GPT-6 Sol
- Time
- 10:43
- Cost
- $0.64
Plays when it scrolls into view
AI Bakeoff · iPhone 18 Pro · 29-09-2026
GPT-6 Sol vs Opus 5.5
The first race across vendors: OpenAI's Codex against Claude Code. This time the job is a real one, an advert for a real product, and both models got the same pack of Apple's own press images to make it from.
The brief
A 15-second promo for the iPhone 18 Pro lineup that feels like Apple made it. Light reveals a burgundy iPhone out of black, a six-bladed aperture opens onto photos taken on the phone, then the A20 Pro chip and a battery fact, the four finishes, and an end card with a tagline of the model's own. Both got the same nine images from Apple Newsroom and a sheet of the real launch facts.
Opus 5.5
- Time
- 19:41
- Cost
- $3.82
Plays when it scrolls into view
Cinematic. A line of burgundy light draws the phone's outline before the product fades up inside it, then the camera dives into a drawn lens barrel whose six blades open onto the photos. That lens stays behind the chip, the battery figure and the end card, which reads "Pro in every light." over an Apple logo.
What it shows
Both followed the brief and both used the real facts. Sol cut between Apple's images; Opus built one continuous camera move and kept its lens in shot to the end. Opus took nearly twice as long and cost six times as much. Which one would you post?
The rules
- Both models got the same brief, word for word, the same folder of Apple press images, and started at the same moment.
- Claude Code 2.1.284, run stock: safe mode, no settings, skills, plugins or MCP servers. Codex CLI 0.156.0, run stock: an empty config home, no instructions, skills or rules.
- Both at high effort. One attempt each, no follow-ups, no fixes.
- Each piece is a single HTML file on a 1440×1080 stage that loads only the images it was given, with no audio and nothing fetched from the internet.
- What plays above is the model's file, served exactly as it was written.
- Times are wall clock, launch to exit. Costs are at each vendor's API list prices: Claude Code's own estimate, and Codex's token counts priced at OpenAI's published rates. Both runs were on a subscription.
- Product images are Apple's own, from its 9 September 2026 Newsroom release.
The full prompt
Make a 15-second promo film for Apple's new iPhone 18 Pro lineup that shows what an incredible motion designer you are. It must feel like Apple made it: Apple's own advertising tone, confident and restrained, deep black and pure white, generous negative space, very few words, SF Pro type, slow precise easing, the product as the hero. Everything you need is in ./assets: official Apple press images and a README.md with the real launch facts, the finish colours and the font stack; read it first, and use no claim that is not in it. The idea is fixed: 0-3s: out of pure black, light traces the edge of a burgundy iPhone 18 Pro and reveals it. 3-7s: the camera. A six-bladed aperture opens from f/4 to f/1.48, and the photographs taken on iPhone 18 Pro cut through it. 7-10s: power. The A20 Pro chip and one battery fact. 10-13s: the four finishes, black, silver, glacier and burgundy. 13-15s: end card: iPhone 18 Pro, with a short tagline of your own. Deliver it as a single index.html in the current folder: a 1440x1080 stage that plays the 15 seconds once on load, loads its images from ./assets by relative path, and has no audio and no external requests.
The numbers
| GPT-6 Sol | Opus 5.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to finish | 10:43 | 19:41 |
| Estimated cost | $0.64 | $3.82 |
| Output tokens | 24.9K | 86.1K |
| Cache reads | 1.26M | 4.66M |
| File size · lines | 11.4 KB · 298 | 26.3 KB · 589 |
Checksums
sol/index.html sha256 f24511248f2346928afa42ee37e3fdc7761d28646c210dcba3b5b28439e5a4e7 opus/index.html sha256 7e3c3d6a217d235aee5ed5a325473d52ae2dbe1bd9f143a6e1a3529bfc85f30b
Keynote. The phone turns in from a sliver of edge light beside a small "Introducing iPhone 18 Pro", the photos appear through a hexagonal iris with the ƒ-number counting down in the corner, and each beat is a clean cut to the next image on black. It ends on "Open to more."