagt's AI video

Star Wars Zero Company

The Running Man

For All Mankind

Star City

The Boys, season 5

Omarchy

1Password funds a Linux project and lands in a controversy

Why Google told drivers to take a longer route

Apple Vision Pro

Zach Holman, founder of Signed, joins me for another 🔥Hotfix🔥. Zach wants more of everything. Let's see what we can do about that.

Write into the show at podcast@searls.co.

Show notes:

Zach Holman's site

Signed

Ride the Walrus

Things

Conductor

DHH's AI crashout keynote at Rails World 2026

The summer heat has finally broken here in Shizuoka, and I'm enjoying a cool, wet, and cloudy day huddled around my microphone for warmth. I hope you'll join around my verbal campfire for yet another one of these.

As always, you can e-mail the show at podcast@searls.co. Only a small proportion of listeners will ever write an e-mail, so I now offer a second option: the justin.searls.co/feedback form. People love filling out forms! Go try it out! Check the anonymous checkbox! Hell, enter a fake e-mail address—see if I care!

Stuff we talked about, in order of me talking about them:

A TV commercial for the Famicom Disk System

Also, the animation that played when a Disk Writer kiosk was overwriting your disk with a new game

I am an SS-tier Gundam Designer

Test Double is now on Wikipedia

Aaron's puns, ranked

The End of Programming

Nvidia buys Hugging Face for 💵

AI Agents Are Working Around the Clock. Why Are Startup Founders Working Even Harder? (News+)

OpenAI is developing "Persistent Mode" for Codex (Archive)

Apple and European Commission Reach Agreement on App Payment Terms Under DMA

Apple Cuts Jobs in Siri, Vision Pro Immersive Video and Gaming Teams

Apple unveils M6, M5 Ultra chips and updates its desktop Macs

New Mac Mini and Studio

Surprise and Shine event on 9/9

Apple's Foldable iPhone Details (Archive)

Former Arkane leads say Xbox let them come in and finish Redfall's final major update after being laid off

Your Discs. Now Also Digital.

'This is horrifying' Nvidia's controversial DLSS 5 AI filter leaks and players are inserting it into every game

It's about preserving artistic vision

GTA 6 is a secret cozy game / healthy living simulator

Also with a neat 26-minute trailer.

Spiderman: Brand New Day

Park Hyatt Tokyo (the one from Lost in Translation)

Star Wars Zero Company

Star Wars Galactic Racer

Exit 8 the Game, Exit 8 the movie

We cut our trip a day short, so I found myself with a totally free day with no plans. Naturally, I wasted it by recording a 3-hour podcast. Dang.

I always enjoy shooting the shit with/at you, and if you'd like to be a more active participant in the shit-shooting, then hit me up at podcast@searls.co. Really, I'll be nicer to you than I am to Sam Altman and Tang Tan. I promise.

Back to manually writing links. The zen of monotonous input tasks is suddenly something to be cherished in the current era.

Mandibular Advancement Device

Better With Becky

Why doesn't the U.S. have small elevators like Europe and China? (News+)

My 240hz gaming QD-OLED (and this bizarre Reddit review)

App market share is tough apparently

Aaron's puns, ranked

Apple Upgrade Program

Apple might lojack your phone

They promise not to, though

Apple's MapKit tech will underlie Ford's EV platform

Tim Cook EGOTed (EGOT's origin)

The Information on Apple's Unusual Use of iCloud for Confidential Work (Archive)

OpenAI: Apple is getting this wrong

Google adds selfie as a login mechanism

A Missing Underscore Sent Innocent Man To Prison

GrapheneOS Defends Data-Wiping Function That Blocked US Border Search (Plausible deniability, meanwhile)

YouTuber Hank Green says his AI usage is 'not healthy'

Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

Gas Town was a fucking joke

Ed Zitron seems too sure that markets are rational

Square Enix denies claims its Kingdom Hearts Collection artwork was AI-generated, blames 'human error'

YouTube labels Kurzsegagt AI slop (Real Engineering's reaction video)

OpenAI's Astra Solved Decades-Old Math Problems For $2,000

Xbox's 'disc to digital' feature could be coming as soon as this month

Halo: Campaign Evolved

Jurassic World Rebirth

金曜ロードショー

Chicken Ramen commercials

Lazy Kickers

The Hot Spot

Ohashi Trio

Apple Music

Spotify

Ocarina of Time soundtrack by the Beatuls

The Prime Minister of Japan does not sleep (forgot to actually answer the fucking question, oops)