gm legends. It’s Sunday.

This week: the new iPhone is twice as big but half the size, how to take better notes, build something useful with Astra, and fun tools for your menu bar. 

You don’t have to take notes on this newsletter—just read and enjoy, legend.

P.S. Launching soon? We’d love to hear about it → editorial@producthunt.co 🫶

It’s that time of year. An Apple CEO appears onstage and hypnotizes us into trading in our old phones. After all, our apps seem to be getting slower, cracks are appearing on the screen, and we’re probably due for an entirely new set of chargers anyway.

Last week, newly installed CEO John Ternus presented the iPhone 18 generation, which includes Apple’s first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo. It’s like a tablet you can carry in your pocket. The original iPhone…was not like this. Let’s take a look back at every iPhone generation and a feature that defined it:

iPhone (June 2007): 16 GB, 128 MB, and a 2.0 megapixel camera. Your kid could probably come up with a better phone in your basement. On the other hand, there were no smartphones before the iPhone. So, well done, Apple. 

iPhone 3G (July 2008): No, we didn’t skip one. The second generation is known for its 3G connectivity. Oh, and the introduction of a little thing called the App Store.

iPhone 3GS (June 2009): Storage and memory doubled. The camera got better, too.

iPhone 4 (June 2010): Did you know that Apple invented the selfie? Well, it might as well have. This model introduced the front-facing camera.

iPhone 4S (Oct. 2011): Hey, Siri, can you write this article for us? No, well, thanks for coming along anyway.

iPhone 5 (Sept. 2012): Pssst. What’s the Wifi password? Doesn’t matter because you don’t need it. This iPhone has LTE connectivity.

iPhone 5s and 5c (Sept. 2013): 5c just slapped on a color shell, while 5s gave us Touch ID and an M7 motion coprocessor. Translation: motion-tracking apps could work with it, and it saved battery.

iPhone 6 & 6 Plus (Sept. 2014): What if we made the iPhone…bigger?

iPhone 6s & 6s Plus (Sept. 2015): What if we made the iPhone…better? Apple swapped out an 8 MP camera for a 12 MP one.

iPhone SE (March 2016): What if we made the iPhone…smaller again?

iPhone 7 & 7 Plus (Sept. 2016): What do you mean there’s no headphone jack? How convenient that you’re selling AirPods.

iPhone 8 & 8 Plus (Sept. 2017): Sometimes you get world-changing features. And sometimes you get wireless charging.

iPhone 9 (Never): Who needs numerical consistency when you can just invent your own numbering system?

iPhone X (Nov. 2017): Standard selfies are so 2016. I’ve got portrait mode, suckers.

iPhone XS & XS Max (Sept. 2018): More power with the A12 bionic chip.

iPhone XR (Oct. 2018): Like the XS but cheaper and not as good.

iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max (Sept. 2019): “Guys, we really need to cram a fourth camera on this thing. If you get a fifth one on there, we can call it the ‘pro’ version. Make another one that’s hard to hold and call it ‘Pro Max’.”

iPhone SE 2nd Generation (April 2020): How do we feel about smaller phones again?

iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, 12 Pro Max (Oct-Nov. 2020): The era of “pick the size and budget that works for you.”

iPhone 13, 13 mini, 13 Pro, 13 Pro Max (Sept. 2021): The new A15 Bionic chip made graphics crisper, apps faster, and Siri less likely to mess up your spouse’s name.

iPhone SE 3rd generation (March 2022): “Let’s see if we can get some folks to swap out their old phones.”

iPhone 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro & 14 Pro Max (Sept.-Oct. 2022): Smartphones can save your life. These models added Crash Detection and Emergency SOS.

iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro & 15 Pro Max (Sept. 2023): “We love how everyone’s added Lightning chargers everywhere. Let’s switch to USB-C.”

iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro & 16 Pro Max (Sept. 2024): The big leap was to the A18 Chip, which Apple said was 40% faster than the iPhone 15’s A16 chip.

iPhone 16e (February 2025): “Maybe T-Mobile will run some sort of offer.”

iPhone 17, 17 Air, 17 Pro & 17 Pro Max (Sept 2025): Who needs Plus when you can have Air?

iPhone 17e (March 2026): “Oh, you want a phone you can afford?”

 

This week, we noticed a few new note-taking tools. We’re not talking about the AI notetakers that do it for you (though those are cool, too). These are tools that help you get your thoughts out of your head and organized: 

• Tucky places your notes down the edge of your Mac’s screen, then lets an agent figure out what the next step should be.
• at8pm is a journal that locks at 8:00 at night, so you can’t retroactively rewite your thoughts; it’s meant to keep you honest.
• Occasio turns your individual notes into a “library of timeless insights” so that your ideas don’t get lost.

 

by Gabe Perez, Head of Product Curation at Product Hunt

Product Hunt has teamed up with OpenAI Developers to launch the GPT-6 Astra Challenge!

OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra is built for complex, multi-step work—from software engineering and research to workflows that require judgment and follow-through.

Build something useful with Astra, launch it on Product Hunt, and compete for API credits and ChatGPT Pro subscriptions.

If you’re already building with Astra, this is a chance to share what you’ve made and put it in front of a wider audience. You can schedule your launch for Friday, September 18.

Here's everything you need to get started:

• Schedule your launch: https://www.producthunt.com/contests/gpt-6-astra-challenge
• GPT-6 Astra Challenge Launch Guide: https://producthunt.s.gy/forum-astra-launch-guide
• GPT-6 Astra Model Guide: https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/guides/latest-model
• GPT-6 Astra API Docs: https://developers.openai.com/api/reference/overview
• OpenAI Demo Showcase: https://developers.openai.com/showcase
• OpenAI Discord: https://discord.gg/openai

This is the perfect time to actually build on those crazy ideas you've been sitting on.... or resurrect one of your "ongoing" side projects.

We're really excited to see what you all create!

 

Back to Apple, we love a good menu bar tool. Since roughly 99% of Mac users don’t know what to fill their menu bar with, some developers have given them ideas. This week, we saw Vibe Eyes, which lets you create tiny avatars of your pets so their adorable eyes can always look up at you…not just when they’re begging you for food.

Here’s what else you can put in your menu bar, as told by their makers:

Lyrimuse puts live lyrics in your menu bar 

“I built this because the lyrics app most of us used on macOS … hasn't shipped a release since April 2022 — but the real reason was a different annoyance: lyrics that don't match the version of the track playing. The live recording gets studio lyrics, the Cantonese version gets Mandarin lyrics, a radio edit gets the album cut's timeline. Most lyrics apps ask a few providers in order and take the first usable answer. Lyrimuse instead queries nine of them concurrently and scores every candidate on one scale…” - Khalil

CommuteBar puts live travel times in your menu bar 

“One day, as I was about to start driving, I saw the roads were clear enough to head out. I thought for sure I'd be getting home early. Then, traffic showed up 15 minutes later, but only after I was already outside. That's when I knew what I was missing. A quick indicator within sight, sitting right next to my clock in the menu bar — the place I always check. Not another app to have to open and get distracted with while I'm already busy trying to do something.” - Arthur Amshukov

Tether puts a ball and string in your menu bar

“I was looking for something to keep my hands busy during long work meetings. Pens, cables, the corner of a notebook, the usual. So I made this instead: a ball that hangs off the Mac menu bar on an elastic tether.” - Alex