The iPhone Duo is a messy, expensive, good time

The iPhone Duo is the riskiest Apple merchandise in years. It’s a huge rethink of what an iPhone is and could be, and it contains the seeds of many fascinating ideas that power be awesome in the future.

But that forthcoming is yet to come. The iPhone Duo is additionally one of Apple’s messiest first-generation products in a lengthy time, and correct now it volition pleasance gadget nerds and first adopters and apt frustrate everyone else.

It’s been a infinitesimal since the iPhone has looked or worked considerably differently. The final important alter was the iPhone X, which dropped the residence clasp nearly a decade ago, and equal that was a fairly subtle improvement. In fact, “subtle improvement” is really the complete narrative of the iPhone — it’s the basis of Apple’s complete business, following all, and there’s a lot of hazard in fair up and changing it. You can see it in this year’s iPhone 18 Pro: It’s been refined in many ways, alongside improved thermals and an engaging changeable aperture lens, but it’s barely distinct than the iPhone 17 Pro.

But you can’t perform it harmless designing a foldable. You have to create several big decisions concerning display sizes and what the inner and external displays are for, and afterward create an equal bigger set of decisions concerning how that big inner display should work. All of those decisions are risky, and Apple’s riskiest decision was the Duo’s size and shape.

Apple’s sole most crucial scheme decision for the Duo was to create it shaped akin a passport.

The broad aspect proportion makes the inner display friendlier for 16:9 YouTube videos, but it additionally marks a departure from the taller foldable scheme phone makers have embraced complete the former five years. Prior to 2026, most folding phones opted for a tall-and-narrow form to optimize for using vertical apps on the shield screen. But gossip started pointing to Apple going alongside its landscape-first form factor, and another foldable makers shifted gears — apparently to get onward of Apple. Now that the iPhone and a fistful of competitors have adopted the broad format, they have to resolve a new problem: designing a shield display that volition activity fine adequate for vertically oriented apps.

The Duo’s 5.4-inch external display is glossy, during the 7.6-inch inner display has a striking nano-texture matte coating. Apple’s extremely arrogant of this inner matte display, and for fine logic — it looks and feels incredibly solid, a big stage up from foldables alongside glossy, apparently gentle screens alongside glaringly apparent creases, akin the Pixel Fold, and equal the additional subtle but motionless apparent crease of the Galaxy Fold 8.

The matte display is certainly there to assistance conceal the crease, which Apple keeps calling “perceptually flat” since it’s additional fun to invent science-y promotion phrases than fair saying “you mostly don’t see it.” But it’s true: You mostly can’t see the display crease, although you can certainly awareness it. If you’re looking at a pale depiction off-axis, you can see it, and there are moments in several lighting anywhere it’s much additional obvious. It certainly shows up additional prominently on camera than it does to your eyes.

What you will see is the under-display camera, which reflects ray in a additional glossy way if you’re outdoors or in a brilliant area. Overall, though, the camera and display crease stopped being noticeable following a while. The crease additionally wasn’t any additional noticeable following a week of changeless flipping and folding, although we’ll see how it holds up complete time.

That’ll be a genuine test, since Duo owners are going to be continually flipping this item open. Between Apple’s display aspect proportion and iOS scheme choices, the external display feels akin much additional of a position display than you’d anticipate — everything concerning the Duo gently nudges you to flip it open and use it in tablet mode. And not fair tablet mode, but portrait tablet mode. That’s since iPhone apps are mostly portrait, and the Duo is motionless extremely much an iPhone, equal although its form makes it combat all that history.

iPhones have gotten bigger complete the years, but they’ve mostly stuck to the identical essential rectangular aspect ratios: 2:3 from the archetypal iPhone through the 4S, 16:9 from the iPhone 5 through the 8, and 19.5:9 from the iPhone X on to today’s iPhone 18 Pro. Basically, the iPhone has mostly gotten taller complete time.

The Duo changes all of that — it’s the archetypal iPhone that’s gotten shorter and wider. Both the inner and external displays have a 1.4:1 aspect ratio, which was a extremely deliberate choice on Apple’s part, since they’re the identical form open and closed. This is clever in conditions of display math and possibly awesome for app developers, but in custom it method that the external display is really fairly small, particularly compared to contemporary Max-sized phones. If you’re texting person in Messages alongside the keyboard onscreen, you’re fortunate to be capable to see two or three texts at once.

Apple has tried to reclaim several vertical area by scooting the UI elements of updated apps off to the right, but if you’re left-handed, that method using the phone closed alongside one hand can be challenging, equal for person alongside big hands. Having that band of genuine asset alongside the correct flank occupied by navigation controls additionally method that using the Duo single-handed in your correct forces you to attain farther whenever there’s item on the remaining flank of the display you need to tap. This method that you’re sometimes holding a fairly dense phone, stretching for a small mark that’s fair out of reach, which isn’t particularly confidence-inspiring.

It’s additionally untamed to have iPhone apps alongside controls in all kinds of distinct places; reaching for the rear clasp in Apple’s Mail app and realizing it’s moved from the top remaining to the correct is benevolent of disorienting. A lot of using the Duo is fair figuring out how to use an iPhone again, which hasn’t happened in a lengthy time.

If you’re using an app that isn’t updated for the Duo, you’ll see a dreary bar alongside the correct flank of the shield display anywhere those navigation controls would alternatively live. But equal updated apps don’t awareness particularly helpful for item another than a quick check-in on the shield screen. Apple says you’re getting 90 percent of the display area of an iPhone 18 Pro, but that’s beautiful small for today’s apps. It’s akin having an iPhone 5 in a earth of iPhone Pro Maxes.

This method that whenever you drag the Duo out of your pocket, you’ll nearly continually be looking at a small amount of information. And the second you desire to really do anything, you’ll discover yourself unfolding the phone to use the vastly larger and additional helpful inner display.

But you don’t get any additional height whenever you open the Duo up. Switching from a small picture display to a bigger landscape perspective isn’t helpful for most phone apps, which are all designed about big picture displays. Most phone apps appearance silly this way, particularly those motionless operating as norm iPhone apps, which appearance normal but alongside many of dreary padding on either side. It’s either cramped and small on the external display or a small silly and clumsy whenever you open the Duo.

This method nearly all period you open the phone you instinctively rotate it, and during it volition activity no matter how it’s rotated, it’s improved to rotate it counterclockwise so the cameras are on top and the quantity buttons are on the top left. Over our week of testing, this started emotion additional natural, but it’s exactly the contrary of what you’d initially expect. It’s particularly odd in Apple’s bumper case, which has a ample notch to disclose the Touch ID sensor and camera control, and it looks for all the earth akin it belongs at the bottom.

You power think this is a small thing, but it’s different to discover yourself slightly unsure of how to clasp a smartphone. A nontrivial part of the Duo cognition is fair reorienting yourself to anywhere the quantity buttons are as you flip the item around. When closed, they’re on top of the phone, but if you rotate the Duo clockwise, they end up on the base right, and it’s the top clasp that turns the quantity downward since they don’t alter inclination alongside the display. There’s a buried environment in iOS that makes the quantity buttons reorient themselves as you rotate the Duo around; Apple needs to set it so it plant correct by default.

One another item to get used to is merely unlocking the phone. Touch ID is unified into the awaken clasp on the flank of the phone. There’s no Face ID at all, and it power obtain a infinitesimal to recall that whenever you gaze at your phone for a attack and amazement why your notifications aren’t unfurling. Ask us how we know. But a week is lengthy adequate to get used to Touch ID existence again, and it’s mostly painless formerly you recall you’re expected to be using it.

Now, here’s the thing: This is all beautiful fun! The iPhone has been the identical for so lengthy that being forced to arrive up alongside small moves and tricks and ways to think concerning holding the Duo is a gadget nerd thrill. Other foldables do this too — Samsung and Google and Huawei have been pushing the letter cover of gadget-y smartphones for ages — but Apple’s played it so harmless for so lengthy that the Duo is legitimately surprising. But Apple hasn’t established several magical application resolution to making a merchandise alongside this much inherent complexity any small chaotic. It fair happens to be the benevolent of first-generation anarchy that volition pleasance first adopters and guide most everyone alternatively rear to their regular old iPhones.

That first-generation wonkiness is most apparent in the software, particularly in how the Duo supports third-party apps. Almost everyone who sees the Duo assumes that it merely opens up into being an iPad, but that’s not how it plant at all. In traditional Apple fashion, the business decided to throw everything out and commencement over.

That method getting rid of a lot of weird iPad baggage, but it additionally method that solved problems on the iPad are rear on the Duo. It’s big material and small stuff: For any reason, the Duo doesn’t assistance pinching the keyboard to create it smaller and friendlier to use one-handed — a characteristic iPads have had for ages. It additionally method there are new ways to think concerning multitasking, and sometimes you’ll be unsure what volition happen whenever you rub about the display since apps engage alongside iOS and all another in extremely distinct ways.

If you desire to run two apps at formerly on the Duo, you rub up and complete to pin an app to one side, and afterward pin another app to the another side. If you tap on the small divider, you nexus the apps into a set, and you can arrive correct rear to it in the app switcher. It’s neat, but it lone plant in landscape. If you desire to have two apps open whenever you’re holding the Duo in picture mode, you’re basically out of fortune — unless what you desire is to observe a video on the top during scrolling an app on the bottom. In that case, you need to create certain you have an app that supports backdrop video, open that app, commencement the video, near that app to initiate the floating video window, open your another app, and afterward (and lone then!) discover a small clasp in the floating video opening and hit that to pop everything into place.

This is legitimately chill formerly you fig it out. But you volition note that this is a totally distinct method to multitasking than any former iPhone or iPad, and nothing concerning the Duo’s interface makes it apparent that it can activity this way. It’s a lot of these small moments of figuring it out for yourself that really solidify the Duo as an first adopter particular — particularly since several features lone activity in several apps sometimes. That floating video feature? Yeah, it plant alongside YouTube TV, but it doesn’t appear to activity alongside regular YouTube.

This is initially surprising, since the YouTube app appears to be at smallest a small updated for the Duo. But it turns out that correct now there are basically three ways apps activity on the Duo.

First, there are regular iPhone apps that haven’t been updated at all. As alongside an iPad, you can zoom and rotate these apps to create things a small additional useful, but they appearance beautiful silly. This is the huge bulk of apps correct now, although we saw many of apps get updated to the second category during the way of our review.

The second category is what you power call the messy middle: apps that have been updated for iOS 27. They get some automatic layout fixes so they’ll automatically develop to inhabit the inner display in landscape inclination and don’t appearance fairly as silly as norm iPhone apps. But you can inform they haven’t actually been designed for these displays, and those coarse edges are excellent obvious. The telltale sign of these apps is the dreary bar on the correct whenever you use them on the shield display — appropriate Duo apps add controls to that space, but these in-between apps don’t.

Then there are completely updated Duo apps built for the Duo-specific iOS 27.1 — we got to test a few of these, and they can be beautiful good. Instagram’s Edits app is a ideal example of why a folding phone is useful. It opens into a complete video publishing company alongside a big timeline and nice preview window, and you can fair get things done. And equal in the extend of the former week that we’ve been using the Duo, we’ve seen several apps, akin Slack, go from the messy center to completely updated. This makes a big difference in how helpful they awareness on the inner screen, but evidently doesn’t location the actuality of the small outer-screen genuine estate.

Developers volition need to have either a lot of energy to create neat material that takes advantage of the Duo’s form aspect or a lot of encouragement from Apple. Maybe both. Either way, we have to hand it to the Deck-Man app, which reformats Apple Music into a small virtual Walkman. The page-turn animation in Books is terrific. And if you’ve always dreamed of study PDFs on a big display in the rear of an Uber, cognize that they appearance particularly awesome on the matte display.

But the actuality is you’re going to see a lot of small iPhone apps and apps in the weird unoptimized center area for a while. It’s all fair messy, in a lot of the identical ways Android foldables are. That’s particularly amazing since the Android tablet app narrative has continually been messy, but Apple had the entire ecosystem of iPad apps waiting at the ready. For any reason, the business fair didn’t go that way, and that method it volition obtain a during for the Duo’s app narrative to resolve down.

The Duo’s most apparent competitor is the Galaxy Z Fold 8, which Samsung managed to sneak out a few months onward of the Duo. They’re the two broad folds, but they’re not exactly the same. The Fold 8’s forefront display is slightly taller and narrower, and the Duo is noticeably thicker and heavier. Those particulars add up to a big difference in how it feels to use the shield screen, particularly one-handed. The Duo is beautiful difficult to use single-handed, but it feels doable alongside the Fold 8.

Apple additionally insists on preserving the additional narrow vertical aspect proportion whenever you use an app on the shield display by reserving that band on the flank for controls, whereas Samsung lets satisfied inhabit the complete width of the screen. On the larger inner display, Samsung offers a brace of options to create the keyboard friendlier to use. You can toggle to a one-handed choice that’s easier to attain or a floating keyboard you can move about and resize. And many additional Android apps readily obtain advantage of the complete inner display since foldables have been a item on Android for fairly a during now.

Apple is really emphasizing the capability to use the Duo in a assortment of postures, including that benevolent of “I’m study a book” circumstance anywhere it’s partially closed. You can prop the phone up in shelter manner and use it as a clock or digital photo frame. If you use it as an alarm, you’ll get a nice glow from the inner display that’s expected to assistance gently awaken you up. You can observe videos on fractional of the inner display in laptop mode, or on the external display in shelter mode. Weirdly, Apple is really additional broad in this than Samsung. The half-open stance is called Flex manner on another Galaxy foldables, but the Z Fold 8 doesn’t let you use it, likely since the hinge isn’t rigid adequate all the way through its range of motion.

Another crucial difference: The Duo is rated IP68 for complete h2o and powder resistance, during the Z Fold 8 is IP48, so it isn’t completely dust-resistant. Neither phone have to be used carelessly at the beach, but that higher powder ranking offers a small additional harmony of mind.

Overall, these awareness akin beautiful acquainted moves for the two of these companies. Apple wants you to use its phone its way. Samsung is small hung up on particulars akin aspect ratios and anywhere the keyboard can be. As always, Apple’s phone plant finest the deeper you are in the partitioned garden. The Duo feels a small additional polished, but the Z Fold 8 has the improved shield display experience. Given how much of the cognition of a foldable is reliant on the shield screen, that counts for a lot.

We all tested our own assessment units under beautiful distinct circumstances complete the former week, so it’s not amazing our power division existence experiences differed. Nilay used the Duo fair akin he would during any another workday, using Slack, Google Docs, and Safari, and observing YouTube TV, Instagram, and TikTok. He needed to accusation the Duo at smallest formerly to get through the day. This matched his customary cognition alongside regular Pro iPhones, although the MagSafe power division packs he uses to get through the day are made for taller iPhones and don’t fit the Duo extremely well.

Allison was traveling additional alongside the Duo, and spent additional period observing video on Wi-Fi on her flights and scrolling social media. She had concerning 30 percent remaining following concerning 6.5 hours of screen-on time, which is decent. But as ever, iPhone power division existence tends to change dramatically for everyone, and alter a lot complete time. That’s equal additional so the case alongside a foldable — the additional you use the inner screen, the worse of a period you’ll have alongside the battery.

Performance-wise, the Duo has an A20 Pro chip, and Apple says it has the identical improved vapor area thermal administration scheme as the iPhone 18 Pro. For most things it’s plentifulness fast, but the actuality is that it’s additionally a lean phone driving two big displays, and it certainly gets warm, and sometimes hot. We saw this happen in two places: third-party apps, particularly video apps and Google’s apps, caused things to get hot. The first-generation nature of the Duo really came through here, and it’s item we would anticipation would enhance as assorted apps get updated.

The phone additionally heats up whenever you use the camera for a lengthy period — particularly features that use the camera and the two displays at once, akin Duo Preview and Kid Cue. You can fair awareness the phone getting considerably hotter whenever this happens. Add in processor-intensive camera features akin Smart Take, which automatically hits the shutter button, and the phone gets hot adequate to commencement noticeably lagging following a while.

You’d anticipation Apple can enhance power division existence and thermal administration complete period — it has certainly done that alongside another iPhones in the past. But the Duo today gets hot, and doesn’t appear prepared to final a complete day of dense use. Those are genuine compromises on a phone that starts at $2,000.

The Duo’s another big colony is camera quality. It has a smaller chief camera sensor than the one you’ll discover in the 18 Pro and is alternatively on par alongside what you get from the iPhone Air. That’s fine for grabbing mundane shots, but it’s basically a notch below flagship tier. The Duo relies on heavier sharpening to create up for its weaker hardware, so fine particulars appearance a small crunchier than they do on the 18 Pro. The Duo retains a bit small color item in low ray too, although Night Mode benevolent of evens out the playing site between them.

Some of the manual controls on the 18 Pro are absent here, too. There’s no shutter speed and no moving aperture, but you do get pale balance and manual concentration controls. The biggest concession is that there’s no telephoto camera here. You get that 2x crop zoom and up to fair 10x digital zoom. There’s a 48-megapixel ultrawide that’s fine, but you fair don’t have the elasticity you’ll discover on basically all slab phone that expenses fractional as much as the Duo.

The 12-megapixel Center Stage selfie camera on the forefront display is a small worse than the 18-megapixel one on the 18 Pro — again, it looks akin it’s compensating for its lesser resolution by oversharpening details. There’s additionally an under-display FaceTime camera on the inner display that’s fine in fine ray but really fairly bad in dim light. (Apple won’t say the FaceTime camera’s resolution, but it’s fair 4 megapixels.) Overall, it’s serviceable for a video call, but not much else.

But the fine item concerning a folding phone is that every camera on this item is a selfie camera. You can open it up and preview your depiction on the forefront display during you use the much improved chief camera to obtain a photo of yourself. You’ll really desire to use the camera authority clasp on intent for a change, since it’s the lone sensible way to media the shutter whenever you have the phone facing you akin this — there’s no on-screen shutter and the quantity controls are correct next to the lens.

Apple’s Kid Cue takes a leaf out of Google’s book by using the forefront display to perform animations designed to get your kid looking at the camera. It works, but your topic volition be looking off to the flank since the Duo (wisely) uses the improved chief camera lens fairly than the selfie camera for this. But if you’ve always tried to get a young kid to appearance at a camera and create a normal face, you’ll likely concur that this is near enough.

Outside of that, the form aspect lets you do a brace of fun things alongside the camera. You can set it up in laptop manner or position up akin a publish to fire a time-lapse. There’s a characteristic called Smart Take that volition automatically break photos whenever it senses that subjects in the example are striking a stance that’s kinda fun. (It would be chill if you could toggle the depiction preview to the another panel to use it midway open akin a waist-level viewfinder, but you can’t.)

The chief camera records up to 4K/120 video and it volition let you use Cinematic manner to your clips following grasp akin the 18 Pro does. You additionally get the new texture controls in Photographic Styles if you desire your foldable phone camera to act additional akin a movie camera. Still, you’re certainly not getting the latest and top iPhone camera, which is weird on a $2,000 phone — although that’s certainly not different for a foldable.

On the another flank of the aisle, Samsung basically divided its Fold sequence into two models: the broad one alongside less-good cameras and the portrait-oriented one alongside a improved chief camera. You can’t have everything — unless you have admission to foldables sold in China, in which case, yea you can. The base row is that the Duo offers a totally satisfactory camera for a new iPhone, but it’s far from the finest iPhone camera you can get.

There’s a lot of another small material to say concerning the Duo — it’s complete of new ideas and weird small particulars keep coming up the additional you use it. The Duo has MagSafe, dissimilar the Z Fold 8, which is a big quality-of-life improvement. Allison established that a PopSocket made the Duo way easier to hold, during Nilay had a less-good period trying to use his existing MagSafe power division packs on the phone. He additionally has MagSafe mounts about his home and stuck the phone up all complete the place, alongside entertaining results. Who hasn’t dreamed of having a tablet in the shower?

You can use the Duo akin a small tiny laptop, which is adorable, and it connects to a portable keyboard for some purse device action. You can additionally observe movies and TV shows alongside it slightly bent, so it stays open on a array in shelter mode. (It takes a second for the phone to fig out that you desire to do this, but it gets there.) If all of this appears stressful, afterward the first-gen foldable existence power not be for you. But if you’re itching to try several of this out for yourself, afterward you fair power be the benevolent of first adopter who volition have a fine period alongside the Duo.

The difficult regulation at The Verge for 15 years now is that you have to assessment the merchandise that’s in the box — not the idea of the product, or all of our hopes and dreams, or equal the commitment of application updates to come. (And boy, does the Duo have a lot of application and app updates to come.) There’s a lot of possible in the Duo, but correct now it is a first-gen equipment in all imaginable way.

It is expensive, it’s complete of compromises, and it can be incredibly frustrating to use. Switching from the Duo rear to one of our norm slab phones to get item done frequently felt akin a relief. Sometimes you fair need your iPhone to do what you need it to do — that’s why Apple has been so risk-averse in changing it.

But all of the hazard and weirdness of the Duo is additionally fun, in the way the finest first adopter devices are fun. It’s incomplete as a product, but complete adequate as an idea that you can see anywhere things are going. It’s reminiscent of the extremely archetypal MacBook Air, which took exactly no one by storm — it took a complete redesign for Apple to get it right, and afterward it took complete the complete industry.

We’ll see what happens alongside the Duo, but as it stands, it is extremely much an open inquiry whether Apple made the correct choices concerning the Duo’s display sizes and aspect ratios. Most Duo owners volition discover that the shield display is merely too small to use all the time. Avoiding the complete iPad app ecosystem is another choice that power not age well; so is asking developers to jump on commission alongside a equipment that’s plainly destined to eventually run into the iPad. Apple additionally made several extremely genuine compromises about the camera, and we’ll need to do a lot additional evaluation to comprehend the Duo’s achievement and thermal administration story.

But the Duo is a additional cohesive idea concerning foldables than most of its Android competition, exactly since Apple has a improved app and developer narrative to lean on. Right now the issue for most Android foldables is that the inner screens aren’t that helpful so there’s no excellent compelling logic to open them. The issue alongside the Duo is that the external display isn’t helpful enough, so you desire to open it all the time, and Apple’s ecosystem method that eventually the apps volition be helpful on the inner screen.

But the genuine answer is location in the center — for the two screens to be engaging and useful. Someone’s going to get there, and we’ll see if Apple can be the first.