A Foldable Only Apple Could Do

My Medium friends can read this over on Medium.

In April I wrote that the foldable iPhone is Apple admitting it's out of ideas. Samsung shipped the first Galaxy Fold in 2019. Now Apple, 7 years later.

On September 9, Apple showed theirs. The iPhone Duo. Boring, right?

Not really. I wasn’t expecting a few things. And that makes me truly excited.

Watching the keynote, I kept noticing the small stuff. Details that don’t matter in spec sheet comparisons with Android. But they totally matter when you use the device.

That’s Apple. Features and specs are not the thing. Feel is.

But before feel, let’s start with the price

This was actually surprising to me.

The rumors in April said $2,300 to $2,500. Some even talked about $2,999. And honestly, I didn’t rule that out. It’s Apple after all.

But the Duo really is $1,999 for 256GB, up to $3,199 for 2TB. That’s not too bad. With RAMaggedon in full force, it’s even okay. And in comparison to the Samsung rival, it’s also not too overboard.

Again… kind of surprising. In a good way.

Pre-orders for the iPhone Duo open October 16, and it's in stores October 23 in the US, Germany and more than 70 countries in total. Nice.

Also on September 9, Apple made the iPhone 16, 17, Air and 17e $100 more expensive. Memory prices. The foldable came in under the rumors anyway.

Still a lot of money. More on that further down. Everything is more expensive this year.

Unfolding… the fold

You open a foldable a lot. Duh...

Dozens of times a day, probably. That’s what the fold does.

Apple turned that into a little show. And I am really surprised nobody else (Google or Samsung or Oppo) thought of that.

It’s the feel of the movement and the animations.

When you unfold the Duo, the interface moves from the outer screen to the inner one, the controls stay where they were, and the content grows around them. In Apple's words, "content reacts as it folds." Flip the phone over and it switches to the other display. Turn it sideways and it reorients.

It's just an animation. But it's a pretty great set of animations. So smooth and logical.

Even 9to5Google, a site that mostly covers Android, writes that watching the demos, "you can immediately see the care that went into the transitions." The details!

When the phone is half folded, content slides away from the crease, because taps are harder to register there. Most people will never notice that. Because it just works.

Dock

The Dock has been at the bottom of the iPhone since 2007.

On the Duo it sits on the side. Vertical. The Lock Screen controls and the app navigation moved there too.

The reason is logical. Opened, the Duo is almost square, and on a square screen the space from top to bottom is what you want to keep. And your thumb probably holds the phone at the side anyway.

The status bar is now a small round element in the corner.

That's a lot of rethinking for a Dock. But in a good way.

App layouts

Open the Duo and you get two Home Screen pages at once. Not mirrored. But logically enhanced.

And for the first time on an iPhone, there is Split View. Two apps side by side. Two Safari windows. Pairs of apps you can save and open together later. Nothing new for Android. Very nice for iOS.

The keyboard adapts as well. Laid flat, it sits on the lower half of the display. Partly folded, it becomes a split keyboard. Open entirely, it’s wide and big.

Put the phone down in a V-shape and StandBy starts, even when it isn't charging. The details!

Camera

Samsung had a selfie camera under the display of the Fold for a few generations. The Fold 8 has a hole punch in the inner screen again, and Android Authority calls its placement a problem.

Apple put the FaceTime camera under the inner display. It stays "hidden until you need it," says Apple.

And when you do need it, it gets its own little animation.

The outer screen joins in too. Point the rear cameras at someone and they see a live preview of themselves on the outside. Apple calls it Duo Preview. For kids there's Kid Cue, which plays Peanuts animations on the outer display so they look at the camera.

Snoopy on the back of your phone. So your kid looks up.

The downside: The selfie camera quality is not great.

Small stuff

More of it:

• The hinge has more than 100 components, and its cover is 3D-printed titanium with a micro-blasted finish. Nice details, also the crease is pretty much invisible.
• Magnets hold it closed. But not too tight so it can easily stay half-open or half-closed (depending on your psychological glass half full / empty stance here).
• Touch ID sits in the side button, so unlocking works the same whether the phone is open or closed. No Face ID though. But that’s fine with me.
• The audio tuning adjusts as the distance between the speakers changes while you fold. Placement matters a lot for audio. And this is the sweet spot for almost every angle.

Small details, all of them. Together they make the Duo seem more premium. And made with a lot of love. That’s the Apple way.

Downsides, of course

$1,999 is where it starts. The Folio case with the kickstand is another $129. Meanwhile the Fold 8 has already been $250 off. So, yeah Apple won’t win any price awards.

The crease is still there. Invisible mostly, but still there. MacRumors could see it in certain light, even if Apple hides it better than Samsung or Google. Oppo is closest here. The camera area under the display shows a little on darker screens too.

Split View is basic. Each app gets half the screen. As far as I know. Samsung's Fold 8 runs three apps at once.

Apps that aren't updated for the Duo sit in a box on a black background. For now. That should fix itself over time.

Touch ID instead of Face ID, like the rumors said in April. And two rear cameras, no separate telephoto lens.

Also, I haven't held one. All of this comes from the keynote, Apple's own pages and the first hands-ons.

The Bottom Line

I haven’t held one… Remember that. Because the key is: I WANT to hold one. And that’s what Apple wanted to achieve with this. Because, honestly, before the keynote I was sure this Apple foldable wouldn’t be interesting to me. But now, I want to hold one.

Apple achieved what they wanted. And I bet the sales will show that.

So, yeah, back in April I wrote that it'll just be an iPhone that folds. Like Samsung’s or Google’s. Maybe that's enough. But it’s more...

It is an iPhone that folds. With all the small details that make it feel more premium. And more fun.

Looks like Apple spent those years on the small stuff. That makes a huge difference.

This is what they do.

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