The reviews of Apple’s foldable iPhone are in...
October 23, 2026
Shaken, not stirred. According to Deadline, the race to be the next James Bond is down to four actors: Jack Lowden (Slow Horses guy), Callum Turner (Dua Lipa’s husband), Josh O’Connor (wore plaid shorts in Challengers), and a mystery fourth person.
We’re pretty sure we know the mystery actor. Good luck, gents.
—Molly Liebergall, Sam Klebanov, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Adam Epstein, Holly Van Leuven, Neal Freyman
In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:
- The iPhone Duo reviews
- NYC’s horse-drawn carriage ban
- Data centers powering a boom in...gray paint
Markets
- Markets: Stocks did an impression of Snooki looking for the beach and got hammered yesterday, as renewed worries about AI overspending dragged down the tech-heavy Nasdaq. Elsewhere, Moderna plunged after the results of its cancer vaccine study reportedly leaked on social media.
UNBOXING DAY
Reviews are in: iPhone Duo mostly good, kinda odd
Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images
Based on early reactions, Apple’s first foldable phone, released in limited supply today, seems like your initial attempt at a new recipe: exciting, fit for consumption, but not totally satisfying.
The $1,999 Duo is being called “one of Apple’s messiest first-generation products in a long time,” per The Verge (which gave it a 7/10); the “most interesting iPhone since the first one,” per Mashable; and an expensive, inconvenient “freaky little thing” that the Strategist’s reviewer still loved.
According to tech critics…
Display and battery life are standouts
The crease: Foldable phones usually have an annoying center wrinkle, but the Duo looks like a Botoxed forehead (though mere weeks of use could change that). Its crease is borderline invisible because of a matte-finish inner screen that reduces glare, making reading “a delight,” per CNET, which gave the device an 8.7/10.
The juice: The Duo often had 30%–40% of charge left by bedtime. It also outperformed its competitors—the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Pixel 11 Pro Fold—in CNET’s 45-minute stress test of streaming, scrolling, and other activities.
Other good stuff: Split-screen multitasking is reportedly easy. Wired said the phone is “a viable emergency workstation” when paired with a portable keyboard, and the camera is almost as good as that of the iPhone 18 Pro—though there’s no telephoto camera for extra-sharp zooms.
What weighs the Duo down
For starters, its weight. Apple’s bouncing baby phone is 254 grams—slightly more than the iPhone 18 Pro Max and about a golf ball heavier than the Galaxy Z Fold 8. It can tip over when attached to MagSafe Stands unfolded.
Other cons: It lacks Face ID, it can get physically hot, the front screen is too small to comfortably doomscroll (which could also be considered a positive), and it has some newbie quirks (e.g., MagSafe wallets hang over the phone’s edge).
But the biggest issue of all: Many apps appear with black bars because they’re not yet optimized for the Duo, so some reviewers recommend waiting to buy it. Amid tight supply, you may not have a choice.—ML
World
Tour de headlines
Adam Gray/Getty Images
💸 Musk reportedly invested $1 billion in Skydance. Either Elon is looking to make a deal with the new Hollywood conglomerate, or he just really likes the Transformers franchise. The billionaire injected ~$1 billion into Skydance—the company formed from the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery—as it seeks to cut costs, Semafor reported. The outlet speculated that it could be the prelude to a bigger partnership between Skydance and Musk’s Starlink satellite network. The investment is arguably a bit of circular financing: Skydance owner Larry Ellison previously helped Musk finance the acquisition of Twitter, and later funded the creation of Skydance in part with Tesla stock.—AE
🏛️ Dept. of Homeland Security referred Corey Lewandowski criminal probe to Justice Dept. The investigation into Lewandowski, a former special government employee who worked closely with former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, is said to center on whether he profited from his role. The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office had been investigating whether contract misconduct occurred while Noem and Lewandowski worked there. Yesterday, President Trump said that he did not know the details of the probe but, “I view if people are not honest, they’re stealing from me, as president.”—HVL
🤖 Report: Unauthorized AI agents are accessing bank accounts. Robbers carrying burlap sacks with giant dollar signs on them aren’t the only intruders that banks have to worry about. According to Axios, unvetted third-party AI bots are running rampant on customers’ accounts—sometimes taking actions that aren’t necessarily part of the user’s instructions. Major banks including JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America are reportedly racing to restrict AI agents, which they say pose significant security risks even when users grant them access. In some cases, banks can’t tell the difference between a human user and an AI assistant. Still, because AI agents are increasingly popular, banks are moving toward a middle ground of allowing them read-only access, Axios reported.—AE
HOLD YOUR HORSES
NYC bans horse-drawn carriages after 160 years
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Seeing horses in Central Park will soon mean you’re probably watching Home Alone 2. The New York City Council voted yesterday to ban hired horse-drawn carriages in the city by June 2028, ending the 160-year tourist tradition.
Tragedy inspired the measure: The law instituting the ban is named after Romanch Mahajan, an 18-year-old tourist who died in Central Park this spring after falling from a carriage drawn by an uncontrollably galloping horse. It comes after years of advocacy by animal rights activists, who argued that the horses are overworked and stressed by the hectic urban environment, endangering humans.
Not just horses out of work
The union representing 200 carriage industry workers said it will sue the city over the ban, noting that Mahajan’s tragic death was the first fatality involving a Central Park horse:
- Drivers say it decimates their livelihoods and annuls the value of the city-issued carriage medallion permits, which reportedly trade for as much as $400,000 on the secondary market.
- Coachmen also worry about what to do with the horses, as the bill forbids their sale for slaughter or carriage work elsewhere.
Looking ahead: The city said it will come up with a plan to help carriage workers switch careers and explore ways to compensate medallion owners.—SK
50 SHADES OF GRAY
Paint makers are benefiting from the AI boom
Niv Bavarsky
If you thought gray paint had its moment in millennials’ dream kitchens, there’s a new connoisseur of the muted paint swatches: data centers. Driven by the massive compounds’ breakneck construction pace, paint manufacturers PPG and Sherwin-Williams have seen a boom in gray industrial coating sales.
It’s less about the color, and more about what that paint can do. For example, PPG’s chemists have developed data center packages that include paint to protect steel from fire, rust-proof primers, and floor coatings that prevent static electricity from jumping around to machines, the New York Times reports. And hyperscalers are snapping it up:
- PPG’s net sales grew 7% year over year to $4.5 billion in the most recent quarter. The company expects data center paint sales to triple this year compared with last.
- Sherwin-Williams had similar growth in its performance coatings arm, with sales jumping more than 6% during its last two consecutive quarters.
Boring things are getting an AI boost. Paint costs can run anywhere from $3 million to $8 million for a single building in a data center. Manufacturers of gravel, asphalt, and cables are also making big sales to data centers.—MM
Dave’s sports desk
Buck and Aikman are heading for a breakup
Bryan Bennett/Getty Images
On Fridays, the Brew’s Dave Lozo looks at a sports business story that says a lot more than just the final score of a game.
Joe Buck and Troy Aikman have been together longer than most couples—almost 25 years. But now, the Monday Night Football broadcasters are in the midst of a messy, reportedly almost violent divorce.
That’s wrong, Joe: The acrimony stems from ESPN and Buck reportedly agreeing to a six-year, $108 million deal a month ago for the play-by-play announcer to continue saying “it depends on the spot.” Meanwhile, Aikman has reportedly said the network doesn’t want to renew his contract after this season. Buck doing his deal without Aikman likely has the former quarterback feeling betrayed.
The other issue is reportedly money. Fox is said to be paying Tom Brady $37.5 million a year to do the same job as Aikman, who wants ~$30 million a year to make potentially millions of comparisons of equality on air. ESPN balked at that price, according to Puck.
Speculated potential replacements include Fox’s Greg Olsen, Amazon/ESPN’s noted dog owner Kirk Herbstreit, Rams coach Sean McVay (if he retires), and the ubiquitous Pat McAfee, who has mercifully rejected it as a possibility.—DL
Quiz
Friday news quiz
The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to not getting a single piece of political mail on any given October day before the midterms.
It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.
News
What else is brewing
- President Trump must sit for a deposition in his $10 billion defamation case against the BBC by Dec. 11, a federal judge ordered yesterday.
- France reported the first known human case of the Shamonda livestock virus after a patient died. Authorities said there is currently no risk to the public.
- David’s Bridal plans to spin off its AI platform, Pearl, into a standalone publicly traded company, CNBC reported.
- Nearly all coral reef ecosystems could collapse within the next 50 years, mostly due to warming oceans, according to a new report.
- J.J. Watt was officially named the lead NFL game analyst for CBS Sports, replacing Tony Romo, who was placed on leave after being arrested for suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
- The new Atlanta Falcons logo is being criticized on social media for resembling Nazi imagery.
recs
Play
Decipher: This edition of our code-cracking puzzle asks you to unscramble a quote from a horror movie franchise. Play Decipher here.
Friday puzzle
What does the following list represent?
China - 14
Russia - 14
France - 11
Brazil - 10
Germany - 9
DR Congo - 9
Austria - 8
Serbia - 8
Turkey - 8
Poland - 7
Iran - 7
Answer
The number of countries that each borders
(Source)
Word of the Day
Today’s Word of the Day is: ubiquitous, meaning “found everywhere at the same time, or seeming to be in all places at once.” Thanks to Samantha from Holmdel, NJ, and many others for the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.
