Tag: iPod

A one-minute stand with the new iPhone Duo

Holding the unfolded iPhone Duo at the Penn Square Apple Store.

The sight of the new iPhone Duo on display this past weekend at the Penn Square Apple Store brought out the Navin Johnson in me. I wanted to shout ‘The new iPhone Duo is here! The new iPhone Duo is here!”

But the store was swarming with customers and I didn’t want to out myself as the ultimate Apple Fanboy that I am. So I calmly walked over to a display table and picked up an iPhone Duo for the very first time.

No one could tell by my stern expression that I was bubbling with excitement.

Because it’s a folding phone, the Duo fit right into the palm of my trembling hand, showcasing apps on a bright home screen. Its size when folded is 3.31 inches wide and 4.64 deep, with display size of 5.4 inches.

The magic happened when I unfolded the Duo into its full 7.6-inch display size. There was a slight blur, and when fully opened the right side of the inside screen looked exactly like the front screen. There was an entirely different set of apps on the left side.

I was curious about what kind of crease there would be down the middle because of the fold, but didn’t really notice it.

Of course, I realize that Apple is not first to the folding phone.  Android users have had that pleasure for a number of years.  But I’m not an Android user, and the iPhone Duo is Apple’s biggest design innovation since the original iPhone launched in 2007.

This is not an actual product review like that of The New Things  from Joanna Stern or Jason Snell with Six Colors, but I did get to play with the device for a couple of minutes. 

Here’s what I noted. When I clicked on an Apple News story, it displayed text and photo across the entire width of the unfolded phone. The text was super easy to read.

I also clicked on a sample photo in the Photos app, and it displayed incredibly bright and sharp.

Finally, I clicked on the Weather app — hey, I’m a weather nerd, too — and viewed the weather forecast in a full screen display. OK, maybe it wasn’t any different than what I could see on my own regular iPhone, but it seemed to present important weather stats I needed to know at a single glance without having to scroll.

With that, I folded the phone back to its perfect-for-the-palm-of-your-hand size and put it back on its display holder.

Yes, I’m lusting after a tiny piece of technology that I likely will never actually carry in my pocket. Why? Well, the price.

Oh, the price.

The basic iPhone Duo is priced at $1,999, definitely out of my retired newspaper guy budget. So, I reluctantly walked away.

 

A look at the crowd browsing the Apple Store at Penn Square Mall this past weekend.

I did see several of my fellow shoppers actually making iPhone Duo purchases. In fact, the store was so crowded with curious browsers on this first weekend the phone was on display that Apple had two OKC police officers acting as security.

Not-so-bold prediction: The iPhone Duo will be a massive hit for Apple, despite its massive price tag. It will be a bigger seller than even Navin Johnson’s Optigrab eyeglasses holder was.

If you know, you know.

BONUS CONTENT: I learned about a cool ‘Easter Egg’ Apple planted on its Apple Music website. Click on the Apple Music ‘page not found’ page and you will see a replica of the first generation iPod (copy and paste this url: https://music.apple.com/us/jfdsalkfavsd). Though emulation software, the original iPod actually scrolls and plays music from more than 1,000 songs from the late-1990s early 2000s era in which it was release. Such a cool feature. More on the original iPod from Six Colors.

DOUBLE BONUS CONTENT:  The Apple Store had a class on the new iOS 27 under way while I was visiting, so I sat in for about 10 minutes and learned some photo editing techniques of which I was previously unaware. #winning

 

Technology evolves, but Paul McCartney — and his music — live on

A turntable console with reel-to-reel tape much like my parents had in the 1960s.

When the Paul-is-Dead rumors began floating around in the late 1960s, I was devastated. There was evidence everywhere that Paul McCartney had died in a car crash and The Beatles went on with a look-alike substitute.

I was 16 in 1969 and read — and clipped — every article I could find that shared evidence of Paul’s demise. For instance, there was the hand over Paul’s head on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club album that symbolized death. And the whole cover resembled a funeral gathering.

There was more. Paul was dressed as a walrus on the Magical Mystery Tour poster, said to symbolize death, and a line from the song Glass Onion says “here’s another clue for you all, the walrus was Paul.”

But the clue that sealed it for me was the rumor that if you played Revolution 9 backward you could hear the words “turn me on dead man” and the sounds of a car crash.

My family owned a giant stereo console that had both a turntable and a reel-to-reel tape player. So, I played Revolution 9 from the White Album on the turntable and recorded it on the reel-to-reel.

When I turned the tape backward and played it I heard those terrifying words. “Turn me on dead man.”  And the sounds of what could be a car crash.

That clinched it for me, at least for the next couple of years until it became evident to me that Paul McCartney was indeed, Paul McCartney.

I’ve written all of this not to show how gullible I was as a teenager; rather to talk about technology and what we had then and what we have today.

In the late 1960s, our family had the latest and greatest in the giant console with the turntable and the reel-to-reel.

That’s how we rolled in 1969.

Vinyl records, both 33 rpm long play albums and 45 rpm discs that played a single song each on front and back, were as common then as, well, iPhones today.

Everyone I knew had a record player or two in their homes. My sister and I had a little portable record player that we would take out into the carport and play our favorite singles on.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I took all the money I had saved up and bought a portable stereo turntable at Kmart that served me well for years.

But advances in technology made turntables obsolete in the early 1970s as 8-track tape players became everyone’s obsession. I installed a cheap Kraco 8-track in my car, which seemed to ruin as many tapes as it successfully played.

Then came cassette tape players that were much smaller — and dependable — than 8 tracks.  But analog taped recordings didn’t have much of a future, because they gave way to CDs — compact discs — in the 1980s.

I remember the frustration of my dad in the ’80s when he had to buy a CD player because it had become the technology on which most music was recorded and played.

“They keep changing the formats just so we will have to spend money to buy something new,” he told me.

But time advanced as did technology.

MP3 players began to emerge in the late 1990s replacing CDs and making music much more portable. And in 2001, Apple Inc. debuted the groundbreaking iPod, which CEO Steve Jobs famously said allowed you to carry “1,000 songs in your pocket.”

So, here we are in 2025.

Today we have massive music services like the iTunes Store and Spotify that allow us to hear virtually any song ever recorded at any time.

And technology advances continue to make yesterday’s formats obsolete.  The old console turntable and reel-to-reel tape player my parents owned was probably sent to a landfill decades ago.

But some things remain. The memories of chasing down Paul-is-Dead clues on that big old console.  Hearing my dad — who passed on in 2012 — complain about changing technology.

And Paul McCartney — the real Paul McCartney — endures. As of July 7, 2025, he’s as alive as he was in 1969.  I continue to listen to his music, but now in a digital format that reaches my ears through a pair of AirPods Pro 2.

That’s how we roll in 2025.

BONUS CONTENT
So, what’s next in how music is recorded and enjoyed? I’ve read a lot about how future music will be made by artificial intelligence, but what I’ve heard of it so far lacks the creativity of human song writers and performers. I’ll take humans any day.

I asked ChatGPT what it sees for the future of music, and this is how it answered:

1. AI and Generative Music

  • AI tools can now compose, produce, and even perform.
  • Personalized or adaptive soundtracks for games, workouts, moods.

2. Immersive & Spatial Audio

  • Formats like Dolby Atmos Music and 360 Reality Audio offer 3D sound experiences.
  • Becoming popular in streaming and VR/AR contexts.

3. Blockchain & NFTs

  • Exploring decentralized ownership, royalty tracking, and digital collectibles.

4. Holographic & Virtual Performances

  • Digital twins of artists (dead or alive) performing live.
  • Integration into virtual worlds and the metaverse.

5. Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI)

  • Experimental: Listening to or composing music via brainwaves.
  • Potential for direct neural engagement with music.