The iPhone Duo is an impressive luxury with much to prove

It’s finally here, then. More than half a decade of experimentation, manufacturing setbacks, changes in design and form factor led to this: the iPhone Duo is the first foldable iPhone, coming at a turning point in Apple’s history marked by a new CEO, a new wave of devices in many categories and new challenges ahead. If anything, Duo is perfectly aligned with Apple’s market position right now: it is impressive at first sight, yes, but look a bit closer and you’ll see that the product (and the company) has much to prove long-term, on several levels.

First things first: in terms of design and aesthetics, the iPhone Duo is exactly what the countless information leaks of previous months described. Apple chose to go for the “passport” form factor – which is shorter and wider than the one almost all other smartphone manufacturers adopted until now – so, when unfolded, the Duo turns pretty much into an iPad Mini, a big plus for consumers familiar with the company’s tablets. Apple itself mentioned its smallest tablet several times as a reference, so it’s intentional and, truth be told, smart to describe the Duo as a “bridge”, “two in one” device between an iPhone and an iPad.

On the other hand, because of the aspect ratio of this form factor, when closed the Duo is a bit more difficult to use one-handed than other smartphones, foldable or otherwise. Right now it seems like a trade-off consumers who actually need the larger, opened screen will probably be willing to make.

Apple made two other choices that will surely be discussed at length online over the next few weeks. One: the company covered the larger, inner screen with a matte, nano-textured, scratch-resistant coating – which does a fantastic job reducing reflections to an absolute minimum and helping the much-discussed crease in the middle basically disappear – but then… it did not do the same with the smaller, outer screen, which is as glossy and reflective as ever. Nano-textured screens take a contrast hit that some find annoying, while the switch between glossy and matte screen many times a day will be jarring to some.

Two: the company put a camera under the inner screen – instead of making a cut-out near the corner, as it did with the outer screen – but that camera “eye” is placed in a spot where icons, apps or content normally appear and it’s clearly visible over them in many instances, whether it’s working or not. Apple’s promotional videos or photos do not demonstrate this at all, but several videos journalists or creators posted online do, so that’s also something people may find to be distracting over time.

Well put-together, powerful… but what about the iPhone Duo software?

Despite these Apple choices that could prove somewhat controversial, there’s no question that the iPhone Duo is a great example of the company’s engineering prowess: it’s clearly a very well-built device, a lot of thought has been put into how the flexible screen folds and how the hinge works, it even managed to offer IP68-level of water and dust resistance, which foldable smartphones couldn’t do up until now. Apple took its time to get as many things right as it possibly could with its first foldable… and it shows.

The hardware driving all of that is also impressive. For all intends and purposes, it is an iPhone 18 Pro crammed into an impossibly thin chassis, as the Duo is built around the powerful and efficient A20 Pro chip, sports 12GB of RAM, fast storage and Apple’s new C2 modem for even better 5G connectivity. In an ironic twist, just as Samsung is seemingly leaving the stylus behind, the iPhone Duo will even support the Apple Pencil before the year is out – something few would have expected from Apple just a few years back.

On the other hand, it does disappoint to see that Apple’s most advanced smartphone misses on features already offered by significantly less expensive iPhone models. FaceID is not supported (the Duo relies on TouchID instead), there is no telephoto camera and no Action button. This particular model is e-SIM compatible only and the capabilities of its two-camera array are closer to those of the iPhone 17e than to those of the 18 Pro. Yes, it’s a case of “we can’t have everything” – a valid argument for such a thin device – but this is still the most expensive iPhone by some margin, so it’s not that easy to accept.

More importantly, though, what could have been a bit more exciting is the software side of the iPhone Duo – based on what was shown during Apple’s presentation, at least. It’s true that the familiar iOS user interface sports many of those nice little touches the company is known for on the Duo, bringing some much-needed freshness to its use. It’s also true that Apple has made some smart modifications to the way certain iOS things work on this device, all in order to help with one-handed basic navigation, maximize usable vertical space and more.

But Apple’s first foldable does not seem to be doing anything different or anything more than what basically all other foldables now do in terms of pure everyday functionality: dual-pane messaging, apps side-by-side, camera preview or video calls on both screens, we’ve seen them all before. They are well executed and really smooth, but one would have expected of a company who had sever years at its disposal to think about two-screen smartphone use to come up with a few software tricks of its own.

Whether what is there will be enough to convince traditional iPhone owners to get a Duo instead of e.g. a Pro Max this time around, is anyone’s guess at this point. It’s fair to say that nothing shown during this presentation would convince an Android power user already owning a foldable to switch to iOS in order to get an iPhone Duo, so Apple is only addressing its most loyal customers right now. Is there enough novelty here to make them reach for their credit cards? We’ll just have to see.

The iPhone Duo is a statement device priced accordingly

All of the above, regardless of how Apple would like people to think of the Duo, needs to be considered with that price tag in mind. Starting at $1999, the iPhone Duo is definitely expensive in absolute terms (especially if the 256GB of non-expandable storage are taken into account) but decidedly less so in relative terms (it costs just $100 more than directly competing devices from Samsung and Google).

This price tag could have been even more discouraging given the current memory and storage chips situation, so there’s that, but it’s still high enough to buy an iPhone 18 Pro Max and the latest iPad with money to spare. Getting a Duo model with more storage pushes its pricing to $2200, $2600 and $3200 (!) for 512GB, 1TB and 2TB respectively, which is… well, crazy even when taking RAMageddon into account.

At the end of the day, though, the iPhone Duo is a device Apple built knowing full well it won’t be affordable by the majority of its customers. It is a statement piece of thoughtful design, high build quality and excellent engineering, despite some of the concessions made. Even statement pieces have to provide some value, though, which is why the Duo – much like Apple – has much to prove: based on what the company demonstrated, it’s not clear whether the additional things an iPhone Duo can do – compared to what the next best “traditional” iPhone can do – are worth the extra $700 or more.

The novelty of the new form factor, as yours truly believes, will wear off at some point. It is the software driving those two screens that will make all the difference or not, long-term, in everyday use. It will take a while, in other words, before we can all decide whether the iPhone Duo is a slam dunk of an 1.0 product for Apple or just a way for the company to explore a relatively new device class without bringing anything truly new to it. Let’s give this a year, then, and come back to see what kind of impact the iPhone Duo had on the foldable smartphones category as a whole, shall we?