iPhone Duo Reviews

John Gruber (Mastodon, tweet, Bluesky):

The Duo name is perfect. It truly is like having two devices in one. The outer device is, by far, the worst iPhone Apple has ever made. It’s a miserable fat little thing. The inner device is a splendid, joyful, beautiful tablet, with a UI that out-iPads the iPad. For me, by far, it’s my favorite tablet experience ever. I prefer it to any iPad or Kindle-like reader I’ve ever used. It does not go into or out of my jeans pocket smoothly. Sometimes, in my pocket, it rotates 90 degrees, which is uncomfortable. Folded up it never stops feeling heavy. No, the problem with holding the Duo in your left hand alone is that the bottom left corner of its D-shaped frame digs into your palm. When you hold it in your right hand, it’s a nice round corner in the meat of your thumb’s base. In your left, it’s a crisp sharp corner, and it doesn’t feel good. I’d love a display that looks and feels like this on my non-foldable iPhone 18 Pro. No glare, even in sunlight. It’s amazing. Held horizontally, the iPhone Duo supports side-by-side multitasking with two apps. The user interface for this feature is brilliant. It puts every idea Apple has tried on iPadOS for multitasking to shame. Every time you pick up the Duo to use it you face The Decision. Open it? Or be lazy and suffer with the outside display? Every time.

This is such a good review; you should just read the whole thing. Marques Brownlee has a great video review. Like Gruber, he really misses FaceID. They seem to disagree about the camera and screen aspect ratios. I also really liked Joanna Stern’s video review. She and Gruber both say it’s too hard to open the Duo with one hand.

MacRumors and MacStories have review roundups.

Austin Mann:

A week with the iPhone Duo at home, camping and in Iceland. A capable camera with new tricks, and a creative powerhouse for planning, editing and sharing.

Previously:

• Developing for iPhone Duo
• iPhone Duo