The iPhone Duo Is Expensive and Inconvenient. I Still Love This Freaky Little Thing.
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I have been an iPad user since the very beginning — I used my bar mitzvah money to purchase the first-generation device — but I switched to the iPad mini when it came out in 2012, and I currently own the seventh-generation version of that. Judge me all you want, but it is, in my opinion, the ideal piece of technology. It’s separate enough from my computer that I don’t feel stressed when I use it; it’s meaningfully more engaging than my phone because of the larger, more engrossing screen; and it’s small enough that I could theoretically plop it in my tote bag and bring it with me around the city. The issue is, I don’t do that. I have wasted many minutes leaving the house, toiling over whether it’s worth adding that tiny bit of extra weight to my already-heavy bag just to possibly whip out my iPad on the subway for 15 minutes and then have to deal with the social anxiety of being such a public iPad person. So my beloved iPad mini mostly stays at home. But when rumors began swirling of a foldable iPhone that would open up to a size similar to the iPad mini, I felt a tug on my heartstrings. In the time since the iPhone Duo was announced, I’ve used my mini with a wistfulness, like a parent spending a final summer with their child before sending them off to college. Was I really going to abandon my beloved iPad mini for this new device? For the past week, I’ve done just that. And unfortunately, I love this freaky little thing.
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I wasn’t immediately smitten. It’s a big adjustment. The front screen of the device is shorter and wider — often described as passport size, but as someone who is still waiting for his new license in the mail and has been forced to carry around his passport, I can tell you it’s smaller than that. A better comparison is BlackBerry size, which feels fitting: While the one-handed typing experience is worse than on a regular iPhone, the two-thumb experience is much more satisfying, like sending a BBM in the good old days.
The software has been reworked for the asymmetrical display, putting the controls on the right side while attempting to maintain a decent amount of vertical space to re-create the typical iPhone experience. For apps that have not been updated to fill the Duo’s screens (and most of them have not at the time of this writing — and maybe never will), the experience on the front screen is quite small. At first, it was frustrating — Instagram looked insane on it (it has since been updated to fill the screen slightly more) — but it quickly felt like salvation. I was less compelled to open apps that consumed my time. When using the front screen, I did my business and got out, like we used to on our phones. At times, I wished Apple would release a single-screen iPhone with just this smaller, shorter display.
But it’s not really about the exterior display, is it? Opening the iPhone Duo is both magical and hilarious. Foldable Android phones have been around for years, but outside of Billy Evans in the second half of You Can See Everything, you rarely see them unfolded. Apple has applied its typical UI gloss, with animations that almost flirtatiously coax you into opening it up. Inside, the screen has a matte “nano-texture” coating, which felt foreign to someone who has never used a screen protector. Most Android foldables feels plasticky and cheap, and while the Duo’s interior display doesn’t feel as premium as the exterior glass, it does feel like an upgrade. Plus the matte finish has the added benefit of hiding the crease in most lighting situations. But, to be clear, it’s still there, and I don’t get the hubbub. Of course it has a crease — it folds!
I’ve been using the Duo in semi-secret, since it’s a loaned-out reviewer’s unit — and when you do use it in the wild, a million people ask to touch it. Between that and my lifelong fear of being seen as a public iPad person, I mostly unfolded it at home at first, just like my beloved iPad. I thought, What a waste! What’s the point of carrying around this humiliation machine if not to open it? I should just be using my iPad! Once I braved up and got over that, I found it remarkable to open up this thing on the subway. I felt myself whizzing through articles faster than on my phone, and I even re-downloaded the Apple Books app, flipped the phone horizontally, and read like I was holding a physical book. The matte display makes reading an even more natural experience, and the aspect ratio of the inside screen lends itself well to text. For my job, I end up reading a lot of PDF versions of our print stories, and opening them up on the Duo is a delight.
But most of my job here at New York is creating vertical 9:16 videos for our socials. The iPhone Duo upends my livelihood. While you obviously can watch vertical content on the iPhone Duo (and I have watched plenty in my time testing the device), it doesn’t feel natural. The form factor begs you to either communicate quickly on the front screen or lean back and consume on the inside screen. Before the Duo, I did not have the TikTok app on my phone — only on my iPad for dedicated scrolling sessions with my perfect algorithm. I re-downloaded it on the Duo, since I have been testing this device as a possible replacement, but I haven’t found myself watching it much. The displays are squarer than those on an iPad, and the black bars surrounding vertical content make it less all-consuming, less addicting. The device has given me a bit of an existential crisis about my line of work. (Will vertical video be dethroned if the Duo reigns supreme? Will we all have to pivot our pivot-to-video strategies again?) Using the Duo, you become aware of how much of our economy is built around the shape of our phones. 9:16 displays have been the norm for about a decade, becoming ubiquitous with the release of the iPhone X (coincidentally, the year TikTok launched). If we hadn’t spent the past ten years using vertical rectangles, what would our content landscape look like?
The device is not perfect — completely unoptimized apps end up as bad-looking blown-up iPhone apps, and those are the ones least likely to ever update; the selfie cameras are a noticeable downgrade from the Pro iPhones, and maneuvering it one-handed can be tough. One of the biggest flaws of this expensive device is how tough it will be to protect it. Apple provided me with two loaner cases — the $129 (ouch!) Smart Folio and the $79 (yeesh!) case. The latter is affixed to the device with adhesive and adds a considerable amount of bulk to an already-thick device. I have opted for the magnetic folio case, which works the same way as a classic iPad magnetic case, and is definitely not protective against a big fall. Using the case has been inconvenient in ways that are entirely my fault. Take the most horrible situation a New Yorker can be in: trying to find a Citi Bike parking spot when all the docks are full. It’s nearly impossible to get the front cover off the screen, unlock the phone (the Duo has Touch ID, not Face ID, which is an easy swap except in this instance), and use it one-handed. This, of course, is not a flaw with the Duo but a flaw with the organization of Citi Bike docks — and with me for trying to unsafely use my phone (briefly) while biking. The front cover also keeps you from seeing every notification that comes in, weaning me off my phone even further.
It feels silly to meaningfully recommend a first-generation $2,000 (oy!) device because it makes you use your phone less. Except it doesn’t. It makes you use your phone better. Sentiment toward technology is at an all-time low, and it’s only getting worse with AI. The Duo is both a taste of the future and extremely retro. Its physical hinge harks back to the satisfying click of an iPod click wheel, or whipping open a Motorola Razr. Taking selfies with the wide-angle camera and previewing them on the front screen brings me back to taking Photo Booth pictures at the Apple Store with my friends in middle school. It reminds me of a time when technology felt good to use. While the apps on the Duo are the same apps deteriorating society, something about them feels less corrosive here. It’s a similar feeling to the one I’ve created with my iPad mini at home, but the Duo unlocks it everywhere — including, if we’re being honest, the best-use case for an iPad: toilet entertainment. Public bathrooms are now fair game. For someone whose job necessitates an ungodly amount of screen time, that’s the real win. You’re less likely to keep doomscrolling on the outer display after replying to a notification, and whatever you’re doing on the inside display, there’s a finality to it. You close the device and put it away.
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