HilliTech’s Newsletter: More time with Duo
It’s been an interesting week plus with the iPhone Duo, and my detailed review reflects that. If you haven’t read it yet, please check it out.
Wesley Hilliard
I’m glad that I was able to spend Halloween with this camera system before doing my more in-depth analysis of the cameras. My broad conclusions remain accurate though: iPhone Duo is a good iPhone camera and only falls down in certain situations.
Low light photography is more tricky than what’s available on pro phones, for example. But, some aspects are better than other premium iPhones.
Here are a few more example photos captured on iPhone Duo.
Kid Cue has been a godsend. I obviously won't be sharing photos of the kids in my life of course, but it really works. People are worried about their eyes not being directly on the camera, but believe me, this isn't an issue. The alternative is having them face away completely.
The Duo Preview feature has also been incredibly handy. I have never liked asking other people to take my photo for me, as there's this weird unspoken rule among camera novices that you have to stand far away and include the people's feet. It's just silly.
I'm quite excited to continue to use and test the iPhone Duo in my day-to-day life. It's something wholly new and unique from Apple, which is rare.
Apple's other new products
I don't necessarily care that MacBook Pros have touch screens now. I wish more people in tech could just say "It's not for me" and move on. I don't feel like I need to be performative here or make up why this is good or bad. It makes sense for what people expect in modern laptops, it's that simple.
Yes, it's in a $4,000 computer today, but it'll ultimately roll down into the cheapest MacBook Neo over the next decade. macOS will no doubt see more touch-friendly gestures and animations, but it won't become a hybrid system like Windows tried to pull off.
Ultimately, it's a nothingburger compared to the rest of the updates in the MacBook Pro, like OLED display, camera cutout with Dynamic Island, and the powerful chipsets. Touch is basically an afterthought.
I do like that the glowing logo is back.
Nothing here will convince me to use a MacBook again. I'm all in on iPad, and if anything, I'll be looking at Apple's foldable lineup going forward alongside spatial computing developments. I love working from my iPad Pro, though it'll be interesting to see where the iPhone Duo might go in the future.
I don't need an iPad mini either.
What I'd love to see in the future is a single device that could act as my iPhone and iPad, like iPhone Duo today, but plug into an external monitor, mouse, and keyboard and handle my iPad Pro tasks too. A true naked robotic core that can just do it all.
Perhaps such a device could never or should never exist, but something about it is enticing. There's a chance Apple could go that direction with the Duo line, but perhaps it would be too compromised. Time will tell what Apple does here.
Then there's spatial computing. I expect we're still a decade away from it becoming more than what it is today. It feels like it is what is next, but the technology stack behind it just isn't there yet. Apple Vision Pro is an amazing device that I still enjoy using, but I can acknowledge that Apple's pause in the category is disappointing. Meta has also soured the category, which doesn't help.
I've bought what I want from Apple for the year already. iPhone Duo was the start, but HomeView will arrive soon enough. I'm excited to discuss that new product and the Apple TV very soon.
Until then, more iPhone Duo testing and some Legend of Zelda.
