We Got Our Hands on Apple’s First Foldable Phone

[00:00:03] Welcome to WSJ Tech News Briefing. It's Friday, September 11th. I'm Imani Moise for The Wall Street Journal. The iPhone just got its biggest makeover since it launched almost two decades ago. And it comes with a nearly $2,000 price tag. Our personal tech columnist got her hands on the latest model. Then, are we starting to run out of space? In space? The rising volume of satellites and debris in low Earth orbit has some worried about collisions.

[00:00:31] We're taking a look at whether all those satellites can peacefully coexist. But first, foldable phones aren't new. Samsung released its first Galaxy Fold in 2019. But they haven't exactly gone mainstream yet. And according to research firm IDC, shipments of foldables actually fell 15% in the first half of this year.

[00:00:55] Apple is hoping it can change that. On Wednesday, the tech giant revealed the newest iPhone in its lineup, the Duo. The device will cost a whopping $1,999 and start shipping on October 23rd. But our personal tech columnist, Nicole Nguyen, got an early look this week during the Duo's unveiling at Apple Park. We hopped on a call to get her first impressions of Apple's first foldable phone. So, Nicole, you actually got to try out the iPhone Duo. What did you think?

[00:01:24] When I picked it up, my first thought was, whoa, this thing is really big. I definitely have hands that are on the smaller side. But I think phones in general have just gotten too big in recent years. And this is a lot of phone. And not only is it a tablet when you expand it and open it like a book. It's 7.6 inches, which is just, it's less than an inch shorter than an iPad mini.

[00:01:52] So it is definitely tablet sized. When it's closed and it's in a normal phone form factor, it's squatter and it's wider. And so my tiny little hands are trying to reach across the screen to type and to scroll. And I feel like I would have gotten carpal tunnel if I had to use this thing for another hour. I can relate to that. I am a fellow small hands girly still holding on to my iPhone 13 mini. But it sounds like it's quite an adjustment to use this foldable phone.

[00:02:20] You're going to have to learn a lot of different new ways to use this device. I'd say that in open mode, when you're using that main big screen, it's very similar to using an iPad from several years ago. So you can have two apps running side by side and you swipe up on the app and drag it to these hot spots that automatically snap that app to one half of the screen.

[00:02:45] But it also has an interface that changes in very new and interesting ways. You can actually prop it up into this little laptop mode and type on a notes doc or word processor or watch Netflix and it can be its own kickstand. Or you can flip it over into sort of a tent mode and watch videos on the outside.

[00:03:06] And no matter how you twist and turn it, it just reorients itself automatically in the way you need to view the content depending on how you're holding it, which I think is the most interesting dynamic of the phone. And I could definitely see myself maybe one day in the future when the price tag isn't $1,999 getting a combo device that's both my main phone and this kind of like leisure content watching machine.

[00:03:36] So besides binge watching, which is a very, very good use case, when you actually open it up, what does the bigger screen let you do that you can't comfortably do on a regular iPhone? I think multitasking is the biggest difference. I'd say 90% of my workflow is like a word processor on one side and then something else on the other side. Maybe it's Slack, maybe it's a web page, but I'm usually just looking at two windows side by side.

[00:04:03] You can definitely do that on the iPhone Duo. And so for people who are mobile jet setters, maybe they don't have an office, they're on the road. I could definitely see them being drawn to this foldable form factor as like a little mobile office. At just under $2,000, this phone costs more than some MacBooks. Is it worth it? What are you getting for your money? This is the most expensive iPhone in iPhone history.

[00:04:33] And I need to spend more time with the device in order to make a full recommendation. But from an hour or so with it, there are a lot of things working against it. One, $2,000 is a lot of money. You can get an iPad and an iPhone and have both of those devices for probably less than that. You know, a MacBook Neo, which is like a full-blown laptop, costs hundreds of dollars and this costs thousands of dollars.

[00:05:02] It's also a first-generation Apple product. And typically, first-generation Apple products are interesting and exciting for early adopters. But Apple really takes those first couple of years to listen to feedback and refine the product. And I find that the sweet spot is really like that third or fourth generation for Apple. And it's also really big and heavy. I think that the phone, when closed, is impressively small. It's about the size of a passport.

[00:05:31] I tucked it into my pocket and it fit in just fine. But I think that as the technology evolves and advances, it's going to become lighter, maybe smaller. Maybe we'll get a flip version like an old-school Motorola Razr, which is what I'm hoping. And also there will be less trade-offs. Like right now, there are only two cameras. It's missing the telephoto Zoom camera that's in the Pro phones.

[00:05:54] And so if you love to take pictures and you love to use Zoom, which like a lot of people have the Pro camera for that Zoom, then you're going to really miss that in this Duo that costs $800 more than a Pro. That was WSJ personal tech columnist Nicole Nguyen. Will you buy Apple's new foldable phone? What's the most you would spend on a new device? If you're a listener on Spotify, leave us a comment with your thoughts.

[00:06:22] Coming up, who controls traffic hundreds of miles above the Earth? That's after the break. There's only so much space, even in space. And as companies launch satellites at a record pace, some are ringing alarm bells about potential traffic jams. And while collisions are rare, unlike a fender bender on the interstate,

[00:06:52] a crash in space could create thousands of pieces of debris that are much harder to clean up. And each piece of debris is capable of hitting something else. WSJ space reporter Micah Maidenberg joins us now to explain how companies are managing traffic in space and why it matters for us Earthlings. So Micah, can you paint a picture for us? What does traffic in space actually look like? Maybe the way to start is just thinking about where are we in space?

[00:07:20] We're in low Earth orbit, so relatively close to the planet. There are other satellites that are stationed much further away. Those have different uses. But a lot of companies want to be near Earth because you get better performance. It's a little easier to launch there. One of the big kind of debates right now is how much more can be put into low Earth orbit given the dramatic increase in debris and active satellites in parts of rockets that are already up there.

[00:07:49] I was talking to a satellite company executive who said, look at airspace, the number of planes that fly in and out of really busy airports and often very tight flight corridors, one plane after another, and do so safely every single day. You have even more room and space, so it's a matter of making sure everybody's coordinated as opposed to like the pure numbers. So that's one view of what's happening up there.

[00:08:16] Another view is that we're already past the point of being able to operate safely and collision risks have never been higher, and those would be bad if they happen. Are all the satellites that are up there operational? Most of them are active satellites, but there are some non-active satellites as well, defunct ones. Satellite operators have plans to decommission satellites and get them out of low Earth orbit once their lives are over, so to speak.

[00:08:45] SpaceX has done a lot of work on this with Starlink as the biggest satellite operator to try to keep low Earth orbit sustainable. It has its critics about how it's operating and what kind of space it's taking up around the planet, but what I've heard from them over the years is that there's plenty of space in space, and it's just a matter of coordinating to make sure everybody has their slot and can use it safely and not interfere with others.

[00:09:13] Who's responsible for managing all this traffic? Right now, there's global coordination around spectrum usage, which is extremely important for satellites. That happens at the UN. Beyond that, there's a patchwork of sort of national regulation that governs how different companies or entities operate in low Earth orbit. There's also, in the space industry, just sort of norms of behavior that are often followed and that many people try to promote.

[00:09:42] There is limited sort of global legal structures, if you will, to sort of answer that question. So how does a satellite know when something is getting too close? And how does it get decided which one moves out the way? Different satellites have different kinds of anti-collision systems. The biggest or the most important one in low Earth orbit is the systems that are installed on Starlink satellites.

[00:10:11] All of those satellites are maneuverable. Not every satellite in low Earth orbit can move around once it's on its orbital path, but Starlink satellites can shift positions to try to avoid potential collisions. Why should the everyday person care about what's happening in low Earth orbit? This part of space is really valuable. Low Earth orbit is, in a certain kind of way, like a commons that lots of nations and researchers and companies

[00:10:38] would like to have access to and use it for business, for internet, for science, for human activities near the planet in space. And if that environment is not accessible or gets messed up somehow, those things get more complex or could potentially even go away. I'm not predicting that, but a low Earth orbit that was not usable or was a mess would cut people through, you know, government agencies

[00:11:08] or potentially companies off from an important part of space. That was WSJ reporter Micah Maidenberg. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. If you're a listener on Spotify, be sure to leave us a comment. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang. I'm your host, Imani Moise. Additional support this week from Melanie Roy. Jessica Fenton and Michael LaValle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Katie Ferguson. Our development producer is Aisha Al-Muslim.

[00:11:36] Chris Zinsley is a deputy editor of audio for The Wall Street Journal. And Lee Talmalad is our senior director of shows. We'll be back later this morning with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.