{"id":23648,"date":"2026-09-15T16:47:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T15:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/?p=23648"},"modified":"2026-09-15T17:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T16:07:15","slug":"why-did-the-iphone-duo-look-so-dim-at-the-emmys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/15\/why-did-the-iphone-duo-look-so-dim-at-the-emmys\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did the iPhone Duo Look So Dim at the Emmys?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s something slightly odd about the iPhone Duo footage from the Emmys<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Apple\u2019s new CEO pulled the unreleased iPhone Duo<\/a> out of his jacket pocket and opened it up for the waiting press, the display looked\u2026 surprising<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

And before anyone starts writing the obituary for Apple\u2019s first foldable<\/a>, there\u2019s a pretty obvious explanation: the brightness may simply have been turned way down<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The footage was shot under a wall of bright red-carpet lighting, with cameras and photographers pointing directly at Ternus and the phone. That is about as hostile<\/em> a viewing environment as you could invent for a screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apple says both the inner and outer displays can reach up to 3,000 nits of peak outdoor brightness<\/strong>, so what we\u2019re seeing in the Emmy footage clearly isn\u2019t representative of the panel\u2019s maximum capability. (Apple<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could simply be that he had the brightness manually reduced, or that the camera exposure is making the display look considerably worse than it did in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there\u2019s another possibility: the nano-texture display is doing exactly<\/em> what Apple designed it to do.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inner display uses a special nano-texture finish intended to reduce glare and reflections. Under normal conditions, that\u2019s potentially a huge advantage. Under a barrage of television lights, however, it makes for a rather unusual-looking screen on camera. (Apple<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, people watching the footage have already noticed the same thing. Some have suggested the screen was simply running at a low brightness, while others have pointed towards the intense lighting surrounding the red carpet. (Reddit<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally, I\u2019m leaning towards a combination of the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve already seen the Duo<\/a> looking bright and vibrant in Apple\u2019s own material and hands-on footage. The Emmy clip<\/a> is a very specific snapshot of an unreleased phone being casually demonstrated in probably one of the worst possible lighting environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Apple<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So no, I don\u2019t think this is evidence that the iPhone Duo<\/a> has a dim display<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anything, it\u2019s a reminder that a phone designed to deal with reflections is going to look very different when you point a television camera at it under a sea of studio-grade lights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Still, Ternus casually opening an unreleased $1,999 foldable iPhone on the red carpet<\/a> remains one hell of a product demo.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two weeks into the job<\/a> and the man is seemingly already enjoying the executive perks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s something slightly odd about the iPhone Duo footage from the Emmys. When Apple\u2019s new CEO pulled the unreleased iPhone Duo out of his jacket pocket and opened it up for the waiting press, the display looked\u2026 surprising.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2786,174,16],"tags":[3672,4,3751,2483,3741,3581,3537,3752,3713,3743],"class_list":["post-23648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple-blog","category-blog","category-iphone","tag-3672","tag-apple","tag-brightness","tag-display","tag-emmys","tag-iphone-duo","tag-john-ternus","tag-lighting","tag-nano-texture-2","tag-red-carpet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23648"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23655,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23648\/revisions\/23655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}