Reuters and the WSJ on the Duo Launch

Aditya Soni, Christine Chen, and Will Russell, reporting Friday for Reuters:

CEO Ternus played greeter at a store in Austin, Texas, throwing open the doors and high-fiving customers as they streamed in, a video ​posted on X by CBS Austin showed. A known car enthusiast, Ternus’s Austin visit coincides with this weekend’s Formula 1 US Grand Prix in the city, with Apple holding exclusive US broadcast and streaming rights to the racing series.

I was wondering why Ternus and retail chief Deirdre O’Brien were in Austin for the launch. Joz held down the fort and held court at the Fifth Avenue store.

Regarding reviews:

They also said the folded Duo is less handy for the quick tasks most users do daily and several prominent reviewers recommended against it for many Apple customers. “It’s been a lot of fun trying the Duo out for a week, but it feels like I’ve gotten to use an extraordinarily polished prototype — not a finished product that I’d want to buy and carry,” wrote longtime Apple commentator John Gruber. Tech commentator Marques Brownlee said in a YouTube ​review that for a regular person who mostly texts and browses, “it is probably a no. But if the $2,000 doesn’t mean much to you, and you like the idea, after the learning ​curve and getting used to not having facial identification, it is a really fun phone.” In Berlin, YouTube content creator Patrick Wolter was impressed that the Duo works as a phone and an iPad in one.

Not sure Wolter set a high bar there.

Reporting for the WSJ (gift link), Rolfe Winkler quoted yours truly as well, with (IMO, and I feel I get to have an opinion here) a better line from my review:

“The outer device is, by far, the worst iPhone Apple has ever made. It’s a miserable fat little thing. The inner device is a splendid, joyful, beautiful tablet,” wrote John Gruber, a well-known Apple blogger, in his review. “The decision of whether you might want to buy a Duo is not easy, because only one of its two selves is good.”

Link: reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/apple-bets-iphone-duo…