iPhone Duo Reviews, John Ternus Interview, and the Four Horsemen

0:00 This is Top 5 Tech, my weekly show about what to watch, listen to, download, read, and something deep every week. It is iPhone Duo week and we'll get to that in a moment, but I did want to highlight this interview with John Ternes, Apple's new CEO with Time Magazine. It's a quick nine minute interview, but it's nice to hear John Ternes, who has been at Apple for over 20 years, talk about his relationship to the hardware and design teams, his vision for the future of Apple with the iPhone Duo, and what else is coming down the road.

0:26 So it was a really fun interview. Highly recommend that. And there's a bunch of great iPhone Duo review videos out there. I'm going to have my own impression videos on my YouTube channel, but I do want to highlight Brian Tongs. He was very thorough about what it's like to use iPhone Duo on a regular basis, especially when it comes to the camera, using the selfie camera, touch ID over face ID. I thought it was a really nuanced take. He was excited about the things that are fun, like having a folding iPhone, but there's a lot of real world implications to things like no more face ID, how do you take a selfie when it's open, and you have this awkward claw grip. So I really appreciated his review. Highly recommend.

1:00 On what to listen to, I'm going to be a little self-serving here, but I really loved being on the Verge cast for my second time and David Pierce talked to me about Vive coding apps and kind of the mini app catalog that I have on my website, using Cloud to do it. Why? What does it look like in the future? Why do content creators seem to be going this direction of making their own apps and software? And might everyone be doing this in five to 10 years? So you can watch it on YouTube, but I'll link the Apple podcast version down in the show notes.

1:25 On what to read, two picks, both iPhone Duo related. If you want to read a review, I highly recommend Chance Miller. I've met him multiple times at WWDC, editor-in-chief of 9to5Mac, and he had a great take on the iPhone Duo. I think a little more optimistic than maybe some of the video reviews that you saw on YouTube, but a very nuanced take, very thorough, and he used it for an entire week, and he has great thoughts on what it means.

1:47 So I would recommend Chance's article, and if you're worried about the iPhone Duo camera as far as its quality, I'll link Austin Mann's review. He reviews all the iPhone cameras. He was actually a special guest talking about the iPhone 18 pro camera on one of my shows. I actually can't remember in this moment, but you can read his review of the iPhone duo, see some of the incredible photos he took with the iPhone duo camera. Yes, you lose the telephoto lens. And yes, it is not as good quality as the 18 pro camera, but it is still a very good camera.

2:15 It is actually a unique sensor. It's not the same sensor as the 17 E or the 17. This is a different camera sensor specifically for the iPhone duo. And it does an admirable job and Austin man really shows it off. And once I download I released a new app earlier this week. If you're in the app, and you want just a nice looking, easy way to control your Apple Home devices, including multiple views of live cameras, maybe put your thermostat, clock, all on an iPad app, kind of getting ready for the Home View coming next month, you can download my app HomePad.

2:45 It's totally free for your iPad. Just connect it to your Apple Home, and then you can create dashboards with multiple cameras, widgets, scenes, control your devices. I thought it'd be fun, and there's just a bunch of app updates across all my little apps at beardfm.app, link down in the show notes. something deep during our primary technology episode, we were talking about Walmart and how it's opening up to AI agents for shopping. So you can just tell Muse or whatever AI agent to shop for something at Walmart, and even purchase things for you. Walmart's actually going to separate your agent purchases from your actual human purchases. And it's really interesting to see how Walmart is competing with Amazon, especially in this age of genetic

3:22 shopping and agents doing more things for you. And I was reminded of this talk by Scott Galloway. This is over 11 years old, but he talks about the 4 horsemen, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook. Of course, now that's meta. But in it, he actually talks about what he expects to see from each brand in the next 10 years. And well, we're there now, 11 years later, and it is remarkable how many things he was correct about. One of the things being that Amazon would need to buy a brick and mortar line of stores or have some kind of physical presence. And guess what? Amazon purchased Whole Foods years after this talk. So if you've never seen this, I highly recommend. He actually did it. But this talk I think is really fascinating, especially now 11 years later to see how many

4:04 things he called and is actually still coming to fruition. And now Walmart being in this conversation with Amazon, I just recommend watching it. And that's it for this week. Again, I have lots of iPhone duo coverage on my YouTube channel and in my podcast. So you can follow me on all those platforms. But if you're listening to this, thank you leave a five star rating and review an Apple podcast if you haven't yet. And you can get this in a newsletter format with all the links and a little more commentary every Friday.

4:26 So you can just click them there and get it delivered right to your inbox. You can scan this QR code or click the "Get the Newsletter" link down in the show notes and all the videos and articles that I talked about are also down there. Thanks so much for listening and watching. I'll catch you next time.