Linked List: September 18, 2026

Friday, 18 September 2026

Just Me or Does This Argument Not Add Up? ★

Miriam Pawel, in an op-ed in The New York Times arguing that the University of California should not bring back the SAT requirement for admission:

What has made the University of California exceptional is its commitment to increase access without sacrificing excellence. [...] Students on University of California campuses may struggle with basic math, but they are graduating at record rates.

A success story would be increasing the number of people with solid math skills. Printing degrees for students who struggle with basic math is not a success story, and sounds like the antithesis of “academic excellence”.

Will Oremus Is a Duo Doubter ★

Will Oremus, writing for The Atlantic last week, “Okay, Sure, a Folding iPhone” (gift link):

Apple’s next big invention, the company revealed at a launch event in Cupertino, is a $2,000 iPhone that sports — get ready — a “remarkable hinge.”

Is it not possible for a hinge to be remarkable?

This is the iPhone Duo, a foldable gadget that opens like a book to reveal a capacious 7.6-inch screen. Billed as the most versatile iPhone, it can be used in folded or unfolded form, and in split-screen or full-screen modes. The screen appears seamless when open, which is a clever engineering feat. Yet an iPhone that blossoms into an iPad Mini seems unlikely to change many lives — especially at the price of a MacBook Pro.

Why is it strange for an iPhone to have a similar price to a MacBook Pro? For many people the phone is their primary computer, the most important and personal device in their life. Not me. Not Oremus. Probably not you. But I bet there are a lot more people out there who would rather have a $2500 iPhone and a $700 MacBook Neo than who would want a $2500 MacBook Pro and a $700 iPhone.

The oddity isn’t that the Duo is priced from $2000–$3200, it’s that it’s taken Apple 20 years to get to an iPhone with prices like this.

And foldable smartphones have been on the market since Samsung popularized the category, in 2019. In the pantheon of “one more things,” the Duo feels like a dud.

This is half correct. Samsung has had foldables on the market since 2019. They have, as yet, not been popularized. “The Duo feels like a dud” has a bit of “No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.” energy to it. If an all-new iPhone form factor doesn’t qualify for “one more thing” not much will.

Apple Releases Xcode 27.1, First SDK With Support for iPhone Duo ★

In addition to the Duo-specific 27.1 SDK, which allows third-party developers to get started adapting apps to the Duo’s new screen sizes and layouts, Apple’s developer site also has Figma and Sketch design kits.

Warren Buffett, at 96, Steps Down as Chairman at Berkshire Hathaway ★

Warren Buffett, in a letter to Berkshire shareholders:

Recently, I celebrated my 96th birthday with family and friends, including one of my great-grandchildren, who had just turned one. He’s moving a bit faster than I am these days. [...]

So the timing is right to complete the transition. I will become Chairman Emeritus and remain a Director. My son, Howard, will succeed me as Chairman.

Howard has been a Berkshire Director for 33 years. That is a longer apprenticeship than I served before taking the reins at the age of 34. Greg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values — both worth more than anything on our balance sheet. Think of Howard as a policy the shareholders own and hope never to claim against.

Not many 71-year-olds rise to the position of chairman at leading corporations.

Trump Says He’s Banning MS NOW, CNN, and Politico From White House ★

Let’s check in on the president of the United States, having a normal one on his blog:

I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW (who recently changed their name from MSNBC due to lack of viewership and credibility!), and Politico (The recipients of an illegal and ridiculous $8 Million Dollar subscription, an All Time Record, directly from the United States Government, under Crooked Joe Biden, in order to keep them “alive.” Seems like corruption to me!), from the White House as a result of their constant “reporting” FAKE NEWS! Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America. Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Republicans are the party of free speech.

Hollywood Wants the Duo ★

Page Six Hollywood:

Ternus attended an intimate Apple party the night before the Emmys, filled with stars and powerbrokers, where some talent brazenly hit him up for the phone.

“The new phone is big news,” said one top Hollywood exec, who added that they heard of at least one star, “asking [Ternus] to get him on the list” for a phone. Joked the source about who gets the phones: “It’s like CEOs. That’s like the ‘Eddy Cue list of illuminati.’” (Cue is Apple’s senior vice president of services and health.)

Gauging Interest in the iPhone Duo ★

Max Roberts, after looking at the list of MKBHD’s all-time most popular videos, and noting that his Duo first-look is #3, and a Duo follow-up is already at #36:

Apple enters the category and in a week it blows past every other folding video.

Now, this doesn’t translate to sales and folding phones taking over the entire smartphone market, but it does highlight a few things to me about tech and the viewers of Marques’ channel.

Apple is the most popular brand Marques talks about.

New products and form factors from Apple are the most popular Apple videos.

When the iPhone comes in a new form, watch out.

There’s no need to overthink it. Humans are decidedly visual animals. Our brains evolved to notice and take interest in novelties. “New” will forever be the most powerful word in marketing. If something looks new, it feels new. If something doesn’t look new (like, say, the iPhone 18 Pro), it doesn’t feel new.

The Duo looks totally new.

It doesn’t matter that Samsung and Google and a bunch of Chinese companies have made foldable Android phones for a decade. Almost nobody cares. The Duo is a fucking iPhone. That makes people care.

One More Thing About the iPhones 18 Pro: the Bigger/Smaller Dynamic Island ★

Cleaning up my notes this morning, I realized I forgot to write about the new under-display Face ID sensor in the iPhones 18 Pro, and the corresponding change to the Dynamic Island. I just added it to my review. For those of you who’ve already read the review, here’s the new section in its entirety:

A Smaller — or Is It Bigger? — Dynamic Island

Apple moved the Face ID infrared camera under the display. It’s up in the top left, underneath the area where iOS displays the time in the status bar. This means that the dedicated black cutout for the Dynamic Island is now noticeably smaller. But it also means that when iOS is rendering the dynamic features of the Dynamic Island, it’s effectively bigger, because now iOS can draw to the left of it, where the Face ID sensor had previously occupied dedicated space. On all previous iPhones with the Dynamic Island, you can see up to two Live Activities at once in the Dynamic Island. With the iPhone 18 Pro, you can now see up to three. I don’t often have three Live Activities going at once, but sometimes I do — simultaneous sporting events, upcoming flights plus an Uber to the airport, etc. So the permanent cutout for the Dynamic Island is smaller, but the usable space for content in the Dynamic Island is now larger.

There’s a minor tradeoff with this design. Even my middle-aged eyes can see that the pixels on top of the Face ID sensor aren’t quite as sharp as those on the rest of the screen. The time of day in the status bar looks like it’s just a tad fuzzy, like the text isn’t anti-aliased correctly. No big deal, and you need to look for it to notice it.

Over the past decade, Apple has taken this design from a big notch, to a smaller notch, to the Dynamic Island, and now to a smaller cutout for the Dynamic Island. I don’t know if they’re ever going to get there, but the goal, obviously, is to eventually put all sensors under the display, creating a genuine all-display front. Putting Face ID under the display on the iPhone 18 Pro is a significant step toward that.

YouTube Changed How It Counts ‘Views’ Last Month, Inflating New Numbers ★

YouTube Help:

Last year, we updated how we count public views for Shorts to better capture how viewers watch on YouTube. Now, we’re aligning all other video formats to this same standard for consistency across the platform. Beginning on 8/24/2026, a view will be counted the moment a video begins to play — from the very first frame. This standard will now apply globally across all formats.

Historically, we’ve used multiple view counting systems across different formats. However, we’ve heard that creators want to eliminate this metric confusion and accurately understand their true exposure, which is why we’re making this update!

In my long take on Apple’s week ago keynote, I made mention of the higher-than-ever view numbers for Apple’s iPhone keynote and announcement. I still think interest in Apple’s September iPhone events is higher than ever, and interest in the iPhone Duo is perhaps unprecedented, but there’s no point trying to measure this objectively via YouTube view counts with this change.