This Week in Tech Drops: Foldables, Price Hikes and Honest Reviews

apple's first foldable phone the iphone duo went up for preorder on friday last week we asked if new gadgets actually solve anything real and this week apple's answer is a phone that folds in half with a price tag that suggests it solves well everything but the real story isn't the hinge it's the walls they're building around you let's get this room in order on the block the standard iphone 17 in india i'm at 829 do i hear 999 99900 999 yep 999 in the back sold for 99,900 rupees hammer's down that's a 20.5% price hike and it was enough to crater domestic demand apple's already cutting production for the indian market next up samsung's galaxy

watch ultra two beautiful piece of hardware runs wear os seven smooth as you like but and you knew there was a but the ecg the irregular rhythm alerts the good stuff only works if you have a samsung phone as one reviewer put it if you pair it with anything else you are paying full price for a degraded feature set the floor is not impressed meanwhile the software ring is on fire google just let a new ai model out of the cage gemini four argon it's already crushing benchmarks in coding finance and law and the opening bid is just $2 per million input tokens that's not a bidder that's a market maker a few other lots to clear oppo's new coloros 17 rolls out october 22 promising to make your phone faster than dose of ai a free open source creative suite called artcraft launched to take on adobe but one artist called its main photo app unusable and fitbit dropped two new trackers the screen free fitbit air and the display equipped fitbit edge which

goes on sale october 27 just a reminder any discussion of health sensors on these devices is general information not medical advice okay let's talk about what really happened this week because it wasn't just a bunch of new products hitting the floor saw a pattern lock into place see it right on one hand apple puts the iphone duo on the block a brand new form factor a 7.6 inch screen that folds their own a20 pro chip their own c2 modem analysts are already calling it they say apple will own 40% of the foldable market by the end of next year they think this is the device that makes foldables mainstream the same way the apple watch and airpods became the default it's the shiny desirable expensive new thing the carrot and in the very same week we see the stick that 20.5% price hike on the standard iphone 17 in india isn't an accident it's a choice it says the price of admission to the apple ecosystem is going up and samsung locking its best watch

features to its own phones that's the same play it's not a bug it's a feature the feature is loyalty or maybe it's a penalty for not being loyal enough isn't new this is just the console wars come for your entire life we've all seen this before you bought a nintendo you bought nintendo games you bought a playstation you were in sony's world this is the same game but the stakes are higher it's not just about what games you can play it's about your health data your photos your messages the way you pay for groceries aren't just selling you a device they are selling you a ticket to a garden with very very high walls the iphone duo is the most beautiful most expensive most precisely engineered key to that garden we've ever seen and the samsung watch ultra two is the bouncer at the door

of a different garden checking your id and telling you your pixel phone isn't on the list so what does it all add up to the question is no longer just is this a good gadget or does it solve a problem the real question they're forcing you to answer is which world do you want to live inside because the cost of switching of climbing over that garden wall is getting higher with every new product they announce as we look ahead to apple's hands on event in los angeles on october 28 and as the first of these iphone duos land in people's hands this friday that's the thing to watch they are all bidding for your loyalty and a price is just the last person who wanted it more your paddle is in your hand