The Foldable iPhone Duo: Great or Gimmicky?

For those of us who’ve held the familiar iPhone-shaped rectangle for more than a decade, the new design takes some getting used to. Simply switching tasks feels new, as buttons and menus have been rearranged. The volume buttons are on the top when the phone is closed, and toolbars often appear on the right. 

Navigating the two displays feels a bit like solving a Rubik’s Cube. I was constantly turning, twisting, and folding the Duo into different positions depending on what I wanted to do. 

To watch YouTube videos, I opened it in landscape. To scroll on TikTok, I turned the large screen vertically. Most often, I closed the phone and used the small outer display, which seems best suited for quick tasks like sending a text, checking email, and looking something up online. This isn’t unique to the Duo, of course; all foldables require frequent rearranging. 

Still, I was impressed by the breadth of the big display—the Duo’s crowning feature—and the smooth transition when you switch screens. (The screen bleeds from one display to the next when you open or close the device, which is a nice touch.) The extra real estate is a boon when, say, you’re showing off photos to someone sitting next to you or watching the latest episode of “Love Is Blind” from bed. It’s like having a lightweight iPad you can pull from your pocket. (The Duo might be light for a tablet, but it’s hefty for a phone; it weighs 8.96 ounces, more than the large iPhone 18 Pro Max.)

Tasks get easier, too, thanks to a Split View mode that lets you open two apps side by side, like two windows on a desktop. For example, with my photos and texts both open, I can select and slide photos across the screen, right into a chat. I can open the Notes app and a recipe blog, typing out a grocery list without toggling between the two. I can order my lunch on Grubhub while finishing a video on YouTube.

The expansive inner screen simply looks fantastic, too. It’s made with a new “nano-texture” matte finish that reduces glare, improves durability, and helps hide the screen’s crease, Apple says. (It’s true; the crease is barely noticeable.) The texture is similar to that of an e-reader, rather than the glossy glass we’re used to—and still find on the Duo’s outer display. I think the matte texture is surprising and a detail that Apple really got right. 

Still, I struggled to fully settle into the new dimensions of the display. The outer screen, though technically offering about 90 percent of the iPhone 18 Pro’s area, often felt too small because of its squarish footprint. With less text visible, reading articles or skimming emails seemed cramped at times. Meanwhile, the large inner display felt a touch too big for, say, simply looking up directions or switching the song on Spotify. Using the big screen is also a two-handed affair—one hand to hold, the other to tap and scroll. 

All too frequently, neither screen size felt quite right for the task at hand—and I couldn’t help but feel some relief when I moved back to my humble iPhone 13, which I can easily maneuver with one hand and my eyes closed. Whether you agree probably depends on what you use your phone for most, as well as the size of your hands. 

Apple has instituted a Made for iPhone Duo badge in the App Store to help you identify optimized apps. But it’s unclear how long you’ll have to wait for many of those to surface. 

Apps that are optimized do indeed make creative use of the phone’s expansive screen and variable orientations, and the experience feels more immersive as a result. On the New York Times Cooking app, for example, you can watch a tutorial while scrolling through other recipes, making use of the bendable dual-screen. When watching Netflix, you can place the folded Duo upright on the table to watch hands-free, and a handy set of controls appears on the bottom. The wide format and matte finish of the inner display also make for a pleasant experience reading e-books, mimicking the feel of an e-reader. 

The camera also incorporates fun features that make the most of the dual screens. 

Two people seated together in the same room can now join a FaceTime call more easily by positioning the Duo between them, each with a dedicated camera and screen. You can take better selfies with the rear camera using Duo Preview, which lets you eyeball the shot on the front display. You can also prop a partially folded Duo up on a table for steadier selfies or timed group photos. Apple even came up with a way to help get babies or dogs to actually look at the camera by playing an attention-grabbing animation on the front screen. Neat. 

But know that you’ll be making a few compromises if you elect to upgrade to the Duo. You lose Face ID, reverting to fingerprint identification on the side power button—a small but noticeable step backward. 

And while the Duo’s camera is impressive—it offers a 48-megapixel main rear camera and a 48-megapixel ultrawide—it loses the telephoto rear camera, limiting the optical-quality zoom to 2x and digital zoom to 10x. That means the $2,000 Duo has a less impressive camera than the less expensive iPhone 18 Pro.