Whether you are a green bubble person or a blue bubble person, Apple has probably convinced you to care about its latest iPhone at least once a year. This time, it has given us something considerably harder to ignore: the iPhone Duo, its first foldable phone.
This is the first major iPhone launch under John Ternus, who took over from Tim Cook after serving as Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, and his hardware background is hard to miss. The Duo is one of the biggest physical redesigns the iPhone has seen, opening from a 5.4-inch outer display into a 7.6-inch inner screen. Apple kept returning to one comparison during the launch, calling it roughly the size of a passport when closed. And yes, it is also the thinnest iPhone out yet (when open).
But Apple is hardly the first to decide that a phone can become a tablet when you open it. Samsung and Huawei have been making foldable phones for years, and also support split-screen multitasking, stylus support, hands-free camera modes, flexible positioning for video calls, and multiple apps on screen. Instead, what makes the Duo particularly timely is the moment it has arrived in. While people are buying dumb phones and voluntarily going analogue, Apple is doubling down on the idea that the phone in your pocket should help you do more.
Open it up and you can run two apps side by side, keep two Safari windows open while comparison shopping, have Messages next to your inbox or watch something while working on another app. It will also allow users to use the USB C Apple Pencil on either display, which is great news for all the obsessive iPad notetakers who love colour-coded headings and doodling on their margins.
The camera, though, is where the Duo starts getting properly fun. The phone has a 48MP Dual Fusion camera system, with a 48MP Fusion Main and 48MP Fusion Ultra Wide camera, plus a 12MP Center Stage front camera. But it is the foldable design that gives the camera some of its more interesting tricks. The outer display lets you preview a selfie while using the rear cameras, so you can actually see whether your friend has managed to get the shot you asked for before they hand your phone back with a confident “done”.
Its Smart Take camera feature also means you can stop making one person do the most embarrassing job in every group photo. It waits until everyone is ready and takes the shot for you, so nobody has to set the timer, sprint back into the frame and then discover they look mildly possessed in the final picture. Apple has also thought about children who have historically shown very little interest in cooperating with cameras. Kid Cue can play Peanuts animations on the outer display to get them looking in the right direction.
The productivity obsession extends to video calls too. Zoom can show the shared screen and the people on the call simultaneously, while FaceTime gets Dual Capture, allowing you to show your face and whatever you are looking at at the same time. It is essentially BeReal for a video call.
Even the bedtime routine gets a little upgrade. Of course, every phone has an alarm clock, but the Duo can actually prop itself up on your bedside table, turning its outer display into a proper little clock without needing a stand. It can show the time, weather, calendar, and widgets, and even gently light up around alarm time. In India, the 256GB Duo starts at a whopping ₹2,99,900, a price that has already inspired the inevitable ‘which organ should I sell first?’ jokes, and will be available for pre-order in India from October 16.
