After years and years of waiting for a foldable iPhone, I got hands-on with the iPhone Duo following Apple’s announcement and I was simply blown away by how the phone manages to blend hardware and software in a way that no other foldable has yet.
The form factor matches that of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, which I absolutely loved the size of, but on the software side it still left a lot to be desired, with it feeling like it was simply just shoving the Android experience onto a foldable display, but that’s where the iPhone Duo simply changes everything.
It has a 5.4-inch outer display as well as a 7.6-inch inner display, with both of them having 3,000 nits of peak brightness, but where that internal display differs from other foldables is with a Nano Texture matte coating that not only cuts out reflections, but Apple is also seemingly using it to hide the crease both visibly and to the touch, which works wonders. When this thing is unfolded, the crease is impossible to see, but Apple is using software to enhance this experience as well.
Whilst other foldables simply just go black and turn the other screen on, Apple is treating the internal screen as an extension of the outer screen, basically treating that outer screen as a pane of glass, and it’s using a software transition to make that content essentially disappear from the outer screen, before reappearing on the inner screen and expanding out as it doubles the screen real estate.
This not only helps the brain understand what’s happening, but it’s also just a much nicer way of having that iOS experience expand as you open the phone, rather than just treating it as a larger display.
A really great example of this is whilst gaming. Normally, whilst gaming on other foldable phones, once you start opening or closing the display or switching orientations whilst gaming, you either need to restart the app, or it just totally goes out of whack, but on iPhone Duo this happened seamlessly no matter how many times I opened and closed the phone.
I was worried that the Nano Texture display might be less vibrant than other displays, but the 3,000 nits of peak brightness really helps cut through that and results in an extremely vibrant display that is colourful and will be easier to see.
Apple has totally rethought all software aspects, majorly changing iOS elements that have been there since day one. The dock now sits on the right side, so that the ratio of the outer screen is kept truer to that of a slab iPhone, and even the battery/Wi-Fi/5G indicator has been totally redesigned to fit in the space.
Similarly, all of its stock apps have been upgraded to make them feel at home on both displays, with most apps acting similarly to their iPad counterparts, with them giving you your main point of focus on one of the sides, and your list of items on the other side.
StandBy Mode has been expanded, with the iPhone Duo able to be sat in tent mode or on its side in order to show you the time, your calendar, photos of loved ones and many other little goodies even when it’s not plugged in.
The one element of contention will be the cameras, and that’s what I’ll wait to see when I get my hands on it. You get a 48MP Dual Fusion system, which consists of a 48MP Fusion main camera and a 48MP Ultra Wide camera. You don’t get a telephoto lens, but there is 2x optical quality using that Fusion camera. From what I could tell in my hands-on, the cameras that are there are fantastic and offer a similar quality to that of the iPhone 18 Pro to the everyday user.
Apple has done a bunch of cool things with software here too, with them not being entirely unique to the iPhone Duo, but having their own little Apple spin. Duo Preview lets you take photos using the rear camera whilst making sure you’re in frame, Smart Take automatically detects when everyone is still and will take a photo automatically, and Kid Cue plays a little Snoopy animation on the front screen to capture a child’s attention.
There are also two selfie cameras, with a 12MP cut-out on the front display, and a FaceTime-quality camera under the display that cleverly appears and disappears on the internal display, and there’s a noticeable quality hit here, but realistically, I think putting the camera under the display was the right move as this will only be used for FaceTime calls.
The biggest compliment that I can give the iPhone Duo, and it’s not to be unexpected given it’s an Apple device, is that everything feels totally fresh and new, yet extremely familiar. Any iPhone user that picks up the Duo will instantly know what to do, because it all feels intuitive, yet almost nothing is the same as on a traditional iPhone.
Overall, I’m very, very excited for the iPhone Duo and whilst Apple waited a good while to introduce its first foldable, it seems like it builds on everything that has been done in the space, blending hardware and software to create the ultimate foldable experience, and whilst I’ll need to get hands-on to make my final assessment on some of the finer details, the core decisions that Apple has made seem like the right ones.