Apple announced several products during its 9 September event, including a couple of major Apple Watch updates that have been on my wish list for years. However, the star of the ‘Surprise and Shine’ event was, of course, the company’s first folding phone. The iPhone Duo takes a leaf out of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 book, offering a passport-sized phone when folded and opening up to a device similar to the iPad mini.
Traditionally, I can’t say I’ve loved folding phones. While the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 tempted me to switch more than any other folding phone before it, I’m still not entirely convinced I won’t get fed up with one once the novelty wears off. That said, the iPhone Duo does address several issues I have with the category in general, and while its price is punchy, the build quality is superb, the matte screen is a real differentiator, and the software experience is excellent. Here’s what I learned about the iPhone Duo in my first look at the device at launch.
Most folding phones feel plasticky as soon as you open them. That’s it, I said it. Despite costing upwards of £1,500, they don’t feel like premium devices when you unfold them. I also don’t like that most of them look like they have a screen protector on them, the reflections from the glossy plastic internal screens drive me nuts, and don’t even get me started on the fingerprint smudges.
The iPhone Duo opts for a nano-texture display, like the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro, and it makes a huge difference in both feel and use. It eradicates reflections for a great viewing experience; it makes the crease barely visible (you only see it in certain light); and fingerprints don’t seem nearly as prominent as on other foldables (though that will need proper testing to say for sure).
The external display is 5.4 inches, with a punch-hole camera in the top right corner. It was bright and vibrant, with colours that had plenty of punch. There is no Face ID (sad times); instead, it uses Touch ID on the side, but the camera expands into the Dynamic Island feature that launched on the iPhone 14 Pro back in 2022, with a neat droplet animation. Dynamic Island is also on the inside display, in the top-right corner, while an under-display camera is largely hidden at the centre of the right-hand side of the 7.8-inch internal screen. You can see it in certain light, but it isn’t distracting when watching content or interacting with the interface.
Speaking of the interface, Apple has outdone itself here. The iPhone Duo adapts seamlessly between the internal and external displays, as well as in various half-folded states. The animation when moving between the outside and inside displays is lovely, and the smooth transition extends to other UI elements too, such as the keyboard splitting across both sides when you half-fold it or playback controls at the bottom when watching content. Multitasking was lovely and simple too, and I enjoyed that you can fuse two apps to come back to them as a pair, though it would have been great to have the option of using more than two apps, like Mac’s grid system, which allows for four in total.
The iPhone Duo deserves praise for its build quality, too. It feels and looks like a premium device (as it should at that price), and the IP68 water and dust resistance is something I was thrilled to see and had previously hoped would be offered. I don’t want to buy a £2,000 phone only to worry when I go to the beach. The polished titanium frame feels solid, and the weight is well distributed, too. Despite being slimmer than the iPhone Air, the iPhone Duo didn’t give me the impression it was going to snap if I wasn’t especially careful with it.
Cameras are a compromise to a degree, and that’s disappointing. The iPhone Duo has the same 48-megapixel ultra-wide camera as the iPhone 18 Pro, but its main camera is a 48-megapixel Fusion camera capable of 2x zoom, with no third dedicated zoom lens. It also doesn’t offer the variable aperture introduced on the iPhone 18 Pro models, so that’s something you have to sacrifice. How the under-display selfie camera performs will be interesting too, given that this is a feature other foldables have tried in the past and moved away from.
Despite the cameras being a step down from the iPhone 18 Pro models, the iPhone Duo has some clever features, including Kid Cue. This will bring up Snoopy on the external display, helping to put a smile on the face of anyone you are taking a picture of – frankly, I feel this will work with both adults and children. Who doesn’t love Snoopy? There is also a Duo Preview mode that allows you to see a preview on the external display of what you’re taking a picture of, helping you get better group shots, while Smart Take uses on-device AI models running on the A20 Pro chip to analyse a scene in real time and automatically capture photos when subjects are posing.
But before you think I’m suddenly, and without hesitation, entirely sold on folding phones, there are a couple of things I’d have liked to see on the iPhone Duo. The Action Button is first – where is it? It’s nowhere to be seen, and I use that button over 100 times a day on my iPhone 17 Pro Max to open WhatsApp, so this is a huge omission for me. Face ID is another. I was told Apple opted for Touch ID to ensure consistency whether using the internal or external display, but I’d still choose Face ID over Touch ID if the option were there.
I’m also not sure how left-handed users will feel about the toolbar being on the right edge with no option to move it. I am right-handed, so for me the positioning is great, but I’ll be interested to see how lefties react when this device arrives. The volume buttons are also slightly oddly positioned – at the top of the device rather than on the side with the power button and Touch ID, though this is no doubt something you’d get used to.
Then there’s the elephant in the room: the price. The iPhone Duo starts at £1,999, which will only get you 256GB of storage. You could buy an iPhone 18 Pro and an iPad mini and still get some change, so you’ll really need to want a folding phone to consider the iPhone Duo. With all that said, I’ll need to review the iPhone Duo in full to see whether it can convince me that foldables are the future, but this is a foldable on the right track to win me over.
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