These threads are often amusing with people obliviously asking: why doesn't Apple make exactly what I want? And then stating with certainty how well their custom requirements would sell.
I'll probably wait and see how this phone does over the next few years. If it is still highly regarded by version 3 then I could imagine making the switch to a folding phone. For now I will remain conservative since my phone is such a critical piece of tech.
100%. It was so funny to see how for years, everyone on HN was harping on about how well a smaller iPhone would sell. Then Apple finally released the iPhone mini and nobody was buying it, so they had to kill it after a couple of iterations.
Basically, try to do the opposite of what HN is saying and you might just create a successful product.
> Then Apple finally released the iPhone mini and nobody was buying it, so they had to kill it after a couple of iterations.
And by "nobody", you mean "actually a lot of people, just not as many as the bigger model". It's ok to have a model that meets a less common, but still extant, need in the market. If everyone followed Apple's logic on this, people with very small or very large bodies would have to go naked because companies would go "that size doesn't sell as much, we have to kill it" rather than (as actually happens) charging more per unit to make up for the overhead of lower volumes of sales.
"Try a different smaller form factor every couple of years" is a reasonable strategy. First Mini, then Air. Supposedly they're gonna refresh the Air next year, we'll see. But even if they don't: we're well into the "keep phones 3 years or more" era of the smart phone. You don't need an exact match for every phone for everybody every year.
The Mini 14 never existed. Perhaps you're thinking of a specific (non-mini) model of the iPhone 12 which was temporarily banned in France or maybe the USB C requirement which went into effect ~1 year after new sales of the iPhone 13 mini were already discontinued by Apple worldwide?
Except there’s no average person, the average itself is a combination of people with the most diverse needs and constraints. It’s like the joke that the average human being has 1 breast and 1 testicle.
As a recent Android foldable phone owner (Google Pixel), I'm excited that the Duo will get developers to actually design apps for foldables. Right now, some apps don't work at all and others are just stretched. I feel a better use of the screen space is around the corner for both Android foldable and Duo users.
As a dev who regularly works on apps for both platforms, I think one of the main causes for poor support for form factors beyond a standard smartphone on Android boils down to Google refusing to give developers fully fleshed out APIs to support said form factors.
Instead, they just hand you some poorly documented loose parts in a box and tell you, “good luck” and you’re on your own to fill the gaps. Compose is a little better about giving the tools you need than the preceding Android Framework, but it’s still much more “assembly required” and “batteries not included” than the UIKit+SwiftUI world is.
Many iOS apps built using system components will behave 90%+ correctly on the Duo by just compiling against the iOS 27.1 SDK because there are well supported methods of doing things that Apple can leverage to reduce dev work. In contrast, on Android there's 10 ways of doing anything none of which get full-throated support (on top of all the other ways devs invent), and so any time it gains support for a new form factor almost nothing is automatic and it all falls on the devs’ shoulders.
WindowSizeClasses, Postures, Navigation3, ListDetailScaffolds, the list goes on. Android & Compose is pretty much flawless when it comes to develop for it, it's thoroughly documented and works well.
Layouts will not magically be not dog shit on iOS because Apple put out another version of SwiftUI that you can't use in prod because nobody has the update. 90% of the apps will be stretched. Horizontally. The reality of it is, it's pretty much never worth it to make layouts that are specialised for foldables/tablets.
Also, it's pretty fucking funny to be worshipping Apple like that when they have a single device to support, and then complain about Android that literally had to pave the way and today works on phones that can unfold three times, phones like the galaxy Z Flip that have instead half screens, etc. Apple will tell you they can't back port dynamic islands on last year's release, while latest Compose is happily running on devices from 10 years ago.
> WindowSizeClasses, Postures, Navigation3, ListDetailScaffolds, the list goes on.
Yes, those are the loose parts. They still have to be assembled correctly for everything to work as expected and every app does it a bit differently (there is effectively no endorsed "correct" way to assemble them). This means that Google cannot extend them with new functionality later without breaking some if not most usages of those parts in the future.
Compare that to UITabController in UIKit, which has been present since very early on and got extended recently. If the dev adopts iOS 18 revisions, configuring that single view controller gets you more or less correct presentation and navigation across all sizes and orientations of normal iPhone, iPad, desktop, and now iPhone Duo and implementation is close to identical between apps.
> …and then complain about Android that literally had to pave the way and today works on phones that can unfold three times, phones like the galaxy Z Flip that have instead half screens, etc.
That's fair, but users can't reasonably expect any kind of meaningful adoption of new oddball form factors like that until the platform vendor (Google) rolls out standardized APIs to streamline the process (which Google has partially done, but won't commit to a unified solution for).
> Apple will tell you they can't back port dynamic islands on last year's release, while latest Compose is happily running on devices from 10 years ago.
That is an advantage, but iOS users tend to stay much more up to date so it's something of a moot point. The userbase of versions just three major releases behind is typically below 5% and anything older is fractional at best, so unless you're a Google-scale giant you're probably fine only supporting the newest 2-3 versions of iOS. That's pretty nice since I don't need to keep a drawer full of prehistoric phones running ancient versions of Android to test adequately (so I don't find out about some weird behavior that only occurs under Android 11 in prod)…
It would depend on the sales volume. For a long time the iPad has been available and many developers simply are content to have a stretched version of their iPhone app on their iPad, because the sales volume isn’t sufficient. If foldable phones sell like iPads, this could very well happen to them too.
Same here. I ditched the google pixel fold after a year because the hardware had some issues, also tbh I prefer the iOS ecosystem. I’m so glad this is coming out.
> "A large fraction of the flaws in software development are due to programmers not fully understanding all the possible states their code may execute in."
This is a quote from John Carmack and should sit over every developers monitor. At the same time, OS designers should be doing everything in their power to reduce the number of states a developer has to think about.
Like one of the things I hate about frontend development - and admire people who do this professionally - is the stupid and arbitrary rules browsers impose on you.
'You may only play audio if such and such conditions are met. However these are different based on browser and platform. Good luck making a solution fitting all these.'
'The browser might lie about what's the available screen estate is, but only sometimes'
'There is a perfect API for what you wanna do, however it's not in Safari'
And a testament on how obscure and arcane knowledge is on doing things right is that I thought there would be some npm packages that do these things for me, but no - you have to hunt around for solutions and fix things yourself.
And LLMs are completely useless and confidently wrong mostly about everything involving this.
It is a thing to some extent, but there’s also a correlation of companies that do cross-platform for simple apps being cheap on development, and making it work very well on some specific platform isn’t their priority.
I agree. The demos were great. They really showed off how things you already do today are "better" on two screens. This is in contrast to the Vision Pro where the demos were of things that were neat but I can't see myself needing (watching 3D captures, watching a big virtual cinema screen).
I think this will be a hit, but the $2k is a bit much for me to even consider getting one. Obviously they'll likely drop that price over time.
It'll be interesting to see how many/how quickly apps adopt the UI that lets you make the most of the foldable screen. If it doesn't sell in big numbers app developers might not feel the need to and the user experience will be subpar. ...but I suspect it will.
> It'll be interesting to see how many/how quickly apps adopt the UI that lets you make the most of the foldable screen.
For iOS 27, apps are automatically automatically opted in to resizability. Apple was clear at WWDC that apps need to dynamically adjust to any available scene size at runtime, not just for iPhone Duo, but also for iPad windowing and iPhone Mirroring on Mac. There may be a grace period, but Apple hasn't shared one AFAIK.
Admittedly, software that's influenced by the iPad and iPhone, so there is new software, but it's not that new. Multitasking in iOS has been a thing for a while (iPad).
I'm not trying to discount the efforts involved here, just pointing out that they aren't starting from scratch. And much of the required features to support a dual-screen (triple-?) phone has been in the works for a while.
The Apple Vision Pro was a rare early entry into a field. Usually they wait until the technology is established and the userbase is just starting to take off, as is currently the case with folding phone displays.
Samsung has already worked out the major kinks for folding displays, over dozens of products used by multiple phone manufacturers including themselves, and Android has worked out how to handle the various use cases between the outer screen and inner screen, when closed, open, or partially open, so Apple can pull from the current state of the art and launch with a more fully developed product, as they usually did before the Apple Vision Pro.
Yeah, I wish they would go back to live, or at least parts of it live. They did a great job during the pandemic but it has lost some humanity and authenticity.
The marketing pilled postures seem to have been toned down a bit.
I wish they would stop changing speakers every other sentence though. I swear drone cameras were the worst thing to happen to video, I'm gettin seasick over here!
> I wish they would stop changing speakers every other sentence though
Apple employees get to claim very little ownership over their work (even in the context of a large tech company), so having all those speaker slots is one way they can provide that ego boost that is so crucial for long term employee morale & retention
$2K starting price is rough. I’ve upgraded my iPhone every year since my first phone, the 3GS. It’s one of a few “splurge”-type things I allow myself. It’s a hobby and just fun to play with the new hotness. This year might break the cycle.
I don’t care for the 18 Pro colors, I still love my orange 17 Pro, and I’m not sold on the Duo (functionality or price).
I might still end up with a Duo but I’m very much on the fence. I’ll tell myself it’s for development/testing reasons, or just to play with the newest offering but I’m just not sure. I worry this will suffer from the same lack of developer interest as the AVP did. Yes, it’s very different from the AVP and SwiftUI will almost certainly make this process easier but I’m still not sure.
I’m in the exact same situation. Been upgrading every year for a long time (via the Upgrade Programme, making doing so more or less “free”). I was absolutely jazzed they finally did an orange phone, and this is the first year in a while that…I just don’t care. The Duo is far more expensive than I could ever entertain (plus buying a first-gen Apple product has never been a good idea), and there is quite literally nothing in the 18 Pro that makes me want to upgrade.
I may be swayed by a second gen Air in the spring, as I would like a lighter phone that feels less of an imposition in my pocket and my life in general. But it almost certainly won’t have the zoom camera, which has unexpectedly become one of my favourite and most used features of the 17 Pro. Why the two-camera phones all come with the ultrawide instead of the telephoto is baffling to me. Perhaps I’m an anomaly, but I never use the ultrawide lens.
Why do you think I put “free” in quotes? Realistically I was never going to keep the phone longer than the two year finance term anyway, because back when I started doing it a two-year old phone would be really starting to show its age running newer software. So I could either pay monthly and get a phone every two years, or pay monthly and get a phone every year.
Of course, these days a three or four or more year old phone is often still perfectly usable even for a tech enthusiast.
To get close to the same functionality as the Duo, you'd buy an iPhone 18 Pro ($1199) plus an iPad mini ($599); that gets you to $1,798. If you want more storage than the entry level iPhone 18 Pro or iPad mini, you're going to surpass $2000 pretty quickly.
People have been leasing phones since at least the mid naughties, they just did it via their carrier. I distinctly remember standing in the Alltel store in 2006-ish, before it got gobbled up by ATT, and wondering if I could afford the extra $15/mo that the new Nokia candybar phone would run me. The only thing that's new is that Apple is offering it directly.
You could and still can do both from your carrier, it's pretty standard. In my experience, it's somewhat uncommon for people to actually buy their phones outright unless you make a lot of money (like the folks who tend to frequent HN). Every two years, my wife and I would sign up for a new 24-month contract, which would include two new phones. After those 24 months, we could keep paying off the remainder of the phones and keep them, or we could return them and start a new contract with new phones.
> Are you telling me people rented nokia bricks in the aughts?
Myself and my family did, for sure. My parents made me pay my own phone bill too, so I spent a long time in the Alltel shop staring at the different phones and probably annoying the clerk.
> it's somewhat uncommon for people to actually buy their phones outright unless you make a lot of money
Or like many of us, you buy cheaper phones outright for your prepaid phone plans. The fact that people still go for contract phone services and finance a new phone every two years blows my mind. Especially when I can get all the data/minutes/texts I need for $15 a month on a service like Tello, and just get a phone for $200-400 that I can use until it dies. Which is currently a used iPhone 11 I recently opened up to replace the battery.
See my comment elsewhere in this thread, but you are blowing my mind. I'm not from the US and I did not realize that renting a mobile device was actually this common. I'm one of the lucky 10,000 today, thanks!
I mean, you might find this hard to believe since you have a fixed view, but I'm old enough that we had one of those old-school rotary phones. My family literally leased that phone as part of our phone bill up until the late 90s. I recall at one point we were forced to trade the rotary for a push button since the telecom was discontinuing support. When "caller id" became a new feature it only worked for the first while on the rented phones.
To this day, I suspect many people have a line-item on their Internet bill for their modem/router rental/lease.
Why you would find this hard to believe is actually the curious thing to me.
Most people are short-term thinkers if you talk to anyone around you at work, school or at home and if you merely suggest saving and controlling their spending briefly to buy something in the future good luck. I have given up.
I just buy more shares of blue chip companies and let them pay in the future for anything I want to buy.
I honestly did not know this was a thing until today. I'm not from the US.
Where I'm from, it is common to finance a phone as part of a mobile contract: your monthly payment includes a device payment and the network subscription cost. Typically 24 months, but in recent years I've seen 36 month contracts as well. But at the end of the term the device is yours outright. No further down payments needed. Usually the device payment is effectively 0% APR over the 2 years, so it's a pretty lucrative deal. I've purchased all my phones this way over the past 20 years.
Then you’d like the upgrade program? The only difference is there is a final balloon payment for it to be yours. You end up paying exactly the same as paying up front.
I think it's clear that Apple has recognized that their target markets don't care to have useful computers. Just look way back to when Steve Jobs was still alive and he was talking about how "PCs are going to be like trucks. Fewer people will need them. And this is going to make some people uneasy."
They could certainly add features to make them more like general purpose computers, but there's a bit of product development and engineering "tax" they'd have to pay over time to maintain that aspect. Much easier from a product development standpoint to create products that provide a walled-garden experience, especially if that's what most customers want.
The truck metaphor is actually incredibly apt, because if you want to do "truck stuff" with your PC, a lot of people think you can't do that on a phone, but 90% of what people need a beefy computer for could be done on a phone if we had that kind of culture around it.
Macbook pros for a lot of us are effectively like daily driving a lifted Ford Raptor with a snorkel. Most of what I do on my personal device I easily could do on a Chromebook or tablet, and pretty much all of the rest is entirely possible on a Chromebook with the Linux subsystem setup (which is what I did pre-Macbook). It's like if I'd setup an expensive truck for off-roading, but in the end it turned out to be aspirational and I only take it somewhere that can't handle a Subaru Outback once or twice a year.
If that's the case, then why do we go to work on a computer instead of a phone? Oh, wait. A screen. A mouse, a keyboard. Really, if they wanted to, you could simply dock your phone and have that experience if the company was willing to put in the time.
Globally, mobile+tablet crossed 50% of web traffic in October 2016 (51.3% vs. desktop's 48.7%) [0]. For the world minus HN, we’re entering the second decade of phones being useful computers for the most common definition of useful.
I have a Chromebook with an ~11 inch screen. It’s basically the minimum size where a keyboard is still useable. I like it a lot, but it’s actually too big when I want to use it as a tablet.
I think this is the tension. Or maybe we just need to master one handed keyboards.
“Useful computer” is subjective. It seems to be difficult for HN users to imagine a device that doesn’t have a terminal for example, but the overwhelming majority of users simply do not care. Many of them manage just fine with a smartphone as their primary (if not their only) computer, so clearly they are useful enough.
Apple has had a patent[1] for like a decade at this point which involved placing an iPhone into a slot on a laptop so it could be used in a laptop form, with the phone itself serving as the touchpad.
That seems to be entirely the purpose of this device. Instead of just a larger display, it's meant to provide a "second monitor" for multitasking or more context.
With terminal emulators, tailscale, local and remote agents, there's never been so much computing capability accessible from your pocket before.
I would love it if I could use it as a second monitor when working in a coffee shop or library. Unfortunately universal control was pretty solid at launch and then just completely left to die
Lots of computers have external keyboards, mice, and displays. Why not a powerful computer like the iPhone? Who cares if it's small? Lots of SBCs are small and are quite useful. This one even has a built in UPS.
Apple's lack of vision and fear of innovation. Jobs is gone. We're back to 90s Apple. Dumb ideas become dumb products, and no one has the balls to say, No.
Android Desktop mode looks so promising, it just needs to support higher resolutions/refresh rates but this is probably a side effect of at least the Pixel having weaker performance versus other flagships.
Although I can’t wait for the more powerful Motorolas with GOS to release. Maybe that’d be enough to make a phone my sole computing device.
I certainly don't. You simply cannot get actual work done on a phone anywhere near as easily as on a real computer. There's a reason that companies issue laptops (or have desktops even) instead of giving employees a phone.
Will they though? They would capture more windows users. They already have the Neo actually. iPad still has another job mainly around simpler tasks. I’ve not yet got to love the Macosy windows management.
Have you ever connected an iPad to an external display, mouse, and keyboard? I agree with you that laptop sales would continue, but I bet they would decline. Apple could do the MS Surface much better than MS did.
I’m not so sure personally. A MacBook Air is not that much less portable than an iPad, but is far more useful for work when not docked than an iPad because it still has a keyboard and a precision pointing device. And it can still be docked when you need a bigger screen.
The areas where the iPad beats the MacBook are still (imo) the same as the day it launched: web browsing, watching video, and reading. Workloads that are heavy on the Apple Pencil too, but that’s a fairly narrow slice compared to anything else you might do on a computer.
I mean my iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard case has fully replaced my Mac for everything. I haven’t touched my Mac in months. I literally do all of my work via GitHub Codespaces (soon to be self-hosted Coder). Yes it’s not all on device but it works (for me).
I don’t see anything in my use case that I’d gain from a MacBook over this setup.
This is the biggest disappointment, imagine running a full blown "Ubuntu Touch" that gives you the freedom of Linux with full root access. This is the biggest failure of legislation in the 21st century so far that has enabled a strict Android/iOS duopoly.
I sincerely hope one day we can free these hardware devices from the shakles of their software and run anything that's possible.
Until such a time iOS devices are strictly off limits until at least a grapheneOS can run iOS at a minimum.
There’s a standard for paper sizes called the ISO 216 international standard, aka A-series paper sizes. You may be familiar with it outside of the American 8.5”x11” letter size. The simplicity, for example, where an A3 sheet is exactly twice the area of A4. One A3 sheet folded in half becomes two A4 sheets. This is intentional: when you fold or divide an A-series sheet exactly in half, the resulting sheets have the same proportions as the prior. The aspect ratio is preserved across all A-series paper sizes.
The iPhone Duo is designed with this in mind. The aspect ratio any way you view it, folded or open, is preserved. Apple design knows a thing or two.
This would matter for bigger versions of the same thing. For side-by-side, the aspect ratio is unimportant since you naturally unfold to have two of them.
I think the person you are responding to is not thinking visually. They basically seem (to me) to think reformat-flowed fixes this, and that having the view of a web page alter because you open a book, is "not a bad thing" when you (and I) are of the view, if you maintain the aspect ratio and simply decimate how many pixels are available to show it, the actual "change" in the layout is kept to a minimum WHICH IS THE INHERENT GOOD HERE -the whole point of the A, B and C series is that the scaling function preserves the ratio of sizes of the contents, under the quality change of bigger or smaller fidelity of presentation.
Unless there is some upsight I am missing, I think the OP just "doesn't get it"
I don't think this is a killer logic either. If you consider that the apps were both running, both full screen on the folded state and alternate which is in view, and now can come into view side by side when you open, surely the "good" is that nothing positional in the layout or styling changes, when you move from swipe-and-select to side-by-side.
>If you unfold a square, you don't get two squares.
yes, you do. Two squares will fold together into the space of one square, and the same with 2 A4 sheets of paper, or two 8½x11 sheets of paper, two of them will fold together to make one of them.
I think they intended to continue "... without changing their aspect ratios".
I.e. an aspect ratio of Sqrt(2)is the only one where the inner screen (full) and inner screen (half) match, and they seem to have tried to make the outer screen share a nearly identical aspect ratio too. I guess it's a nice consideration for more consistency in layouts for apps targeting the device. Not sure I'm particularly excited about that myself though.
it's a neat tidbit, but not important in the slightest imo. Probably helps with smoothly transitioning between modes, but that's not been a particular pain from my foldable use.
Android devs have always had to handle different screen sizes. Not the case for iPhone devs e.g. I have a game "Ridiculous Fishing" (from 2013) which is a mess layout-wise on my iPhone because it seemingly hardcoded some pixel values and used percentages for the others. They have a fixed version for Apple Arcade.
The first new resolution for an iPhone was 2012 which also saw the introduction of Auto Layout. The second new resolution was in 2014 which added size classes. It's entirely possible that the 2013 game was built before they actually started caring about this. This is a non-issue for almost all apps you're realistically going to encounter.
>I think they intended to continue "... without changing their aspect ratios"
but the context was "see, you can have two different apps running side by side, each with the same aspect ratio as either of the apps when run in the space of the folded screen. not only the same aspect ratio, but the same dimensions"
the whole A3/4/5 scheme is completely overblown as a feature for consumers. You format a document for A4, ok, but you wouldn't print that document A5 because the fonts would be completely shrunken. nobody does that. We use word processors to format documents for the space we have, and we don't ever print wedding invites on A3 or A4
You have to understand 1:√2. It’s not merely folding in half. The test is the folded half has to be the same ratio as the parent. It’s same ratio all the way down.
You are not answering the parent comment. If the original aspect ratio was a square, making the "full screen" aspect ratio 1:1, then folded out it would have aspect ratio 2:1, fitting two squares side by side.
The sqrt(2) aspect ratio allows a portrait full app to be scaled up to the exactly to the folded out screen. But does anyone want that? You probably want to fit more content on the bigger screen, so some layout necessarily changes.
Both sides have the same aspect ratio as the whole screen.
> this isn't great design, it's tautology. of course the phone open is twice the size of it closed.
Well, it sounds obvious now, but before Archimedes, ancient engineers split their screens 60-40, so the full screen wasn't twice the size of either side.
Yes, I do understand the issue with the aspect ratio, which is indeed good design, but parent comment's example is that "you can run two apps side by side" is the tautology. Well, at least since the invention of double-entry bookkeeping and getting rid of Archimedian phone design.
If the outer screen has dimensions X by Y, then you unfold it to have the inner screen with dimensions 2X by Y, which cleanly permits side by side apps at the original dimensions of X by Y. This is true for any ratio between X and Y.
If the user isn't going to be multitasking, then the app needs to additionally support the widescreen dimensions of 2X by Y, and the portrait orientation of Y by 2X. Both of these are so drastically larger overall that aspect ratio is a barely-relevant part of the UI layout problem, because nobody wants every button and text label to be double the size (which would mostly defeat the benefits of having the larger screen for anything other than multitasking).
The inside screen, when divided in two vertically, along the fold line, is exactly the same dimensions as the outer screen. Pretty much by definition. Any folding phone, of any aspect ratio, can run two apps on the interior display side by side.
The issue of the internal screen being the same aspect ratio as the external when rotated is completely separate.
which they have to be anyway, to support normal iphones and maybe ipads and in many cases a cackle of Android phones too. (but I still think this is brilliant design)
Good list. And if you support both portrait and landscape, you need to support twice that, and you need to be able to switch on the fly.
But for the apps that don't currently support both orientations, it's possible they don't have support for switching aspect ratio on the fly. This design might help with those apps not completely breaking when folding/unfolding.
Yeah to be fair I'm all for the 1/sqrt(2) aspect ratio, I just think it's funny that it's treated as some kind of holy design constraint when they're all over the map on phone sizing :)
And the extra irony is I'm currently shipping an app that doesn't deal well with different size phones (just pads the edges), heh, so do as I say, not as I do.
first - it's not hard to make. Outside screen size doesn't have to be half of the open screen.
second - main idea is about proportions, if you want to design apps that seamlessly transfer from one screen to another they have to have the same proportions of the sides. This is not a given and depends on the height and width.
If you take iPhone 18 Pro resolution : 2,622 x 1,206 doubling it would make the screen with 2,622 x 2,412 - almost a square screen.
They chose to have the folded phone to have 1.4:1 aspect ratio which is consistent when folded and when unfolded.
What app is going to design to flow nicely with a iPhone Duo but not a iPhone 18? Unless Apple has a 1.4:1 ratio across their entire product line, app designers have to deal with variation.
Also, when you rotate the device, the ratio changes. This is especially common when unfolding a foldable.
Folded and unfolded will both be designed for 2 aspect ratios. 1 for Portrait and 1 for Landscape. Opening the fold and rotating 90 deg will give you the larger version while keeping the aspect ratio
"larger version while keeping the aspect ratio" is of minimal benefit. You still need to present a different layout, because eg. any toolbar is going to be a different fraction of the available area depending on whether the app is on the small outer screen or the large inner screen in portrait orientation. Nobody wants a naive 2x scaling of the phone app on their iPad.
You don't seem to be engaging with the point, which is that the space available for content after subtracting out the space taken up by other UI elements is not going to have the same aspect ratio folded and unfolded. A real UI doesn't actually get this supposed benefit. Only something like a full screen video player might (depends on what kind of keep-out zone you need for the front camera), and maintaining the same aspect ratio folded vs unfolded for video content isn't particularly helpful when the aspect ratio in question isn't popular so you'll have letterboxing regardless.
People keep saying it’s so an app can resize to the full interior screen but none of the marketing photos actually have this. So its hard to say “what a genius masterstroke by Apple.”
Most have the closed screen plus another view. Or the lock screen which is a full photo open and a small section closed.
Im not saying its not possible but it doesn’t seem like that is their intention.
The difference is that it has the same aspect ratio folded and unfolded. If you look at other folding phones the inside screen is twice the area, but the shape of the phone is different. 1 : sqrt(2) is the only ratio where you can fold one side in half and the ratio stays 1:sqrt(2). Any other ratio of sides and the inside and outside have different ratios. Therefore, things have to move around, or scale.
Yes, but 1:√2 keeps the ratio even when you rotate the screen vertically. A folded 1:1 screen becomes 2:1 when "unfolded" and the area doubles, so you can go from showing one 1:1 window to two 1:1 windows side by side. But when rotated to a vertical orientation, you can't just scale that 1:1 window to double its size. With 1:√2 you can.
But apps can just rejigger into widths that fit. It would be more of an issue back when mobile sites were first becoming responsive and we pragmatically chose 2 or 3 media query widths to serve different layouts and then applied the same thinking to mobile apps. Of course the initial mobile apps, particularly on iPhone, stuck to just one and later just a few sizes themselves. As there was a wider range we did things more responsively on a continuum.
I still think the broader point of there being design reasons to hit these ratios stands and is great. I just think the idea that it needed to be precisely twice the width so apps can fit full-sized doesn't hold too much because there isn't really a "full size" notion. Or if there is, the full-size is probably the double width one. If it wasn't exactly twice the width, most apps are already built to fit into varying iPhone/mobile screen widths.
Despite all the responsive design tools and declarative layouts to ensure a great layout even on an oddball resolution... the fact is that in practice it's nontrivial, and remember that the companies that make most of the apps you use have finite design and QA budgets. They need to actually use the resolution in question in order to really do a good job of designing for it, and giving them double the work, for a $2000 and up phone which probably won't be super highly adopted, is a recipe for getting apps that end up with layouts that aren't optimized properly on one (or both) of the screen sizes.
This is already something every app needs to deal with on iPad, where users can arbitrarily resize apps and windows. And apps that support landscape layout on phones have always needed to support their UI being rendered in different aspect ratios.
At WWDC this year, Apple introduced a tool[0] to let developers arbitrarily resize their simulated iOS device screens.
Flexibility and adaptivity are more front-and-center for iOS devs than ever.
I agree it will feel super nice to go from the front screen to the dual screen and have nothing "move". And similarly it will feel "mildly infuriating" if it doesn't do that.
I also think that I (personally) don't need a front screen and would love to have whatever cost savings or improvements would come if there weren't one. This last sentence is of course a me thing, but I mention it because I think that if people start on the front screen and then open the Duo, they may just want the full screen app or something else entirely. I'm not sure the use case of being in your banking app device folded, deciding midway through flow to open it, and wanting to be in the same UI is really what I want. The part I question is what's going on that step 2 came about—I think it's either you want to go into more depth on it or you're just opening the device the way you would had you not been in your banking app.
The case where I open it to find the app using half the screen and then I have to press something or drag something to make it full screen is not that great (and isn't great today with current iPad window resizing). The best case I can think of for wanting the app in the same size format when I open it is for is something like multitasking, I guess we'll see how that looks or feels and how you get the second app open (or whether it's very common use case anyway).
In general, I've long felt the folding tech is for tablet use cases not for phone use cases. I think Apple's foray (finally) into it more or less validates that. Even though there will be a meaningful number of people buying it to replace their phone, I think this is largely because their phone use is already tablet use case-y (for entertainment especially). I assume many people will also buy it as a(n expensive) tablet replacement in addition to their phone, which is perhaps related to the timing of iPhone Handoff (same SIM on two phones) too.
Proportions absolutely matter for displays, both for aesthetic comfort and for efficient scaling. Most of the world uses ISO216 and its pleasing 1:sqrt(2) proportions. Leveraging aspect ratios with wide acceptance is a win both psychologically and for graphic designers.
The algebra proving why "halving long side H and flipping maintains aspect ratio" implies a ratio of 1:sqrt(2):
H/W = W/(H/2) (halving long side H and flipping maintains aspect ratio)
= 2W/H (multiply numerator and denominator by 2)
H² = 2W² (multiply both sides by HW)
H = √2·W ≈ 1.41 W (take the positive square root; H, W > 0)
Our world is full of artifacts from a previous ages and using some of those as standards is useful/convenient.
We still use QWERTY keyboards even though our highly futuristic typewriters don't jam anymore. We type commands on tty teleTypeWriter, we save files with buttons using a floppy disk icon, etc etc.
How can you forget? Growing up in Australia, every computer I’ve ever owned has defaulted to “US Letter” as the paper size. (Even when your computer was set to use Australian localisations.) If you didn’t change the setting, you couldn’t print. The printer would complain that it was out of paper, because it didn’t have a tray with the requested us letter paper in it. It was one of those things you always had to check.
I don’t think I saw a “us letter” sized piece of paper until I was an adult.
That's funny because (living in the US) I've noticed that many printers default to A4. Maybe 20 years ago, one printer at work would think A4 paper was loaded in it after every power-failure and we'd have to go through the menu and change it, or it would require you to clear a warning before it would print anything sized for US letter.
Every windows install I've ever done (in Australia) I picked "English (Australia)" when possible, and "English (UK)" before Microsoft provided that localisation option. I've never seen US letter as a default.
On page 52 (57 of the PDF), there’s a letter dated December 18th 1978 (Carter administration, not Reagan) from the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing adopting 8.5”x11”, effective January 1st 1980 so departments & agencies could use up their 8.5”x10.5” stock.
The government adopted 8.5”x10.5” to save money back in 1921 vs what was already the industry standard of 8.5”x11”, but this ended up backfiring and a General Services Administration report in 1972 recommended switching to 8.5”x11” would reduce by 5% the amount of times a secretary would need a second page. The Joint Committee of Printing estimated this change would save several million dollars.
> On hearing the news, one straight-faced bureaucrat in the Government Printing Office said of his colleagues' reaction to the news: "Some people think that this issue has been inadequately studied."
Apparently the American Forest & Paper Association is under the impression that it was the Reagan administration’s proclamation:
> Oddly enough, the United States used two different sizes - the 8" x 10.5" and the 8.5" x 11". Separate committees came up with separate standards, the 8" x 10.5" for the government and the 8.5" x 11" for the rest of us. Once these committees found out about each other a couple years later, they agreed to disagree until the early 1980's when Reagan finally proclaimed that the 8.5" x 11" was the official standard sized paper.
Yes, that's what I mean. I didn't see the desired mode in any of the marketing materials. This mode would be an effective 1.4x full-screen scaling. To be more specific: if the OS desktop has XxY virtual pixels in closed mode, if the user opens it and rotates 90 degrees, the desktop still has XxY virtual pixels. No new usable real estate. Everything previously seen just gets a bit bigger. I don't expect it to be the desired default for most people, but I have middle-aged eyes.
I really assumed the point of this was going to be to complain about how no phone/phone cases are exactly the same... which is an absolute scourge on society that I assume is continued by Apple here.
Too wide to fit in anyone's pocket, but the ratio is the sine of 45 degrees! Seems like a very non-Apple thing to do, honestly. My jeans don't care about math.
Take a sheet of A4 paper. Fold it in half. Fold it in half again. That’s about the size of the Duo inner screen (a little larger actually, A6 is about 13% smaller than the Duo screen).
There are compromises to any proportion decision. A tall rectangle is much more natural to hold than a fat rectangle, especially at the size of this device. The user also has to relearn the location of on screen buttons that have always had a consistent location.
I think the parent comment meant: "What's the point with respect to a phone's screen". As far as I can tell this is irrelevant for a technical screen size and app ratios? As far as I can tell the toothpaste is already out of the tube when it comes to reducing the aspect ratio testing burden for developers but maybe I'm just way too far away from the mobile development space to be aware of the pain points this is solving.
He is explaining that if you design an app that displays as desired on the outer display (in portrait mode). Then if you display that app to the inner display (also in portrait mode), it will show up exactly the same, just with everything twice as large.
This obviously makes life easier for both users and developers.
Moreover, app developers for iOS have to support fewer aspect ratios than developers of Android apps. In theory, this allows for more attention to be given to the UI design for each aspect ratio - rather than having to use a spring-style stretch layout.
If I were to guess, this does look like a new ratio to support, but at least it's just 1 instead of 2.
I would imagine this helps a lot having two screens side by side. You can remote into another phone and help a user like an old relative accomplish something. Or run a virtual machine or AI control panel
I often make the argument about whether metric is "better" being split by "is it better on paper" vs "is it better in day to day life" - and most metric stuff breaks down in the latter, meaning, the non metric systems seem to be perfectly fine in day to day life, but almost always better on paper.
Like Celsius - sounds great on paper, not any better (and in some ways, worse) in day to day weather/temperature.
One of the few exceptions I find is metric paper sizes. It's such a beautiful way of designing the sizes that is not only perfect on paper (pun proudly intended), is also totally practical in real life.
Speak to a carpenter or construction worker from any country with the metric system. Measure anything by simple powers of ten and simple decimal shifts makes life so much easier. Quick, what is half of a yard-length beam less 12 1/16"?
Assuming you mean (3 ft / 2) - 12 1/16 inches, it's about 6 inches, which is probably the accuracy you need. But it's exactly 5 15/16 inches, which is also easy to do in your head. Carpenters do it all the time, and even a doctor can.
My head did 36" divided by 2, so 18", minus 12 1/16", so 5 and 15/16". That is harder than working with quarters or fifths of meters, but easier than thirds or sixths of meters.
I don't know which is better. Considering how nothing stops you from doing decimal inches or fractional meters, but people rarely do that, both ways seem fine.
33.3 cm is easy to measure out, and 99.9 cm is exactly 1 mm short of 1 meter, well within tolerances for carpentry. Narrower than the mark left by your pencil.
Not sure how Celsius is worse? Its unit is the same of Kelvin, just shifted by 273. 0C is freezing, 100C is boiling. Some people say Fahrenheit is more representative of how people feel, but that is very subjective and biased towards the West and Northern hemisphere.
The widest range of temperatures found in any country is the USA. In the continental US alone the temperatures easily exceed -50°C and 50°C in both directions (much colder if you include Alaska). The USA also has the largest temperature change ever recorded in a 24 hour period, at 57°C.
Merits of specific measurement systems aside, the USA is arguably the most representative single country on Earth when it comes to temperature and "how people feel". It has among the hottest, coldest, and most extreme temperature ranges ever recorded.
Celsius in a lab (or in cooking) is perfectly fine.
But as a way to describe daily weather (and thermostats) it's woefully inadequate.
The sum total of "comfortable" temperatures in celsius has to be squeezed between maybe 17 to 24 - why? you never ever use anything above 40 except when talking about people that died from a heatwave.
It's based on the freezing and boiling point of water _at sea level_ which almost none of us ever encounter (whether it's sea level, or the boiling point of water).
Fahrenheit is a much more intuitive scale (again... to describe daily weather or human temperature) - 0 - 100 better models the temperatures we experience daily, and you can intuitively separate into 10s, the way you "feel"
For example...
100s - honey, please, let's move to a cooler place.
90s - uncomfortably hot
80s - hot in the sun, not too bad at night
70s - you'd probably want a light sweater at night
60s - light sweater all the time
50s - medium sweater
40s - sweater, maybe a coat
30s - coat
20s - sweater and coat
10s - why am i living in this region?
0s - honey, please, let's move to a warmer place.
The point is that there's enough resolution to describe the actual human experience with temperature.
For everything else, celsius is perfectly adequate, totally agree.
FYI, none of this has ever made any sense at all to somebody who didn’t grow up with Fahrenheit. Numbers don’t need to go roughly between 40 and 100, and then occasionally 212 and 450.
The difference between 20 C and 20.5 C is not generally noticeable. The difference between 20 and 25 really is.
You’ll just have to face the fact that you feel comfortable with a really weird system that nobody else can see the point of, but it’s what you’re comfortable with. That’s OK, you’re allowed.
It's common here to say something like "this week it's in the 70s." In places that use Celsius, "in the 20s" must be too broad, so do they instead say something like "high 20s"?
They also accidentally got MPH right for cars. Fastest highway is like 85. 100 is the fastest a normal car can go and also a reasonable point to arrest the driver.
> Its unit is the same of Kelvin, just shifted by 273
You mean shifted by 273.15 because Kelvin doesn't have tidy fixed points at the freezing and boiling point of water, unlike Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Celsius and Fahrenheit are both utilitarian systems. Kelvin is the scientific system. Arguments about the relative utility of C° and F° are subjective and neither is particularly optimal for science.
To be clear, I don't have strong feelings. Obviously in a lot of science/engineering fields we use Celsius degrees a lot. But we also us Kelvin absolute scale a lot which would be ridiculous for day-to-day usage.
I am used to Fahrenheit but it is also a finer scale and a nice round number for boiling is largely irrelevant for the vast majority of purposes. Yes, knowing the freezing point of water can be important but memorizing one simple number probably isn't a huge stretch especially that the reality differs based on a number of factors. Arguably, knowing that 0 degrees F means fricking cold is sort of a higher latitudes bias but I'm not sure the degree to which Celsius simplifies.
I have a kitchen thermometer for making caramel (can't remember exact number but ballpark is 200C). I occasionally use my oven at 250C. My wife fires her ceramics in a kiln at around 1000C. I don't feel like I'm "wasting" anything here.
> Celsius isn't granular enough.
This argument would be reasonable if we didn't have to cut inches into 16 or 32 parts to approach decent granularity. At least we use decimal for cutting Celsius up...
Yup, because neither has significant advantage over the other. The only place where Celsius imo has a slight advantage comes from how often the phrase "below freezing" is used when talking about weather. That to me suggests that 0C/32F has some special significance, and thus makes Celsius a bit more elegant because it acknowledges that point. The granularity doesn't matter too much, as long as we agree to use decimals for ease of calculations, instead of using 1/32nds or some other barleycorns.
As an American, I find Fahrenheit much better for ambient temperature and body temperature, but I hate seeing it for things like melting points of materials and the like. I'm always thrown off by statements like 800-degree pizza ovens, because once you get above 500°F it is out of the realm of everyday measurements, and I have trouble mentally separating the values for metals melting in °C and "gee whiz" temperatures in °F.
All scientific and engineering use should probably eschew the customary measurements, even in the news. For example, in aviation, they use °C now unless your airplane is very old. Unfortunately, in the US we still use inches of mercury for pressure, both knots and MPH but never km/h or m/s, etc.
Only Americans feel this way about Celsius. The only downside is that Celsius requires 3 digit precision to really accurately characterize what temperature a room feels.
I would be willing to bet humans are woefully inadequate at knowing the temperature of the room they are in anyways
I do concede the overwhelming majority of people that argue that one is better than the other (both ways) are basically just arguing "the thing I grew up with is better" - because when you probe further, there isn't really any supporting argument, just "I understand this system better because I grew up with it" but it's equally vacuous coming from people who grew up with Celsius.
I came to the US when I was 12, so I grew up with Celsius but didn't pay attention to the weather as a young child. But still, I've lived in both systems.
The only connection off the top of my head is that mL of water increases by 1˚C if heated with 1 calorie. Which is annoying because 1 Calorie is 1000 calories.
Because in Celsius, 0 lets you know the water outside will likely be frozen and 100 lets you know the water in your pot is likely boiling. This is utterly useless information.
It is nowhere near as useful day to day as knowing 0°F means a very specific saltwater brine mixture will likely be frozen, and 90°F is kind of as hot as your insides. Or 96. Or 98.6 as the third revision decided.
I find F way more intuitive for weather. The larger scale helps. 100 is hot. 0 is quite cold. Boiling point is irrelevant. 32 freezing is the only thing that feels arbitrary.
50 hurts to the touch, your chip has likely broken and given off its black smoke
30 is good for swimming in cold water
>25 is worth worrying about sun stroke. make sure to drink a lot of water
24-26 is a nice summer day
18-22 is comfortable room temperature
>15 is good enough shorts weather
0-10 needs at least a light jacket
<0 you have to be attentive about frost bite, but not worried
-5 either wants gloves or good pockets
-15 wants a sweater and jacket
< -15 you should probably plug in your car
-10 - -25 is good downhill skiing weather
-20 - -27 is right cold, full winter gear: toque, scarf, mittens, thick socks, the whole kit and kaboodle, but still chic
-30 - -40: ski version of the full winter gear, including snow pants, double socks, and good boots. both your warmest sweater and ski jacket
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its really just what you grew up with that will make sense.
like, wtf is 72 and 54 and mid 80s? i have no backing reference to put them into scale, even after living in the states for a decade. 500, 275, 425, 150 do make sense in F for me because thats what ovens list
I find that increments of 1C are too small to be useful in daily life but increments of 5C are quite big. As a result, you can't really round degrees Celsius to a multiple of 5 whereas full precision integer temperatures are too precise. So for example 15C and 17C feel like different temperatures, but each 1C step from 15C to 16C to 17C is not really useful.
In contrast, it's very reasonable to round temperature to increments of 5 degrees Fahrenheit. So for example 58F and 60F are basically the same temperature as far as my perception is concerned.
It's literally does not matter in day to day life. In the end you get to X degrees is cold, Y degrees is perfect and Z degrees is hot regardless of C or F.
I grew up using C and now I'm using F, if I move to a country that uses C, I will switch again. Its meaningless.
This is the correct take. The better system is the one that you have intuition in - just keep using that one if building up intuition in a different system is not worth the cost to you. At least when it comes to temperature. :)
What are you talking about? The same can be said about 59F (15°C) and 60F (15.56°C)
"One fahrenheit increment doesn't feel like anything"
At least Celsius are grounded in reality, should I be worried about ice? Just check if temperature is below 0°C. But hey you may need to check if your solution of water, ice and ammonium chloride is frozen, so I just need to check if below 0F. That's probably something you do often right?
theyre both grounded in reality because the represent real temperature conditions.
theyre both just arbitrary degrees though, since 0 isnt actually 0. they both have better alternatives too - Kelvin and Rankin. your criticism about freezing applies to celsius too. freezing is at a certain pressure and temperature, so both the 100 and 0 celsius only sometimes describe boiling and freezing
...making the point that Fahrenheit's 0-100 range is better suited to normal day to day measurements than 0-100 Celsius. The numbers that feel easiest to communicate with are scaled nicely relative to the range of temperatures you most often want to communicate about.
> It is more precise. Fahrenheit has more frequent degrees, allowing for greater resolution with analog thermometers.
this is really about the graduation and size of the thermometer? you can print a useful line pitch as you like, and have it represent what you want, where thats a 0.25C, 3F, 10c or whathaveyou.
everyday temperatures are pretty well centered around 0C, half the year above, the other half below, and the 10, 20, 30, and 40 increments feel quite similar to each other in severity of the season. +30 is damn hot and -30 is damn cold. +/-10 is all mildly warm or cold, with +/-20 really being where you do seasonal acitivites like swimming or skiing.
as far as western units go, C fits fantastically for the the traditional western culture with 4 idealized seasons. I could see F being better for places outside the idealized west - eg. the american south/sun belt, the PNW, southeast asia, south america, a lot of africa, etc where the seasons are different
An Apple Miata is the dream. Take the design team from the MX-5 NA days and marry it to Apple's design team. Both are exemplar in engineering and the result has me drooling as I day dream here.
Apple design is the polar opposite of the MX-5. The MX-5 is a masterpiece of mechanical design and function. Apple makes minimalist purely electronic fashion gadgets that are highly form over function and remove user agency.
It’s a terrific car if you want a great handling convertible at a low price point. As you said, it’s fun.
It’s not good at moving a lot of people or things, or going really fast, or lasting for 500k miles, or being as cheap as possible. Other cars are good at some of those things, but what is the Miata missing that is otherwise required to be a ‘good’ car?
The good news is Apple made a more practical dual-screen device than most previous attempts. The “big square” UI was awkward for both reading and video. Apple not only made it rectangular but kept it in the magic aspect ratio that’s able to be shared by single and dual screens.
I had written off dual screen when the square layouts were the norm, but I think Apple has struck a good balance here between screen size and price+chunkiness+serviceability. I won’t be holding my breath for an iPhone Trio. (Not to be confused with Palm Treo.)
From a visual aesthetics perspective, I prefer the square edges of the Samsung Fold 8.
Eager to check out the reviews of the software capabilities of the iPhone Duo.
And I'm not sure about the inner screen's selfie camera. The under-screen camera has failed in previous devices, especially for zoom calls, it was abysmal.
Excited for the nano texture displays though. For far too long, Samsung had beaten Apple with non-reflective displays.
I trust Apple likely did better, though they’ve made bad decisions before (Studio Display camera).
My biggest worry is the lack of Face ID. I love Face ID so much. I know I can do the Apple Watch unlock, but I don’t want to. I just want my phone to immediately look unlocked to me. and Face ID did that the vast majority of the time.
So I’m very curious to hear what the hands-on impressions from people are. Is the screen good? Can you notice or feel the crease? Is there anything else wrong? Is not having Face ID as annoying as I suspect?
At least there’s something really interesting this year. It’s more than just faster and better cameras, which is nice. And having actual aperture blades on the pro is great.
FWIW (and this is not directed to you specifically but anyone reading this) the police can use biometrics to compel you to open your phone without a warrant, but they cannot force you to give up your passcode.
Not around here it isn't. The iPhone Duo starts at $2999 for the base storage. The Fold 8 is $2399 and even the Fold 8 Ultra is $2699. This only confirms that Apple has been steadily pricing themselves outside what I'm willing to spend. Can I afford it? Yes. Will I get $3k of value from it? No. This one is not for me at this price.
Just want to check, do you mean American pricing? It starts at $1999 not $2999, which is surprisingly competitive with the Fold 8. (Of course, Samsung discounts the shit of the Fold in ways Apple never does).
I'm in Canada and those are the prices I saw when I looked at the Apple and Best Buy websites this afternoon. Apple seems to enjoy charging a premium up here.
Is an inner screen camera really worth it? There's already a camera cutout on the outer screen, plus you can open the phone and use the full-size camera with the outer screen, which results in much more flattering imagery than the wide-angle lenses selfie cameras use. It's like taking the difference between an under-screen selfie camera and a regular selfie camera, and applying that again.
It makes sense to have one screen for an as-large-as-possible uninterrupted display, and another for maximum utility.
I like that Samsung doesn't cut as much corner off as Apple, but ideally I'd like to find a manufacturer that doesn't cut corners at all. Even though I'm not likely to buy another iPhone product, I am excited that Apple doesn't cut holes in their interior display, because that'll probably get other manufacturers to do the same.
I suspect there are plenty of people out there who habitually buy the most expensive of what Apple has to offer in any category. I guess Apple was leaving money on the table by not having anything in this price range in the first place.
The under-screen camera essentially doesn't matter. For the three times you're in a meeting with it, it'll hold. For everything else, you'll use the primary camera and the front screen.
There's a perfectly good use case of using this device unfolded with their kickstand powered folio case and a portable keyboard — While getting some zoom calls and productivity / work done.
Apple usually gets heat for not being the first to a feature, even when they’re the first with an implementation that’s actually good, not just a gimmick
I've had two folding phones and I am not going back until the issues are resolved. Here were my problems:
1. After a while, I think dust would inevitably get in the hinges and wouldn't fold flat. I've seen demos in stores of newer gen Samsung foldable phones and it looks like those wouldn't fold flat
2. The inner screen protector eventually lifted off the screen, causing catastrophic damage, and requiring repair (under warranty thankfully)
3. The aspect ratios were weird. I ended up using native app sizes, making the extra space kind of a waste
One thing I did like about the Samsung foldables was that when they were folded and using the front screen, I finally had a phone that fit my smaller hands! It was nice being able to use my thumb to reach the other side of the screen. Will be interesting to see how this works out because it looks decidedly wider.
> After a while, I think dust would inevitably get in the hinges and wouldn't fold flat. I've seen demos in stores of newer gen Samsung foldable phones and it looks like those wouldn't fold flat
For your first point, the iPhone duo is rated IP 68 Dust and Water protection. Literally none of Samsung's book foldables so far have achieved this IP rating.
I get the form factor difference but Windows Hello (which actually works extremely well, probably due to its incubation with Xbox) came out two years before FaceID.
One thing I love about metric paper is the beauty of the simplicity: When you fold it, it maintains its ratio. This is because it is 1:1.41, aka 1:sqrt(2)
When I saw that this new phone is 1:1.4, I instantly appreciated why it is that way. Metric paper wins again!
Of all the ISO standards I wish the US would adopt, ISO216 would be it for me, hands down. I recently needed to buy some A6 thermal paper, a size no one seems to offer anymore. And who cares! Why would they! I can just buy an A4 sheet and cut it in half twice, no fuss.
Same here. I wish I could just use A4 paper, but usually when I put something on paper it is to share with others, who will not have an easy way to store or process it. It has to be a widely mandated switch.
Like only allow A* paper for government forms or something that would force everyone to switch their paper handling infrastructure to A*.
As a reference point, I’ve stubbornly been using A4 paper in both USA and Canada for years now with governments and businesses. Never had any problem with IRS, passport agency, CRA refusing to accept them, or even mentioning it at all in person.
No problem buying it either, though it’s about 2x the price of letter. (I go through about 100-200 sheets per year mostly due to my daughter drawing on it.)
I don’t actually store any printed paper since anything gets scanned and shredded, so no comment on long term filing.
(Due to this experience I recently partially switched to B5 paper, which is a nice size compromise instead of A5 which would be too small. Anything A4 will print to it without scaling issues of course, just takes up a bit less space.)
The US would need a president who is bullheaded enough to executive order a thing, like drop the penny or paper straws, but that also likes Europeans, so we might be waiting a while for a push from the US government. Printed media nerds, however, already know about benefits of A* and will switch as soon as they're in power and can spend the millions and millions of dollars it would cost their company to switch. Printed media is not as important as it once was, though, so the switch is really to start outputting PDFs as A4 and letting people print scale-to-fit when they actually need to print something you've sent them. Given how often my printer sees use, I doubt most people would notice if the PDFs you send them started being A4 instead of US letter.
The aspect ratio is the biggest problem with foldables.
The main reason I'd want a bigger display is for more immersive content like videos, which are typically 16:9. On a Pixel Fold, you have all the added complexity of the fold to make the videos you watch on the train 1cm taller.
The iPhone Duo unfolds to be the same height as the iPhone Pro Max. Sounds like it has the exact same problem - a bunch of added complexity without a practical use for it.
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> Touch ID is integrated into the side button
Another major flaw with the foldable form factor - it's hard to distinguish holding the device e.g. to pocket it and holding the device to use it. My foldable does the smartphone equivalent of butt-dialing way more often than any phone I've had before because it likes to unlock itself when I'm putting it in my pocket
For media consumption on the go, I use AR glasses. They are considerably cheaper than the upgrade from an 18Pro to a Duo, and give you an absolutely giant screen.
Which AR glasses? I'm looking more for a travel MacBook virtual display that doesn't weigh so much as the Vision Pro. I would gladly trade away most of the Vision Pro features, but I'm also a huge snob about pixel density so remains to be seen if I can tolerate alternatives.
I bought them to code more effectively on my laptop at my then girlfriend (now wife)'s house. The display was too pixely and distracting for me to code on. However, its plenty good enough for videos.
For videos I mostly use it with my phone (16 pro). Some apps are great (Netflix, AppleTV) and are smart enough to turn off the iPhone screen. Others (VLC, HBO) leave the screen on and burn battery at 2x-3x the rate of AppleTV or Netflix. I can watch AppleTV or Netflix on a coast-to-coast flight an still have plenty of battery left over. With HBO I use probably 20% battery per hour.
iPads have the same issue (to a lesser extent) if you're really looking for a device primarily for fullscreen 16:9 video. To be honest, the iPhone Duo (and iPads) are much more suited for multiple tiled apps and multi-column app layouts than they are for fullscreen 16:9 video.
I enjoyed the subtle shade (presumably at Samsung) when they discussed existing foldables having an awkward size, and choosing their new ratios and the asymmetric form factor. One edge square, one edge rounded, so all edges are rounded when open.
I don't understand the value of the asymmetric corners, it seems to be working around their decision to have absolutely massive corner radius? Why would you want that?
I have a Z Fold 8 in the same passport form factor and it has slightly rounded corners on both the front and interior screen that are symmetrical along both axes. The usable space on the front screen is greater without those edges as it's just a ... normal phone screen?
> I enjoyed the subtle shade (presumably at Samsung) when they discussed existing foldables having an awkward size
I don't think that was subtle shade...
That being said, short-and-wide foldables have been done before, they just never stuck around. Google should've stuck with it on their Pixel Fold, same for Oppo with the Find N.
Shame that the short-and-wide foldables took this long to become more mainstream, since to me it's been the obvious form factor ever since I tried the older Galaxy Folds.
My pockets don’t care much about ISO paper standards (not sure why you call it metric? That doesn’t have much to do with the metric system as far as I’m aware?)
Most people in the US aren't aware that everyone else uses a different size of paper. Heck, most people in the US aren't even aware that there are names for the sizes of paper we do use.
I see a possible future where we have ultra thin devices that can be successively unfolded to larger formats based on this ratio, making size-based product variety obsolete. After that we get screen origami.
Amazon typically has it; https://www.amazon.com/Hammermill-Paper-letter-Bright-Sheets... by Friday. I occasionally need some for Australian paperwork and forget where I stashed it every time. Some day I'll open a closet and find 20 reams of the stuff with a page or two missing.
You get it online. I keep it around to print booklets for certain community purposes. I can set latex for A5, design the pages, then print the A5 pdf to A4 paper booklet and Tex, Mac and Brother understand with zero further brain investment from me .. . Letterpaper is a nightmare
I always thought when people mentioned a “legal pad” in us tv shows they were referring to the colour which always for some inexplicable reason seemed to be… yellow or blue…
Why do they insist on every new phone being bigger than the phones before them?
I don't mind folding. I think it's cool, and a nice way to get a useful space. But I have big hands, and I can't use my iphone 17 now without two hands. This is even wider before unfolding.
Who wants bigger phones? Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
I want smaller phones. The width of the iPhone 4 was nearly perfect imo. If they would take modern display technology with approximately that width and expand it to 16:9, I think it would kill, even if it were relatively underpowered compared to the modern top of the line.
> Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
Me. I get why people like small phones. But, I've have the iPhone Jumbo Huge edition for a long time now. I use my phone as a pocket tablet 10X more than as a phone.
1) 1878 pixels over 4.64" vs. 1284 over 3.07"
2) Default camera mode is 48 MP vs 12. Other modes are surprisingly similar.
3) A much faster CPU
I'm sure there are 1,000 more small differences. But, my 12 Jumbo Huge from late 2020 still runs great. If I were to upgrade, I'd get the Duo. We'll see how much longer I keep waiting, I guess.
The other night I was at an event and pulled out my iPhone 13 mini to show some people a video I had taken -- the two people on either side of me exclaimed and pulled out their iPhone minis and we all laughed about holding on to them until they turn to dust.
lol i have upgraded multiple times and i always end up back on the iphone mini. it's cost me a lot of money to find out how much i truly value small phones. my phone use is so balanced compared to some of the people i sit around who are just glued to their damn phones all the damn time. i love the utility that i can literally do whatever i need on the iphone mini, but i don't feel drawn to pick it up and just scroll much. i think the size helps reinforce that a lot, and i mostly feel like i have such a healthier relationship with screen time than my coworkers, family and friends.
if there was ever an iphone that was the size of the iphone 5 it would literally be over for me id pay 2000 dollars for it i dont care. there's literally no other options for small phones that don't suck right now i have looked exhaustively. the 13 mini is still the small phone king it's the best damn phone in the milky way.
Still to this day Apple 12/13 mini has been my absolute favourite form factor for a hand-held device. I appreciate Apple must have had their valid reasons to discontinue it, but it's such a shame.
Also still haven’t moved on from the iPhone 12 - it’s a beast. I’ve dropped it thousands of times. Refuses to die or break. I think we’re due another mini run. They seem to come every 5-6 years.
> Who wants bigger phones? Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
I have bad eyesight. I've worn bifocals since I was 16, and I'm twice that age now. I literally used to carry around a 7" tablet in my pocket in college because I didn't have a smartphone yet. I want to be able to make things big so I can read them easily and not have to scroll constantly.
When I go for walks I only bring my smart watch. If I break an ankle or someone has an emergency we can talk. But I can't pull up a bench and doomscroll for an hour.
I don't think that follows. You can doomscroll at any screen size, small or big. If they don't fit in your pockets, it's probably harder to doomscroll on the phone, not easier.
I actually read more ebooks with a foldable. It gives me more functional options for entertainment other than doomscrolling. Videos are also obviously better on the inner screen.
> Videos are also obviously better on the inner screen.
How? Most foldables I've seen have an inner screen with a ratio so bad that the full screen video results in mostly black bars and the image is barely bigger than watching it on the outside screen.
Lots of people. There’s a reason folding phones have been a big story for years.
Maybe they only sell to 5% of users but they sell and at top prices, meaning more possible profit.
And you can’t grow the iPhone at the current sizes. Everyone who once wants at one of those sizes already has one. You either have to convince them to upgrade or switch, and those are both hard.
However, if you give them a choice of something they haven’t had before, it’s way easier. Get the people who wanted to fold and went to android and would like to come back. Get the people who have a max and want something bigger. Get the people with an iPhone 13 who are simply curious enough to do the upgrade, but otherwise would’ve stood still.
I think they could get 0.1 to 1 percent increase in sales by fixing family/ screentime. It doesn't work flawlessly and a teenager is basically the same as a hacker and there are too many workarounds and it is very hard to harden either iPhone or Mac.
It also needs a kill switch. (Non parents will judge I am sure)
The device with good parental controls will be the go to for many parents regardless of practically anything else.
> Who wants bigger phones? Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
I literally just got 7 pairs of pants tailored with bigger pockets so they could hold my freaking phone without it falling out all the time. I would love a smaller more petite phone.
Yep. Last time they made a mini iPhone it didn’t sell as well as they expected. It seems the market loves big phones. I bet these folding iPhones will sell like hotcakes.
I want the rest of you to have big phones, so that the concept of "mobile friendly websites" can die. This is my sole interest in phones. So I hope the Duo can be held comfortably in landscape orientation, but I guess in fact it can't be held comfortably at all. Oh well.
It is true that mobile oriented design killed a lot of great web designs from the 00s. But its not just screen size, thumbs are less precise than mouse cursors, necessitating larger buttons and click areas.
Bad luck, accessibility standards require you to support 320px width without horizontal scroll bar for most elements, especially the main layout. (1280px with 400% zoom)
I like my Apple phone 4s too it was fine in its time but these days I need a bigger phone because the eyesight isn’t exactly what it used to be. I don’t need a giant phone, but I need something a little bit bigger than a 4s.
There was a while where the bezels were getting smaller and the pixels cleaner where getting a new iphone/ipad pretty much kept pace with my declining near vision.
But these days I pretty much need to buy different pants so the goddamned phone fits without dislocating my hip.
I kind of thought the same and then I invested a bit of money into seeing(!) an ophthalmologist. If it's correctable, do it. Better investment than a damn phone. Now I can go back to asking for a smaller phone.
Well, I'm with you and I was very excited when the iPhone Mini came out. However, the capabilities weren't equivalent to the regular-sized Pro (probably due to space reasons). So I didn't buy one despite loving the size and now cannot complain that it was discontinued.
Stumbled on my old iPhone 5S in the back of a drawer recently and could not believe how good it felt in my hand, even having only used 12 and 13 Mini models since 2021. What an excellent form factor and construction. Would happily pay a big premium for a modern version of it. Dreaming of a sub-mini phone trend. Sell me a $1500 Zoolander phone—not even joking!
The older phones didn’t have the screen extending all the way to the edges, but the size was ideal. And yes, Zoolander promised a future that never came!
IMHO, one of the reasons I've been delaying an upgrade is because the standard sized iphone 13 ( not even pro ) I've had for a few years now is big enough already, anything larger just would not be ergonomic ( and I have large hands )...
It was a genuine question. I also suffer from eye issues and a bigger font and warmer colours really help, with no need for a bigger screen in my experience.
> Why do they insist on every new phone being bigger than the phones before them?
Folded, I get, I want it to be a "regular size", but the only reason I don't like big devices is because they are clumsy to store in my pocket and use/grab one handed. If I can use it BOTH ways, now I have a choice. One handed for quick usage, and two handed for extended sessions. For $2K, yeah, I'm going to want a full fledged computer in my pocket.
I carry an iPhone because I love the size. I carry an iPad to read. This would be nice, although I prefer to keep these devices separate. The iPad isn't connected to my life, so it can enter my bedroom.
I'd like to think if Steve were around, the apple watch would have been pushed for more battery life and connectivity instead of more health monitoring, which is a gimmick people mostly use for a few months and then turn off.
I'd like to carry my iPad and tether it to my watch instead of my phone, and just have those two and the headphones as my Personal Area Network. Nobody is even doing an all-in-one device anymore, but we keep pretending like that's the world we live in.
I also want a small phone. I was happy with a Sony Xperia X Compact which is one inch shorter than my current Samsung A40, which is shorter and lighter than almost everything else.
The same thing goes for cheaper phones. Apple has made some phones that were a little bit cheaper than the flagship phone, but most people still buy the more expensive phones if it’s not the most expensive, it’s the next one down that most people buy.
They sold just fine. They just didn't sell a billion million units, so in Apple land that was considered a "failure". Most manufacturers would've been stoked to get the sales figures the iPhone mini got.
The obvious answer is that people actually want bigger phones and you're in minority. But no, let's pretend what you personally want trumps that and ridicule them for it instead.
> Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
But this question is silly. When your reference point switches from people buying phones to people buying tablets, there's a huge demand for tablets that are more portable.
The flip side is I used to be the person that upgraded every year. Meanwhile I'm now sitting here with the most recent mini model and HODLing. I realize its' a drop in the bucket for them, it's their loss that I no longer purchase new equipment.
What's particularly frustrating about the discontinuing of the Mini is that it really didn't sell badly, just below _expectations_. Compared to every other model of phone sold by other manufacturers, I suspect the Mini outsold all but the most popular models.
From that perspective, the discontinuation feels more like an act of embarrassment by management than the result of a rational cost/benefit analysis. Given that reportedly the Air is selling substantially worse than the Minis, and I suspect the Duo will also fail to match its internal sales target because IMO Apple _usually_* overestimates the number of buyers willing to drop $2k+ for personal purchases (lots of corporations are willing to buy laptops for $2k+, but I suspect that almost all AVP/iPhone purchases are direct to consumer), I wonder if Ternus be willing to adopt a strategy that will keep profitable products around even if they don't meet their target. I suspect this is sort of an effect of the predictors being in some kind of high income bubble where _everyone_ they know has enough cash to drop $3500 to try out an AVP.
I had a Mini 12 and upgrade every 3 years, so I didn't bother with a mini 13. I ended up buying a base 15 and hoping that I wouldn't mind it, but my regret has only gotten stronger over time.
* Exception: they have dramatically underestimated the number of people wanting to buy high ram minis/studios for local AI.
> I suspect that almost all AVP/iPhone purchases are direct to consumer
I have worked for multiple companies that provide iPhones to employees, but neither of them would budget for the newest best version, unlike with the macbook pros. Companies know that if they buy devs computers with more ram and a bigger high resolution screen, we will get more done, but the main reason to provide a top end iPhone is as a perk.
Might be different with the Duo because I can see an argument for it being a better productivity device for people who need to send a lot of emails from a mobile.
There's a sizeable amount of us. I finally had the battery changed in my 13 Mini a few months ago. I don't want a larger phone.
The Duo has the same diagonal as a Mini when closed (5.4"), so I'd love to see them eventually embrace that size and release a 7:5 ratio SE or something similar.
Kinda of. But the mini was released at a terrible time to get accurate data.
The iPhone SE had launched 6 months earlier and had been lauded as the phone to get if you wanted a small iPhone. People who bought the SE were not ready to upgrade straight away to the mini.
I suspect if the mini launched today it would see (a little) more success.
I'm sure Apple, and most other smartphone companies who have released a smaller phone before, are also at least as capable as us at accounting for launch timing in their investigations of what causes a phone to sell well and what doesn't.
Can attest to that. My wife always complains how big phones don't fit well in her shorts. But when I remind her of that when she is buying a new phone, she goes "Yeah well its annoying, but videos are nicer on a bigger screen".
After four years of watching the JerryRigEverything YouTube channel snap Google's foldable phones in half at the same spot along the antenna lines, I'm looking forward to seeing how well this holds up.
Something this expensive should not be that fragile year after year.
new foldables are surprisingly strong along the spine. Not impossible to snap or damage but would support being accidentally sat on without it being catastrophic, for example.
- It works with the pencil! This is a big big deal. I can do whiteboarding with customers quickly without having to break out a separate device, for example. Definitely unfortunate for the reMarkable Move and devices like that.
- They actually might have nailed the hinge and crease problems.
- I've been excited for this release ever since the rumor of the iPhone Air being a prototype of sorts for this came out. Two iPhone Airs fit very comfortably in my hip pack (though I only ever have one at a time).
The fact that it works with the pencil is a huge selling point for me. I wasn't really interested in a folding iPhone, but having something I can write on without also needing to carry an extra device or pocket notebook is really cool.
Just a reminder to everyone, always buy the second version of any new product category, even from Apple. The first duo will look primitive in a few refresh cycles. It does look really cool though!
Considering how many comments I regularly see on Hacker News from people who still love their M1 MacBooks, I’d say that’s not a particularly strong maxim.
The AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, HomePod, MacBook Neo, and AirTag are also all devices that have had well-received (if not always breakout) 1st-gen releases.
The M1 Macs were a bit different because Apple had already been designing their own CPUs for years, and the machine designs themselves were almost identical to previous iterations with Intel CPUs. The only thing they needed to get right was the software, which they did (and which could have been updated after the fact if they didn’t).
Yeah although my M4 is more powerful I somehow don't perceive it much and it's so heavy and gets hot. My aging M1 is still snappy for most workloads, the battery holds well, it's light. Only thing I resent is the stupid touch bar instead of proper F keys.
But I'd say it's the exception. In general it's better to wait for later generation.
Listen, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I will say I hope I'll at least get to update this comment down the line while holding that gorgeous looking phone in my hand
I get the sensibility of that advice but isn't that the case no matter when you buy it? I mean, they announced a nice iPhone Pro, optimized over multiple generations, and then immediately made it look primitive with the Duo. :)
I'm drawing a different conclusion than you about that upgrade. Sorry! I definitely understand your advice; it's especially the best option when you are financially risk-adverse or pessimistic about technology but need to participate.
John Ternus, and his co-presenters, still presented with the now institutionalized Apple-voice: obviously-rehearsed, emotionally-flat, robo-replay.
They spent their time practicing to recite, instead of talk, to people.
So hard to sit through.
I had assumed that was a genuine, if not inspiring, reflection of Cook's controlled non-spontaneous personality. Relative to Steve's emotionally-rich casual-coded excited-to-share delivery.
One big difference from Steve: it isn't the Steve show anymore. The people showing this stuff off are the people who lead the the teams that work on these things.
It's so much cooler to me to see the people closer to the work talking about it rather than just Steve Jobs, as amazing as he was to watch. I'll take slightly stilted any day of the week as a tradeoff.
Ternus did introduce a new rhetorical thing, though. He framed some of the guiding principles during the opening and throughout as ideas originating from himself, not Apple. Cook rarely said "I" in relation to a claim, other than "I'm so proud of" X, Y, Z. That's a bit more product guy, a bit more Opinionated. I am hoping for more of that.
I disagree twice. It was very cool to see Steve Jobs, and he was heavily involved in the work and design decisions, perhaps even more than the people presenting.
As someone who has spoken on a lot of stages, it's hard. I do sort of agree that falling back on an obviously rehearsed (over-rehearsed?) style isn't great. Jobs wasn't that way but (mostly) but he was a real talent who could have sold sand to arabia.
I do think there's a general high-end corporate tendency these days to over-rehearse for big stages. I could name some CEOs who were doing it years ago. And I could name some CEOs who were terrible presenters but were very successful at least for a time.
Rehearsal is definitely real. I've certainly guilty of running through presentations mentally and then cringing here and there when I actually give them because some stuff that worked in my mind doesn't really work with an audience. They're almost certainly better when I deliver a modified version a month or so later.
That said, it's also the case that casually recovering from tech glitches is pretty key.
It is just one approach, often referred to as method acting.
But good actors trained more classically can be just as convincing by pretending.
One is not better than the other, these are just different approaches, both capable of delivering excellent or terrible results, depending on your skills and practice. Being excited doesn't mean you look excited to an audience and vice versa.
I think everyone knows how many hours they practiced and the depth of talent they could draw from. The inhuman consistency demonstrates a deliberate choice, that undermines their own message.
Care about impact wasn't just a Steve quirk, it was the reason keynotes were worth having.
Try saying "And one more thing..." in recent-Apple voice, without laughing or crying.
> But find a voice that works for whoever is presenting
That's much much easier said than done. Sometimes the very rehearsed voice is as good as you're going to get, without the person being a professional lecturer.
> or get different presenters
It seems as though Apple is prioritizing having actual team leaders speaking about the products instead of just having hired actors do it. I'm perfectly happy with this.
You're not going to get Steve. For which I'm genuinely sorry.
But, yes, Apple has made the deliberate choice to have presenters who rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse. But many are not natural actors and will never be. You can mix things up a bit on a stage. But Apple does want a smooth production and puts a lot of money and effort into it.
The best presenters are those who have the natural affinity (or enough practice) to do method 2 really well. What we get from Apple (and most other professional-level speakers who aren't willing to take risks) is method 3C.
Infinite Loop seems to have missed somehow. The old Apple with multiple dodgy buildings all over the show was perhaps a bit more chaotically creative. Now it all seems very rehearsed, architected. Too perfect, just like the campus.
Personally, I always loved the way Tim Cook would always do this little bouncy thing while he talked. He kept his knees always bent a bit, and every few words would do a little tiny bounce. Once you see it…
I do hope John Ternus & his team change it up, but I wasn’t expecting it from this event. He’s only been CEO for 9 days & this was probably shot before then.
There is no matching Steve, but I would like to see Apple try at least one live event again a year. Covid is what brought around the super rehearsed video presentation, and it fit Cook well, but are the days of live keynotes really done?
It’s been a while since I watched an Apple presentation, but I caught a bit of this one. And I spent the whole time trying to figure out who it was for - the presenters didn’t seem to express any genuine excitement about the products, and it didn’t convey any useful information that couldn’t be better shared by just posting the slides.
The only thing I can see is that it generates some clips for the presenters to share on their LinkedIn pages. I assume there is prestige in being selected as a presenter, and the rest of the show serves its purpose simply by existing.
Doing it live isn’t going to bring Steve back. He was a natural showman, the people doing it now aren’t. They’re engineers and executives. Putting them on a live stage is going to make it even tougher on them.
me too, but I guess they feel they cannot afford any missteps.
I still enjoy Marc Benioff presentations. He's very engaging to watch, though not nearly as good as Jobs in terms of storytelling. I feel Jobs honed the craft more though.
That’s something I noticed as well. It was very subtle, but my brain was telling me that something was off and the way people spoke was very artificial.
apple needs to rethink so much more fundamentally. Ternus talks identically to Tim Cook. Indistinguishable. It’s like when Jobs left, Apple became a reflection of the superficial touchstones that Jobs left behind, rather than the CEO defining what the culture is, and evolving it.
I loved the disclaimer at the end of the iPhone Pro model that felt distinctly non-Apple and more akin to a drug commercial, "Usage of heavier models may be limited. Subscribers to certain iCloud+ plans will likely receive higher usage quotas. Now here's Sri to talk about electronics!"
People are insufferable with the amount of criticism
Like no one is above reproach and def everyone is open to criticism, it to open a thread with 1200 comments and see this as the first comment was super annoying
So much stuff to discuss and we are focusing on some presenters tone? jfc
I use it informally as a metric for whether there is anything meaningfully bad that I should be aware of. If this is what people bitch about, then probably the product is mostly pretty good.
I couldn't agree more with the criticism being too much. The negativity adds up and drowns a thread so much faster than the neutral comments. I don't know the reason it feels that way. And it seems so pervasive in so many places.
I wish there was a way to just put all criticism in a single thread and leave other thread trees for technology topics. Of course my first thought is a technology answer to a human problem.
That said, I simply couldn't sit through this presentation and did find it insufferable; and I've been waiting for a foldable iPhone for a long time. Having to close the presentation out of frustration tainted my purchasing decision.
It’s too expensive for me to even dare to have, but I do want to use it
But if there’s no particular improvement in the user experience, I would prefer the base model of the iPhone 18 coming out next year above all
What I’m most looking forward to on a foldable iPhone is viewing photos
I really love that sharp, fresh feel when viewing photos on the iPad, and I’m excited because I think I’ll be able to experience a similar feeling on this foldable iPhone as well.
I still don't get the fanfare over folding phones. They tend to be more fragile, and if I really need a larger screen, I'd much rather use a laptop or tablet.
There's totally valid criticism to be made about the durability, not to mention price, but the pitch is crystal clear, "your phone can be a tablet on-demand". You (the proverbial you, not necessarily every person) always have your phone with you, but often don't have a tablet or laptop.
For many people the phone is the only computing device they use. Keeping portability and offering a larger display is a compelling offering for those people.
> For many people the phone is the only computing device they use.
I suspect the crossover area of the Venn diagram between people who spend what a foldable costs on a phone and people who have no other computing device is extremely small.
Why so? For most people a computer (in the traditional keyboard/mouse sense) isn't a leisure device, a phone is. They scroll social media feeds and watch YouTube or whatever.
I'm sure most of us on HN use them for leisure, but for most people a computer is a device for work, not for play.
I quite like the idea of a tablet I can keep in my pocket. If there was some sort of first-party attachable keyboard (a la the iPad magic keyboard), I'd be strongly considering getting this. In the age of AI and increasingly-mature cloud agents, I can get a lot of my work done from a setup like that.
$2,000 for a phone? Holy price point, Batman. No thanks.
I assume the people who would buy something like this have enough money not to care, and also would not care about the second part of my comment, because they want New Thing or use their phones enough for it to be useful.
I guess it might be the case that the only way to make the folding screen thing even remotely work is a very, very expensive manufacturing process. But as is often the case, I don't see how it's worth it?
I want my phones smaller and with Touch ID, not enormous and wrinkly.
$2800 here. What kinda of problem does that solve that's worth that kind of money? I'm seriously asking, because I can't figure it out. I can completely see buying an iPhone 18 Pro because you use it for work as an influencer or media creator, but this is close to twice the price and much less of a tool.
I don't think luxury phones necessarily need to solve problems. They're just luxury phones, people who can afford them will buy them because they like them, not because they're solving problems.
Incredibly useless. It is obvious that Apple doesn't have UI/UX designers over 40. Increasing the font size doesn't effect everything and breaks too many things. For example, you can't change the size of the time in the top left. Style > usability all over the place. Don't get me started on the stupid watch...
An influencer needing the latest iphone is also ridiculous when you think about it. They are running instagram and tiktok after all, not waiting for software to compile. They don't even need the latest and greatest camera because all their content is only going to be viewed on a palm sized screen.
It's basically for people who want an iPhone and iPad, but in a device that's worse than both, while being more expensive than just buying one of each.
That’s not a brand new folding phone. Those start at $1900 MSRP from what I see. However, you can get them a few hundred cheaper. Some of them cost even more than Apple.
People have been saying “Oh my God, who would pay $600 for a phone“ for 20 years. Clearly there are such people.
Most people don't actually realize they're paying $$$$ for their phone, as they get a phone with their mobile plan and they pay some monthly small sum for 24 months that lets them forget they'd never be able to afford it otherwise.
Not sure what expressing the cost of your current phone has to do with the discussion here, but I’m guessing this phone certainly isn’t for you. Some people choose to spend more on their phones, and some less.
Well, other than being 10 years old, having 100,000 miles on it, most likely needing a new timing chain, suspension, and generally needing a new cooling system, sure.
That's why they're $10K.
Meanwhile for about the same price differential, $10K on eBay will get you an Audi RS 5 ... engine ... with 60K on it.
I don't know that the Ghibli makes the point you want to make.
But people like me cannot be the target market of Apple because that would be a very limited number of customers. Also even if I could afford it, I don’t see any use case for it so why would I even buy it?
I might get one. I've been using a mini for years and am pretty much giving up on Apple ever making one again. The AI features finally seem worth an upgrade, and I don't love the size of the Air, standard iPhone, or Pro/Max models.
If I'm going to have to two-hand it, this is perhaps not the worst. Also, it might be more one-handable when closed than regular iPhones.
Is it very expensive? Yes, especially if you don't opt for the base storage (256 is not enough in the age of LLMs). But I've not upgraded in 5 years, so I've got budget to spare.
> I assume the people who would buy something like this have enough money not to care, and also would not care about the second part of my comment, because they want New Thing or use their phones enough for it to be useful.
But what's the monthly price with Apple's upgrade program? I'd bet that's how most people will be buying it (me included, if I decide to get one).
Lots of people can afford it. If you keep the phone two years, that works out to less than $3 / day. The lease option is even less. They're going to sell or lease a lot of these.
I think it's going to be very interesting to see how well the sales for the Duo do in year two and three. I suspect sales will go up, but wouldn't be shocked if they drop.
The number of people who buy junk food on credit they can't pay off is pretty much unfathomable at least in the USA. There are plenty of people for whom "$3 / day" is something they very realistically can't afford.
The first iPhone did not have 3G when it came out, no GPS either, and no App Store - you were stuck with all the stock apps. It was definitely far behind its peers in several key aspects
I’ve said it before, but Ballmer was exactly right WHEN he said that. I know because I was one of the very few people in my area, notable for being a tech hub, who had an iPhone at release… only because my employer at the time paid for it.
I had a large, relatively well-paid, tech-savvy circle of friends (and many random strangers) who openly envied me but could not justify the price point.
The numbers back this up because iPhone sales didn’t start hockeysticking up until the next version was released, which allowed carriers to further subsidize smartphones with data plans that brought the upfront costs down to $200.
The iPhone was as much a technology revolution as it was a consumer financing one, but it is never discussed as such.
I try and usually succeed at using my phones for around 3 years, so it's not out of the question. Still have another year on my current one, I'll check out the next duo next year.
I am with you on this one, probably sales charts are up for foldable phones but I am not sure those people are reading the room correct. We want smaller devices more tactile if we wanted ipads we would get ipads.
Depending on the age, people are spending between 4-6.5 hours a day on their phone. How much are people spending on computers? Their mattress? 2,000 for the cutting edge version is frankly reasonable for what a phone provides in this day and age, especially considering the last 3 years of inflation in the US...
to sell a phone for such a ridiculous price you need to make it as obvious as possible - a folded phone is pretty obvious - now people can buy it as a status symbol. what's the point of a status symbol if not everybody around you immediately recognizes the item as very expensive. there you go.
Yes, I think this is an artifact of the new under-display camera (at least on the inside). The official copy states:
> iPhone Duo uses Touch ID, which is integrated into the side button. This gives you an easy, secure, and consistent way to authenticate iPhone Duo, whether it’s closed or open.
Probably no way to do FaceID from under a display yet.
Not the person you're replying to, but Face ID just works much less reliably for me. I usually wear glasses, and when I get up in the morning and am not wearing them yet, it usually takes a number of tries before my phone will unlock. Sometimes it will also randomly not work in the middle of the day, maybe because of glares or something. Touch ID always just worked.
After jumping from an iPhone to a Pixel and back, the only thing I miss is fingerprint unlock which is way faster and more convenient than Face ID. You don’t need to adjust the phones position or anything if it’s too close to your face or in a position where it can’t scan your face.
I prefer TouchID because FaceID doesn't work when my phone is flat on the table and away from me. That's is how I use my phone most of the time, I don't really hold it up to my face.
I echo what lutoma said. I hateHateHATE the endless having to tilt and/or move around the phone all the time (especially, but not only, after awaking) to get Face ID to "work". Give me Touch ID any day.
You get the choice to pay the remaining value of the phone and keep it, or enter a new "lease" agreement for a brand new phone at the end of the term. The formula is simple:
purchase fee = device list price – lease payments made – remaining discounts or trade-in credits.
If you're paying $1368 over 24 months, you could pay the remaining $632 after those 24 months and keep it with 0% interest.
So let's say you go to Hertz or Avis at the airport, you get a car for a month at $1700. The car has an MSRP of $40,000 and Hertz/Avis gives you the option to buy the car for $38,300 after you return it.
Let's say you go to BMW or Lexus or Ford. You pay them $3000 and agree to pay them $500 a month for the next 3 years to use the car according to some conditions. The car is worth $60,000. You pay $21,000 over those three years. When you bring it back, they offer to let you buy it outright or to just hand it over to the dealer.
Is that leasing or renting in your country?
Is the difference between renting and leasing even meaningful? You chose a car rental agency for your example because it costs more per month to rent from a short-term rental agency. What is a lease but a long term loan? What difference does it make that I rent my apartment by signing a document called a "lease agreement"? Am I a renter? Or a leaser?
Renting/leasing is not automatically bad. The terms are what make one a good or a bad deal.
Is that $3000 a deposit that you get if you return it in good condition? In that case we would definitely call that renting.
> Is the difference between renting and leasing even meaningful?
Where I live, yes. If you lease you are the owner, with the financing company having the ability to seize it when you don't pay. If you rent you are not the owner, but are allowed to use it. Renting is a bit plebeian.
English is not my first language, sorry. If you have a device that you pay a monthly fee for, but you can't keep it at the end of the contract, where I am from we call that renting.
Leasing is a financial construction where you actually own the product / property, with the bank having the option to claim it if you fail to pay.
This is not true, with leasing you don't own the product or property at all. Leasing is basically long-time rent. For example, when you lease a car, you don't own it - the leasing company does. In some cases, you can buy out the object at the end of the lease (like cars), in some cases you can't (like apartments).
> a financial construction where you actually own the product / property, with the bank having the option to claim it if you fail to pay.
This is called financing - basically, buying a thing with bank's money which they give you as a loan. For high-value purchases, there are often limitations on what you can do with the object, or requirements (like a requirement to have homeowner insurance for mortgages), but there are usually less restrictions compared to lease since you are the owner.
Renting is you pay $X a month and when the contact ends everyone walks away. You don’t get the thing back, the other party does.
Leasing is close but slightly different. You still pay $X, you still don’t own it and can walk away at the end.
But with a lease you are given a choice to buy the thing at a pre-arranged price when the lease is over. So when you sign the contract you know that at the end you can pay $700 and it’s yours. Or you can still walk away.
It’s far, far more common with cars. The dealership guesses how much the car will be worth and offers you at lease based on that. If the car is worth more at the end of the lease than your buyout price, you can buy the car cheaper then you could, on the open market. If it’s worth less, you can walk away. You didn’t lose as much as you would have if you had gotten a loan, and you could go buy the same car used if you wanted for less.
For something like a phone, I’m not sure it really matters that much. So I don’t know why they decided to do leases.
It’s a lease, not rent. I don’t know the exact numbers on this but you can pay “rent” for two years and then pay like $300 (I don’t know what the right number is here) at the end to own it outright at that point. So at the end of the day you pay like $200 more than someone that buys it outright from the get go.
You think most folks on HN are making $500,000 after taxes (being charitable and assuming "in a day" means a working day)? Moreover, does one commenter have to represent most folks? If someone makes less than $500,000, are they not allowed to voice their lack of desire for a phone that is affordable for the alleged majority who do make $500,000?
Come on, most people are not making 700k a year even on HN. Probably closer to $300k at the high end and there are a lot of Europeans on here so probably closer to $100k.
Personally I find passports slightly too large to comfortably fit in my pants pocket, and a passport is definitely thinner than this phone. Whenever I travel and have to have my passport in my pants pocket I’m always a bit uncomfortable about it, I usually prefer to keep it in my backpack or somewhere else. If you’re carrying this in a purse then it sounds great. The passport aspect ratio is pretty awesome on phones, I tried one shaped like this at a Chinese phone store last year and enjoyed it. But shoving a $2000 device the size of a thick passport into my pocket on a daily basis feels like a bad idea.
You hold your passport a few times a year, for maybe a few minutes. Probably less than 1 hour total per year. Many people will 5x that usage-time in just a day.
They briefly showed the Duo opened partway like a laptop, and even had a keyboard displayed on the lower portion. Maybe it would be kind of like a smaller GPD Mini but with touchscreen instead of physical keys.
It will save people a lot of time because they don't have to go to the Apple store, they can use their own passport to discover that the phone is still too big in a different dimension to use with one hand.
They are so unwieldy that the US has a passport card because the passport is too big for frequent travellers. I also will complain about how my passport's ID page is the second, not the first page, so you open the passport, and then always have to flip to the second page (unless you use a tiny bit of tape).
The passport card is almost exclusively for people who go back and forth to Canada and want to keep it in their wallet. Nobody is complaining about the size of a passport.
The passport card is only used for land and sea entries, it's not a full replacement for the passport (would be nice if it was) and never has been. It does work as a federally issued ID if you need one.
I was actually looking forward to a smaller iPhone. To have less addictive screen time.
It looks like the Air was a once-thing. I don't see them releasing an e-ink phone either.
Maybe the answer lies in only wearing an Ultra watch if it becomes powerful enough and can function independently of a phone.
Most women I knew with shattered screens had relatively large phones (max, plus, etc.), and the few of them who listened to my advice and got smaller phones, never broke the screens. Either girls over estimate their hands size (I guess compared to some YouTuber they see), or maybe bigger screens is just a status, or something else, but most girls have large phones for some reason.
At some point these phones are powerful enough that we need to be able go get a desktop experience that can run macOS. Why is a 600 dollar neo more capable for productivity than a 2000 dollar iphone with a much beefier chip?
If another company could release something like the Duo that seamlessly switches between phone, tablet, and desktop experience and make it Apple quality then Apple are in trouble. The technology is all there since the days of Ubuntu Touch.
Sadly I don't think there is a company in a position to build such a device that could compete.
This is what I want. If the Duo did something like convert into an iPadOS-like environment I’d buy it day one and sell my non-fold iPhone and iPad.
But I don’t want macOS on an iPhone/iPad. If I wanted a device with poorer hardware security that ran an OS with a fundamentally weaker security model I’d just buy a MacBook and be done with it.
Even if most people never use it, they already have everything they need. And they could market it as a big feature.
Basically no one knows Samsung Dex exists. They could be the ones to bring it to the attention of the mainstream.
I like the idea that if I was stuck in a car dealership or something for service, I could just plug into a laptop docking station with USB-C and use my phone on a bigger screen. Realistically, I’d probably never do it.
But they also might be afraid it would cannibalize Macs, especially now that they have the Neo. And it would certainly just be one more thing to test and keep working.
IDK how a 2000 dollar phone would cannibalize macbooks more than a 700 dollar entry level macbook.
It's possible that the audience for anyone that would plug in their phone to a KVM setup is just too niche to care. Just seems like with computing being so expensive these days, I really want to get the most out of my devices.
Running android in a DeX mode is fine, but its still android. Now that MacOS is already optimized to run on mobile chips, it seems so limiting that it can't run on iPhones just because of customer segmentation.
iOS/iPadOS has way more optimizations under the hood than macOS does in order to keep heat/battery life/performance not poor, the most obvious feature being the way apps and tabs get killed or refreshed in the background.
I don’t think Apple should or even would allow any sort of bare metal macOS mode on their mobile devices, but at least for iPads with M chips I could see them offering macOS via VMs. We know hardware acceleration works, there’s a working virtualization app that runs macOS at native speeds on jailbroken iPads.
I get why they do it, but it sucks that at least at minimum we don’t have a mode that turns it into basically iPadOS when connected to an external monitor, even if the performance and heat problems would be worse. But making that feature available and exclusive to the Duo would have made it more appealing.
Actually kindof awesome! ...but when I saw the phone call at the end my mind immediately went back to "Taco-Talkin' w/ the Nokia N-Gage"! => https://sidetalkin.com/original/
With some of what they showed, I wish they never separated iOS and iPadOS. The duo seems to be bringing more of the iPad features and if they could position this as one device to replace both (and the price point sure reflects that) it could be interesting.
But without that, I don't see the use for myself. Though I also rock a 13" iPad Pro so even with that it would be a hard sell to replace both.
I still am not sold on the entire idea of a foldable, there is some interesting things here and I will be interested to see how they position it over the next few generations.
I wish that too. Too many convenience features on both sides that are accidentally or intentionally not making it over, even when they would apply to both. I wish it had to be an explicit decision to lock functionality to only iPad or iPhone, rather than it having to be an explicit decision to make functionality available to both. Make the more likely decision the default.
I was quite surprised to see the under display camera. Wasn't expecting that.
Other than that, looks like there are some nice Duo specific features on iOS. $1999 is also surprising given that news outlets were reporting up to $2500. Plus it's price competitive with other foldables in the market.
I'll be curious to see how the hinge holds up against wear, tear and small particle intrusion over time. If people get to 2 years and it's still going great. Then I may pick up a Duo 3. But my adoption really comes down to the problems around the hinge.
This is what it comes down to for me as well. If Apple has somehow magically solved the reliability issues this will be fantastic, if they are just fad chasing it'll be DOA
What's up with all the negativity? Apple is finally doing something radical (for them) again with the iPhone, their bread and butter. And I'm all here for it. 10 years of the same form factor was getting old. I'm gonna buy this on release, easiest decision ever.
If they had chose either of the other two folding formats, and reduced the amount of screen they cut off in the corners, they probably would have had gold on their hands and shifted the market towards foldables.
I'm right-handed but I always keep my phone in my left pocket and use it with my left hand (keys have always been in my right pocket). I'm also pretty curious about the answer to this.
"Seated. Set iPhone Duo down and watch a show or follow a workout at the perfect viewing angle — with easy access to the controls on the bottom." -- Is the outside screen REALLY that strong? Is it okay to put it on a rough surface like gravel?
I really hope that in the coming years we will be able to get smaller phones back into the market. Apple compared this to the size of a passport. A passport seems even bigger than a normal iPhone, even when folded. A number of people (especially women with smaller hands) I know are holding onto their iPhone Minis for as long as possible. I’d love a phone that was roughly normal iphone sized when unfolded but was a flip phone à la Motorola razrs in years gone by. I wouldn’t even need a screen on the outside. I know it’s hard for a company like Apple to be able to market “less phone” as a good thing, and I know the iPhone mini didn’t do great commercially but there’s a small cohort of users clamoring to have something for them.
They still sold millions of minis. Can't sell is about relative terms to the rest of their iphone sales. Against that it looks poor. Against mac pro sales probably looks amazing. Sold by any other company the phone would probably be considered a success and still in the lineup.
And really, poor sales are no excuse. How many macbook skus do they have that barely move when you go through all the permutations of config? I don't want to work it out but I'd guess there are something like 24 skus of macbook pro they are barely selling in comparison to iphone sales. What's another model iphone in 3 storage tiers?
They could. I think it would be nice if they would choose to.
I doubt they lost money on it. I’m guessing they just “didn’t make enough“ and decided it would be more profitable to spend that money elsewhere.
I will say as a software developer it was rough getting things working on that tiny screen.
But I know people loved it. I have family members who did. And I totally get it. But it just doesn’t seem to be a big enough part of the market for any of the big players to care at all.
Have you looked at the new Motorola Razrs? They're great. 4" external display that is easy to use one-handed and can run any Android app (though some apps and websites struggle with a screen that small), and it unfolds into a phablet for when you want a huge display.
I believe Samsung has a new one with a similar form factor too, though I haven't looked into it.
When I was 12-13 I started taking a steroidal inhaler which inhibited my growth, so my hands are literally the same size as when I was 13. (maybe slightly wider).
As such I have about the same finger length as the average woman, and when I used the iPhone 4S and 5S I had no problems, I was not able to comfortably use the 6 with one hand, and it came with that ugly camera bump, so I returned it and tried to go Samsung. (it was big, but the rounded edges helped a fair bit) - the software sucked.
I bit the bullet and went back to my 5S, and when the SE (2nd gen - shaped like the iPhone 5 but with beefed internals) rolled out it was a day 1 purchase for me.
Ever since then I've been looking for a phone -- the iPhone "Mini" was as large as the 6 which was too large (I did buy one though) -- I eventually bought an iPhone 15 pro, but honestly, I hate it. It is the heaviest thing I carry daily and it doesn't do anything more than my 5 did that i care about, and I can't comfortably operate it. I start really disliking mobile devices because of it- and the software is getting worse year on year too.
I'm getting serious fatigue from this, but the world has not only caught up to a mobile world, now many things actively expect/require you to have a modern smart phone, especially in Sweden.
I already had the backup but I'll keep that in mind for next time. the screen is fairly beat up too so I don't mind. I'll keep the old one around in case the replacement gets lost or stolen.
Give me a single-screen phone the size of this thing closed, and use the extra space inside for more battery and not more displays.
Aside: I'd also love it if it could be plugged into an external display and have a "desktop mode" (like a macos VM) that gets suspended/resumed on connect/disconnect instead of just expanding the "mobile mode" across the new screen. I realize this is probably a dream too far for most companies though, as it doesn't allow them to segment the market as much as requiring people to buy multiple devices.
That's about $675k/year, assuming a 35% tax rate. I think that is a small fraction of HN users, but more to the point, if your argument is that the phone is not expensive if you make over $500k/year, I'm not sure that is a compelling argument...
The correct price comparison is between an iPhone Pro and an iPad Mini, in the US that would be $1199 + $599. So for an extra $200 you don't have to carry and charge 2 devices. Not a terrible pitch.
Sure, I guess, but I don't have a Mini, or any tablet for that matter. I used to and found the form factor didn't meet my needs. I'm happier with a phone and a laptop.
I think there were rumors going even higher since Apple is so often a premium priced product.
Matching their top competitor in price is a good look.
They could’ve absolutely floored everyone if it had been $1500, but there’s no way that’s possible, at least having margins anywhere near what Apple likes.
Definitely a v1 product but it's an interesting device. Apple is rarely first to market, but they definitely produce the device that indicates the point where there is a market.
You can also see where they are going. In a couple of years, assuming it sells well there will be a Pro model with a 3x fold and better camera system. I'm guessing to make in thinner they will have to drop USB-C and come up with a flat charging/data connector. The EU won't like that.
The final interesting thing is this is the first Apple product that I can think of since the iPod era that they've released a product that will cannibalize another Apple product. If you were looking at getting a high end iPad Mini this replaces both phone and tablet.
> Apple is rarely first to market, but they definitely produce the device that indicates the point where there is a market.
There's been a proven market for years already, but it's been less obvious in Western markets. In East Asian markets, foldables have had a very sizable market presence, especially in China.
There's other trends that are less obvious to US and western markets, such as phone crossbody straps (which are also very big in East Asia).
Samsung had 7 generations of the wrong way, then one of the right way after they learned what Apple was doing. Microsoft literally does not have a product like this.
The real trick is waiting to see if they make a iPhone Duo 3 or 4. Knowing they are committed to the form factor and it’s not another Mini would be nice to know.
Also time to work out the hardware and software issues. Not trying to spend serious money on beta testing like a Vision Pro.
I wonder if there's a practical way to protect the phone with a case, given that it folds and the dual screen is a big selling point. It feels like one accidental drop on concrete or a ceramic floor would cause a lot of damage.
One thing I always wondered about Apple specifically is how do they actually coordinate so many layers of integration -- materials, hardware of various kinds, manufacturing, software. How is that done on like day-to-day basis?
It took me a while to figure out I had to click "Explore" to get to the specs, so I'm saving you the trouble.
As long as I'm griping about the web site... Apple, when you introduce a phone with a new and different form factor, please just tell me the dimensions straightaway. This one is shorter and wider than most phones. Is it too wide to fit in my pocket? I need the dimensions to answer that question.
It's a bit disappointing that it's 50g heavier than the Z Fold 8, and similar to the Pixel 9 Pro fold in weight and thickness, at 254 g / 5.2 mm / 11.3 mm.
Wayyy too wide. it's wider than the 17Pro. So impossible to operate. It will sell out because it's new. But it will flop. More than the mini and the Air.
They should've used the iPhone mini width, and adjust height to that.
I actually disagree, I think this will be a massive hit.
I've long thought that the aspect ratio of a normal phone just feels old fashioned now and sucks for most tasks. So many times I go to do something on my phone and reach for my laptop instead because I know it'll be easier. But with this I could do most things on it.
100% agree. The market for this will be miniscule. Look at how small the market for the iPad mini is. This will be even worse because it's 3x the price and has to be carried as a main device. How many people are wearing pants that can even physically fit this? This device is almost certainly too big to be comfortable in your front pocket. And if you are wearing something like athletic pants it's going to be so heavy it will pull your pants down... It's just impractical.
I am seriously tempted to get this phone (or the next iteration) when the time comes to upgrade from my iPhone 13. I think the aspect ratio would be perfect for coding on the go which is always a bit painful on a standard phone. Although there's just some inherently uncool about a folding phone, like I'd think twice about getting it out of my pocket at a party
Duo screen: 7.6" vs iPad mini: 8.3". Duo will support Apple Pencil later. I wonder if many people with iPhone+iPad combination can now replace it with one device.
In the FAQ it says "Yes. iPhone Duo will work with Apple Pencil (USB-C). Coming later this year."
It kinda sounds like it's a new model of the Apple Pencil coming soon (rather than support coming soon), and older Pencil and Pencil Pros will not work at all. Which, if true, boo.
I might be a minority but I never had interested in this foldable phone trend where you get just a bigger screen. I can't even consider dual display smartphone as a foldable phone. The benchmark for a foldable phone was Motorola Razr V3. I am not sure where they are going they really need some new people with some fresh ideas and vision. Sooner or later someone is going to start eating their lunch.
I had such high hopes for this phone, but now I know it won’t replace my 13 Mini. It looks so wide you can barely hold it comfortably, let alone use it one-handed — and that's the whole point of a small phone for me.
Is Apple screen enlargement over the years just matching the aging eyes of their core demographics? Close focal vision degrades, hold phone further, bigger phone useful.
Kind of like the stat how burning man is getting older every year cuz its mostly the same GenX cohort going since forever...
Screen size would have always been big, absent production costs and marketing price. Over time display tech just got better and cheaper to finally do it.
On a side note, the amount of text on the page is just crazy. I remember older releases of apple products being basically just a slide show. Now we have a wall of text and image carousels?
This has some interesting features, but also a number of questionable decisions. The inner front camera placement is awkward for non-camera use, because despite being under-display won’t be completely invisible (as some shots in the presentation show). The on-screen unfolding transition is cringy and distracting. Apps and multitasking behaving differently on the inner screen depending on whether the hinge is flat or bent creates complexity and trade-offs, like when bending then phone so that it can stand on its own, or lie on an uneven surface. On the front screen, reserving the edge for special controls reduces the thumb reach for general content (like the app icons on the home screen).
I'm a little worried about the buttons moving up along the side, since I use my phone with my left hand... Hopefully there is more information about whether the OS supports moving the controls to the left, or even keeping them at the bottom.
So, just in general, I've been seeing more and more foldable phones like this. How well are they holding up now? Having Apple use one seems to be at least somewhat of a vote of confidence that the tech has reached some level of acceptable maturity, so I assume "not trash", but I don't know how good that represents. I'm a compulsive fiddler so I'm not really in the market for a phone I can fiddle to death without even consciously realizing it, but I'm at least curious if the tech is reaching the point where one might expect a more normal user to casually expect them to last 2+ years with normal use.
Curious to see all the new interaction paradigms people come up with now that we have something physical that can sense degrees of freedom.
A dumb one off the top of my head:
When reading a book with both screens open, have the outer display show the cover of the book, and closing and opening the screens together causes a page turn. (Unfortunately also a great way to rapidly wear out the hinge mechanism.)
There are some amusing apps which read the MacBook's lid angle sensor. I remember one of them played a creaking noise through the speakers when you open or close it... Somehow I doubt App Store review will let that in for the Duo, but we can always hope.
Interesting that there seems to be no FaceID? They only mentioned TouchID. I assume it’s a limitation of the under-screen camera.
They’ve been doing Touch ID instead of faceID with some of their products a few times, I think some of the iPad models? but unfortunately touchID has like a 20% success rate with my fingers. FaceID works 100% of the time for me. I’ve never had good luck with any fingerprint scanners. I hope they can someday solve the issues with FaceID under the screen.
I wasn’t going to buy this product anyway. My current phone works and I have zero reason to upgrade. But if I was in the market, no facial recognition is honestly a dealbreaker.
Hard agree but only because I think TouchID on the sleep/wake button sucks. The home button-less design and gestures introduced on the iPhone X were obviously designed in tandem and only work with FaceID. I have Touch ID disabled on all of my devices that have it because it's so damn annoying now.
I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they mentioned both Face ID and Touch ID in the stream. They wanted to add Touch ID because of the various angles people might use the phones with. Also mentioned that it'll unlock with your Apple Watch, like the Mac does right now.
prob tech and UX issue. FaceID can't do side ways, and people opens side ways half the time. Maybe there are also functions unlockable wihtout clamshell opening. can't put 5 faceID on each side and facing every which way.
While at launch Face ID did not work in landscape, it does now. I can unlock my phone with my face in both landscape and portrait, although I guess not upside down? That might only be because I’m on an iPhone though. iPads might be more flexible.
Anyone noticed the headline has two "Hello"s for a phone that folds in two? John Ternus' first tweet was just "hello" and he opened the event the same way.
I wonder if you can hook it up to a monitor and use it like macOS. That would be the killer phone and killer laptop, then you just need to connect a mouse in and display or tv and work wherever. But I doubt Apple will ever do that, I don’t think they are bold enough to cannibalize their laptops.
Imagine being able to hook up a small slab to a keyboard or mouse Bluetooth then connect to a monitor, tablet or hotel tv, like the Samsung Dex can do. And run full laptop/desktop applications. One can dream
I would be excited if they shrunk a full laptop into a smaller format for working, but I can’t be excited about another device to steal my attention. Give me a device that’s the size of a mini tablet that expands into a laptop, not this abomination that just wants my eyeballs on advertising.
Despite what the marketing material would have you believe you can always see the fold. Even when it's fully open. Folding screens have been a solution in search of problem for like a decade now
I would legitimately purchase a 'smart' phone that's just basically a 15-year old flip phone with maps and a modern battery + software stack. Awaiting the inevitable analog trend to kick back up so there are solid options here.
I've been rocking out a Casio F-91W (Retails new for $23) for about 3 months now - And all the annoyance I had with with my Apple Watch Ultra (16 hour battery, constant annoyance to upgrade, endless and useless notifications) - is gone. The CR2016 battery last 5+ YEARS , replacements are < $2. Watch has everything I ever cared about - Date, Time, Alarms, Light, Stopwatch, water resistance.
And, I don't think I've once missed having the big annoying clunker of a watch.
Correct thread - The Casio F-91W is the "FlipPhone" of watches. Going Retro on all our electronics. Retro Phone, Retro Watch, just walk away from the insane consumerism gadgetitis and find what makes you happy.
There's definitely something satisfying about a product that's both cheap enough that it could be disposable but well designed enough that you actually want to keep it forever.
I think that Jobs would approve of the Casio F-91W.
If that's all you cared for, why would you buy an Apple Watch Ultra in the first place? Like a Casio F-91W is a great watch but it is a fundamentally different category than an Apple Watch Ultra even though they're both "watches". It's a bit like saying, " Hey, my calculator has a battery life that lasts years, while my super powerful laptop has a battery life that only lasts 12 hours and has to be updated constantly.
100% every word you wrote. I watched the Apple video. Thought it would be great to have this amazing GPS capable watch, with a cellular phone (that, I will confess, I did use three or four times and it was really good) - maps, remote finding of my phone, etc...
Honestly - if it wasn't for the incessant nagging me to upgrade, letting me know it's going to upgrade, letting me know it had failed to upgrade, and the never ending useless notification that I kept having to edit/unsubscribe/remove stupid apps that I never installed - I probably wouldn't have switched for a short period of time.
What I would have never predicted is how getting rid of all that noise has just made me so much happier.
Also - didn't realize how much I hate having to charge my watch every 16 hours.
I think he's highlighting the all the bullshit the Apple Watch comes with has ended up meaningless crap after initially buying in to the Apple Watch hype for this guy. A laptop is a fundamentally different category than a calculator in both utility and capability.
I just got one of these (https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho...) that I'm hoping to try and make my weekend phone. It's a small Android phone. It runs WhatsApp / Google Maps. I am going to set it up to forward my calls to it on the weekends. It just arrived, so I'm excited to try it out.
Have you considered an Apple Watch Ultra? That way you can send/receive messages, calls, do maps and directions, listen to music, etc. but you can't mindlessly scroll media.
The folding phones are genuinely interesting although all the cool demos I've seen people do irl have been quite reliant on android being quite liberal as to what software you can run
let's see, next year i'll be due for a new iPad mini and iPhone pro max. $1300 for one, $600 for the other (or $750 if I want cellular, which I actually do), and suddenly this doesn't look out of reach... if only I could use a stylus with it!
I have never understood the appeal of foldables, but I guess with Apple launching them now, they're probably going to see significantly improved software support within the next few years
Yes, with a much bigger screen I can definitely see this making me more productive and it is in between an iPad that getting through even minimal productivity tasks would work and bigger screens help a lot. Even though $1999 only gives you 256GB at least you get that low of a price point. Would have to see it in person though especially about the crease and the camera(s). (EDIT) I have a Clicks power keyboard which I can use with this. Seems like I should clarify that I can use this where a regular laptop can't be used. And since more people are interested in what I can use email, calendar and codex / Claude code (in fact Claude codr is why I have the clicks power keyboard)
This is usually because my iPhone dings more, and is connected to an always on network connection + phone network, so it's often the point of first-contact with any specific task/response/conversation/work unless I am sitting at my desk at home already.
And while I am someone who does take a laptop and an iPad with them in a backpack at lot of the time, that's not all the time. I'm not walking around the grocery store with a MacBook anything propped up on my cart. I'm not hanging from a strap on a bus or train with a laptop in my hands. And using a laptop on the couch usually makes my wrists hurt.
But what exactly productive tasks that you need the bigger screen? Because for any productive task I can think of that requires a bigger screen I would need a keyboard and a touchpad/mouse as well.
I'm someone who often thinks of things to cook while grocery shopping. Oh theres such-and-such on sale, oooh they started carrying X, what the hell is that what can I use that in, that sort of thing.
When that happens I'll often want to look up recipes for that stuff right there in the store. The web has gone to trash. The mobile web is even worse. Adblockers can only help so much, its just that everyone dumbs everything down for small screens. So its very frustrating trying to process some search results and find a decent recipe for some-such and find the rest of the ingredients I need to buy. This is a low time committment task, I need to do this in a busy grocery store, and not block the part of the shelves I parked myself in front of for too long. I mean, I guess I could go home and use my desktop, but odds are I'll just forget. And no, I'm not gonna ask AI for a recipe.
On a screen that big, using Orion and locking it to "always show me desktop mode", I could more comfortably browse and look up these things than I can on my Pro Max sized phone now. The inner screen has a higher resolution than an iPad Mini.
Another example, and it was one they showed only very briefly in the video: I just want a bigger keyboard damnit. They showed an app taking up the top "half" of the inner screen, a keyboard taking up the lower half, with the phone folded at a 110ish degree angle. It's a Sidekick with a touch keyboard. So any time I have some serious typing to do (Slack message regarding something that requires a prompt response but isn't just a few words, not that hard to imagine other examples), that bigger screen is going to give me a keyboard that is much easier to type on than a Pro Max can, because the keys are going to be sized much larger and will not need to rely on the on-device typing guesstimator as much (and that thing is dumb as hell). God, being able to ssh into something and actually have some room for all of the extra keys that make working in a terminal easier, what a world!
Having a real computer for any of these tasks would of course be the ideal, but as portable as those have gotten, they still don't hold a candle to something that fits in my pocket and has a software stack that reliably lets me interact with it in a meaningful way without having to make room for a keyboard and a trackpad.
That’s a very niche use case and gonna be a very expensive recipes look up. Also I’m not sure the desktop mode of a website actually look better on a Duo because the text and links would be quite small to navigate with a finger and most probably it would by default get the website optimised for iPad/tablet view.
As for the bigger keyboard, I have tried that in iPad mini. It’s horrible. Because the distance between the keys is too far in that case and it actually slows down your typing. I can imagine the same in Duo when you use one half of it as the full keyboard
But that’s what I’m curious about, like what productive tasks do you do on a bus? I usually read something or scroll instagram and for neither of tasks I need a bigger screen
I was hoping I didn't. But after watching the event, I kinda do.
I have to hand it to them, they added some really nice touches to the OS for the new form factor. Seems almost like the best of an iPhone and a iPad Mini.
Still not sure I want something that bulky, and maybe I'll wait a few months to see the reviews and how the hinge and screen fold hold up. But tempted for sure...
Probably, but do enough people want it? The iPhone SE and the mini was discontinued do to "poor" sales, meaning poor for an iPhone. I'm interested to see if Apple will stop selling the Duo if it only sells at the same rate as the SE.
I don't know who this is for and can't figure out what problem this solves. It's cool, but it's not $2800 cool (yes, it's $800 more expensive in some markets). For that price is has to do more than fold in half, maybe fold into a swan of something.
They just have to make it appealing enough, a loooot of people buy ipads because they're cool and they project themselves into all these fancy advertised situations, 90% of the time it ends up gathering dust or being used 15 min on a sunday morning while you're too lazy to get out of bed.
Most people I know who use iPads do so because a phone is too small to see or type on, but an actual computer/laptop is too complicated and intimidating to use.
I can't think of an application outside of travel or long commutes on a train where I would use this. For a daily driver its too big to fit into a pants pocket and the price tag is TGH.
Yes I'm quite interested in a foldable from Apple. Have been since I got an 7" Acer Android tablet ~13 years ago and was annoyed at the necessity of carrying 2 devices.
No, for that money I can buy an iPhone and an iPad.
Just checked, iPhone 17 256gb plus an iPad 13inch 256gb is about 100 euros cheaper than the cheapest iPhone duo.
I'm just reaching the age where I need reading glasses late in the day, and so in a couple years when I'm out of school and employed again, this is starting to look like the best option in the Kindle / Tablet space: it isn't just a flat pane of glass and it's no bigger than a Nintendo DS, so it will fit on my crowded surfaces and in my purse.
Do I want it? Ehhhh. I hate heavy objects. I stopped buying the Pro line because the weight just kept increasing. So I will probably not particularly enjoy that mass of batteries dragging on the purse strap. But I enjoy reading glasses less and I just don't want an unwieldy bigscreen that I can't hold easily like the iPhone Air.
I definitely didn't want one 30 minutes ago, but now that I've seen it the idea of a phone that can be smaller in the pocket but unfold to give a large screen is pretty darn appealing. Appealing enough to pay 50% more for it? Eh... probably not.
They talked for several minutes on the materials and engineering that went into the screen and how it wasn't "the same plastic all the other folding phones are made of"
Doesn't removing the "screen protector" destroy the pixels? Or was that just some early Samsungs? (that made an important built-in layer look like a screen protector)
I was hopeful that the Apple foldable would use glass as the top layer so it doesn't get scratched. Plastic does not inspire confidence; no coating can actually protect it from damage because it can still simply get plastically squished.
This is really nice for people who read books and want to ditch carrying around a mini tablet or e-reader, I just wish it had the camera array of the iPhone Pros.
Think I'll just wait for the rumored iPhone Air 2. iPhone Air is for sure the best phone I've ever owned, the battery life doesn't bother me but the camera isn't ideal at all. Duo looks cool but I'm not sure I need a device that will encourage me to "play" on my phone more than I already shouldn't.
I'm a bit biased here, but I feel like the more form factors we introduce, the worse apps are going to get as developers now have to account for it (and they won't, eg YouTube on ipad). Do people actually like foldable phones enough?
i'll be waiting right alongside. when i fold the phone i want it to be very small and preferably thin as possible. when i have the phone to my ear during a call i want it to be light as possible too. this is what lead me to get an early rehash of the razr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Razr_(2020) but even that phone requires hand repositioning to reach the top of the screen when open. the 'chin' part allows it to be thinner but alas i wish it were thinner still, especially folded in a pocket. 6 years of use and i dont want a bigger phone, i want a smaller foldable but the product lines are doing the opposite!
i hope apple give a duo mini a serious try. apple, the market segment might be smaller but like a restaurant that includes special dietary needs for one person, that brings the whole family along for dinner!
I cannot believe that the central crease could disappear altogether!
Suspiciously could not see reviews of it yet - usually bloggers like mkbhd get their hands on early, and they release the reviews moment the embargo is off, usually when live event is over. This time nothing.
I guess it's not cool but if i had a fold phone I'd much prefer it be like the nintendo DS with 2 separate screens (taking up the whole space though). If they can make it foldable they should be able to have 2 screens without a bezel
The phone shows a date of April 1 in several screenshots. I would guess that is to pretend that the images were for an april fools joke in case they leaked?
What's the value of using one of these phones running iOS? iOS is great for media consumption and not so much for productivity... so I don't understand very well the use cases... apart from watching Netflix I guess?
iOS runs plenty of productivity software, many which run great on larger screen devices like this or iPads. What does "productivity" mean to you? Or is it just terminals and coding?
I might be a weirdo, but even the mail client on iOS has serious deficiencies. Just getting an email with a zip attachment where I have to edit / sign a document with a certificate / something, rezip and send back is a hell in iOS, while it simply feels natural in Android.
Most people aren’t doing productivity. They’re watching videos and playing games. This would mean I don’t need my iPad on flights or when travelling. And when I’m travelling I don’t need to be doing productive things.
I used to be one of those people that would countdown the hours to Apple's launch events and tune in for the live stream. I was never someone who updated my iPhone every year, but I _did_ update my iPhone every two years.
Now, I can't even remember what version iPhone I have. I just remember that I bought it after my last one stopped working (after maybe 5 or 6 years of having it). I won't lie: part of the reason is that I'm just getting older and care less about these things.
But a bigger part is that new tech just isn't fun anymore...
I _hate_ using my current iPhone for surfing the web... because I can't run the full suite of ad-blocking software that I run on my computer (Firefox + uBlock, sponsor block; Little Snitch with tons of block lists). I hate that all that ad-blocking software is necessary... but that's a totally different rant.
I _hate_ that I'm being asked to spend $2000 on a device that will, by default, surveil me 24x7. I can spend HOURS trying to disable every feature designed to track me... and still not be certain that somewhere in the TOS that I've still given permission for them to vacuum up SOME piece of information about me.
And I _hate_ that Apple is now an ad company.
And yes, I acknowledge that with respect to privacy, Apple is STILL the less bad choice (compared to Android).
And yes, I acknowledge that there are other options. In fact, when this iPhone dies, I plan on getting a Pixel and putting GrapheneOS on it.
I guess what I'm saying is... I hope that there are more people like me out there... who are sick of paying thousands of dollars for devices that, instead of serving me, serve those who want to collect my information so they can sell me stuff.
edit: "because I can't" instead of "because can't"
looks nice, but if i still can't use terminal or closer to native cli, the pixel fold 10 with termux is still the right device for on-the-go development. termius is ok, but with termux i can run emacs on the pixel.
Always loved the Surface Duo. I really liked the separation of the screens too; felt like dual monitors vs. ultrawide. It also forced the technology to focus the valueprop on multitasking versus more immersive/more bigger/more better. I'm curious about the iPhonr Duo; I have not been a huge fan of iPadOS or iOS, the former making me often wish for a macOS experience and the later having felt slower and less responsive over time (mostly due to animation speeds/aesthetic choices rather than a hardware defect).
How do you put a case on a foldable phone? Or do you not put one on, rely on the ceramic to protect the screen, and pay for Apple Care for cheap replacement screens?
They had two. One it appears to snap on magnetically, I think the other might have had too small hinges on it, but I didn’t look very hard, and it wasn’t on screen long.
Both parent and child are now mediating their experience through technology with the parent blaring recognizable intellectual property at the child to psychologically manipulate them into a better photo.
I mean, I remember having a guy squeak a rubber ducky at me when we took family photos... that part isn't new. What difference does it make that it's recognizable IP? It's Snoopy. Kids like Snoopy.
It looks very useful with all the software integrations. Now the price tag however... Without financing it would be hard for majority of buyers to justify.
Doesn’t almost everyone finance their phone anyway? You pay a carrier x a month and get a phone and service for a few years. Maybe they’ll push the plan out from 2 years standard to 3 so it’s just as affordable for people?
It looks neat but I’m confused by the layout. It has a smaller screen on the “outside” and then a big foldable double screen on the “inside.” Why? Why not wrap around the outside? You’d get to use all of the screen real estate at once, and the fold would be around a larger radius.
From a mechanical perspective, a screen around the outside would create a wrinkle rather than a crease when opened, and that wrinkle would be substantial. The phone would need some sliding/rolling mechanism to pull the screen flat. Possibly doable, but finicky and fragile. Especially considering elements like cameras, touch ID, etc.
From an experience perspective, I imagine it's just more satisfying to open it like a book. A screen on the outside would mean the inside is almost empty, just utilities like camera lenses.
That design was explored years ago with earlier foldables. The market consolidated on the two screen design pretty early.
not entirely sure why, but i’d guess there were durability concerns with the screen wrapping around the edge. might have also felt weird to hold. potentially the crease would be worse in unfolded mode as well.
I think I'm just getting old because I no longer see the appeal nor do I understand the hype of new phones. It bends? Wow a useless gimmick for 3000$, just what I need.
I'm sure someone will love it, but it won't be me.
It's a shame there isn't the kind of competition in the US when it comes to mobile phones as there is in China. Many HN users would likely never buy a Chinese OEM device, but if you look at the variety of devices offered by Chinese brands, they're trying all sorts of approaches. Kind of like their EV market. Meanwhile, your choices in the US are Apple, Samsung, Motorola, Google, and that's pretty much it. I wouldn't say there's a ton of innovation between them...kind of like the large US automakers.
Depends on if it starts to get a crease after using it a while. I tend to assume that this is why Apple chose not to adopt folding screens as quickly as Android phones did.
I mean that is the business. These companies are in the business of ordering parts from components vendors and leasing floor space to assemble them after all. Folding screen is probably something you can order from many companies in shenzen at scale right now (or whichever chinese city is the "cell phone screen" hub, might not be shenzen).
Absolutely none of the announcements today, make me want to go out and get something. I am giving the Duo a year or two, to work out the bugs, and get more capability. The extra screen space isn't really interesting to me.
The only ones I might consider, are the new base AirPods. I have never really warmed to the Pros (I have two pairs, but like the regular ones better).
I am looking forward to iOS27. I'm interested in seeing how the simulator presents the Duo.
It makes the worst part of the iphone: text entry, even worse. I love the idea of a more capable PDA, but typing is more important than ever and it must be improved. Keyboards need to be a focus. Use eye tracking, use finger tracking, add physical buttons, just try something. Also, please fix the swiped keyboard software. It's unbearable. Admit it, fix it, quickly please.
Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave at this atrocious design. Apple is lost without his vision.
The hard corners when its folded is a huge design breaker. The whole thing is THICK when folded. Jobs only added the bezel because it competed with the cases wrapped on phones. I don't see how any case will work on this behemoth.
I've seen what happens to the fold crease after a year, its a bit noticeable. It will degrade the prestigious quality of the brand.
Lastly, this copies all other fold phones. I'm surprised is all.
Honestly don't see the appeal of foldable phones. I don't use my phone a lot, but the form factor even as a small tablet is not something useful for my phone use-cases.
When I'm at home, I can just use my iPad. When I'm on the road, I don't need to be watching content on a slightly larger screen.
I get that I'm not the target audience, but it's still confusing to me why people like foldable phones.
I'm so happy I stopped caring about new phones about five years ago, since then I've spent about $200 on phones – for a used pixel 8 that I installed GrapheneOS on.
Only 5 years ago? I feel like they stopped getting interesting and started getting increasingly worse like 5 years in. I'm still pissed off about the headphone jack.
5s/SE1 is still peak iPhone for me. I pull that thing out of the drawer every now and then and just marvel and the size and weight and how it is barely noticeable in my pocket even compared to my (ginormous in comparison) SE2.
SPOILER WARNING: There is huge spoiler for Silo in this ad if anyone is watching the show. Don't view if you don't want to learn the ending to Season 1.
A bigger screen is nice and all, but it doesn't solve the input problem. Touch inputs are just terrible compared to a keyboard with a pointing device that isn't a finger or stylus. I always thought I had a problem with the size of the screen until I tried a foldable, and that taught me that I simply hate touch inputs on any screen size.
My next phone is an e-ink Mudita Kompact with a hardware kill switch. I can run a service to bridge iMessage if I decide I care.
With every year since they arrived in 2005 or so and especially accelerating since 2010, smartphone capability has grown with their creepiness. The expectation that you own one has almost turned into a demand. It's a total turn off. You don't need these capabilities, life goes on without it just fine. The drawbacks for your mental health and privacy are material.
Naming it like that would subjectively tie them to the release schedule of the main Iphone line, while I imagine such a niche device will have a much slower schedule between new versions. If that is the case, they would want to continue selling this device alongside the Iphone 19 (and maybe 20, or even 21) without the name implying it is an old model.
I'm curious how large the market for this will be. I am a big guy and the Pro Max models are already huge in my pocket. How many people are really going to want a phone that is this big and bulky in their pockets? Will we see a rise in cargo pants?
will buy it for the kid cue feature alone; what a neat idea. i mainly use my iphone for reading books and taking pictures of my kids so the format will be perfect for me.
Reading might be the one use-case for a foldable phone when you're on the go. Even so, a basic Kindle fits in a purse / fanny-pack just fine and is much more comfortable on the eyes.
It's good to see Apple is taking the fold transition seriously. I have a Z Fold, and Samsung elegantly handles the app transition from fold to unfold by force closing and restarting the app for you, even if you fold it just a little. :D
I would like to buy just the back half please. I’m not even joking. I couldn’t find the exact dimensions but at 5.4” diagonal, that would make it even easier to use one handed than the mini
Whats the point of big screen when we can't even install the app we want. Sideloading works for 7 days and there is artificial limitation of 7-8 App Ids which sucks.
I think you're right. We're at the point where Apple is sort of out of steam in terms of hardware and software and their products are mature and the company has become more risk averse. They need gimmicks to get people to upgrade and I'm sure we will see more attempts like this in the future. These sorts of devices have limited use cases, like people who are on the road a lot for work or leisure, and of course this appeals to tech enthusiasts or the vanity tech crowd.
It'll be a nice device for some, but I think we're at the stage where device upgrades are no longer going to be a yearly or even biennial thing with all things considered.
Everyone in my family wants one... assuming it works well. We spend a lot of time on our phones, and a lot watching video. This seems like the ideal device for that.
I have no doubts this device will be in demand and sell a ton of units
But what are we even doing? $2000 for a device to watch videos on, to replace the $1200 device you watched videos on last year.
I guess I’m lamenting the fact that none of this amazing technology is actually doing much for us any more. It wasn’t that long ago that every year we would get new devices that actually changed how we did our day-to-day
I think there's plenty of interest, Samsung, Pixel and Motorola are just some of the companies with multiple generations of foldables. Besides enthusiasts, the type of person that might want an iPhone duo is someone that doesn't really use a laptop. The utility of a tablet for media consumption and light productivity with a small footprint is real thing.
The problems besides price (which are still insane) until now where:
- Materials not catching up, things like the older creases, dust ingress, etc.
- Software in Android being hit or miss, specially on with third parties. Apple has the muscle to make apps compatible with the form factor.
- The "standard" foldable aspect ratio sucking ass, the only major exceptions being the Surface Duo, the original Pixel Fold and the recent Galaxy Fold. Passport format is simply better.
>Imagine if Apple dedicated this huge engineering effort onto existing products.
For what? Slab phones are practically solved, the only things that might make a normal iPhone better besides incrementally better camera, battery and processors are not Apple approved. No expandable storage or cheap battery replacements for you. The only place for real advancemnt will be foldables for a while.
Watching my iOS colleagues tear their hair out with SwiftUI's lack of proper support of foldables for the next... Two years about will be highly entertaining.
No SIM slot. Seems like Apple is only thinking of the US market. Will not be getting the Duo as I will not be able to browse the web outside my home.
Edit: Rate limited so can't reply to the comments. I live in Spain, can't switch to eSIM. I know that the US has 100% integration of eSIM across all providers but outside the US it's not that great. I use eSIM and SIM a lot, have lots of cards and subscriptions. For my main subscription I can't switch to eSIM (yet).
Why do you think eSIM is a US only thing? Common in Western Europe and Japan and South Korea and Mexico and Canada and Australia and Thailand as well. China and India are the big outliers, but that can change.
Would probably push the engineers to deliver three-way foldables like the Huawei Mate XT from two years ago. The two-way folding phones are wasting a screen and will go down in history as an abomination. The weird 1:1.4 width:height ratio wouldn't be necessary if you could 3x the screen size instead of only 2x. At 3x, the ratio could be 1:1.73 folded, giving you 3:1.73 unfolded (which equals 1.73:1). 1.73 is much closer to 16:9 (1.77) than 1.4 is.
This is the kind of product the make all out lives better. I mean the pure entertainment value it will bring being able to watch eager Apple fan bois new iPhone Duo screen crack, or the hinges start grinding, or ...
They went over their multi-layer design to give it strength and flexibility, and noted over 100 components in the hinge alone. I'll be looking out for JerryRigEverything on YouTube to see how tough it really is!
JerryRigEverything won't tell you how easily the hinge gunks up or cruft gets stuck in places it's not supposed to be or how quickly crease marks show up and how bad they are.
While Apple certainly looked at the competitors to see what problems they had, it's far from a given that Apple has managed to actually solve the durability issues, either, much less on their first attempt.
The presentation went into extra detail about durability w/ a titanium construction, and the iPhone Air was indeed super durable with it. The hinge at-the-least looks like it could survive the dust test.
C2 doesn't support physical SIMs. eSIM only. Honestly, I can go either way. Physical SIMs are nice but I love the convenience of eSIM and can see people being frustrated over its removal.
I use both around six SIM and eSIM cards but my main phone subscription needs a physical SIM card so I will not be getting the Duo.
Edit: Reply to nomel as I am rate limited
Cheaper than roaming cost. I have eSIMs for countries I frequently visit.
This is Europe. I can do a short walk and cross multiple countries borders. It's nice to have coverage everywhere. I just toggle my eSIMs for that. When I'm out on a boat trip and I pick up a Moroccan signal from across the Strait of Gibraltar I turn on my Moroccan eSIM so I'm not paying €2 per megabyte in roaming cost. When I get cheap gas in Gibraltar I switch on my Gibraltar eSIM and turn off roaming on my main line. When I cross into Portugal I switch to a Spanish provider since they give 15 gigabytes of roaming for free.
Ah. about 30 seconds ago they mentioned in the (still ongoing) keynote they said it was removed to recoup space for internals. I recall the 3.5mm jack removal being motivated along similar lines. I wonder, assuming the space where the SIM slot would've gone was filled with increased battery size, what that delta would in duration. I'm from the US, cursory reading about global eSIM adoption surprised me (only 30% and most of that 30% is in the US vs. my assumption of >50%). What prevents adoption elsewhere? Consumer demand for swapping? Curious to hear your POV on it.
eSIMs give a lot of control back to the carrier. My carrier does not allow transferring eSIMs between phones, but I can trivially move their physical SIM card.
Honestly not even touching on what the thing actually costs on its own, I don’t like the idea of signaling to people so clearly that I had 2k +tax to spend on a cell phone
I’m not always in the best areas so this def comes up for me personally
I'm really happy about this new form factor. Things were becoming too conformist where everyone needed to adopt the lowest common denominator in order to fit in. It seemed like anything different was met with significantly more skepticism than curiosity. I embrace informed skepticism but most of it is ignorant. I think people will still be skeptical about the foldable iPhone but mainly out of ignorance of this form factor.
This phone will suck for the concern trolls who are best described as deeply conservative but will try their best pointing out concerns while masquerading as whatever will convince people.
Wait a sec, you're quoting yourself for proof but you were pretty much objectively wrong in that case? HN unanimously agrees that the M1 was the biggest jump in capabilities and has had many many years of usability since launch.
Except what they didn't tell you was that the software was not optimized and did not work correctly for the M1 and you had to wait it to be ready; especially in the case for developers.
That means, users (especially pro users / developers) lost months of productivity and had to wait for a year for the software to catch up with the hardware.
In that time-frame, you might as well have waited and bought an M2 or above. Nice try though.
You can run one iphone at a time and lap the duo. 64gb iphone SE is going for $140 at best buy right now. I could tape up 10 of them into a jacobs ladder then I'd have 640gb of storage and maybe 10x the battery life of the duo, and money to spare for future expansion iphones.
I was a bit disappointed in these numbers because, despite having two batteries and the outer display being smaller, the Duo still has 1 less hour of video playback on the outer display than the iPhone 18 Pro Max.
Ugh; folding screens are so failure prone these things just exacerbate e-waste problems
Would rather ditch my phone size thing and be able to pair a cellular Watch to iPad Mini size thing that also has "50% more screen" than iPhone Max
Gen AI could take telemetry like GPS from Watch and recreate most adventures without need of all the pictures; I don't care if every little thing like a day hike is captured "for real"
Would still hire a photographer for actual meaningful moments like weddings and graduations
Oh noes; from the other side of an obvious Gulf of Information Assymetry an internet random unaware I am fluent on 3 musical instruments, have won awards for poetry, charcoal drawings and grow 1/4-1/3 of my vegetables each year... believes I have no soul
If you're only capable of reducing the entire comment to a single piece of it you would be wise to sit and meditate on comments first rather than vomit copy pasta opinions; the whole knee jerk copy pasta approach to social media discourse is soulless in its own way
Worse in most ways than every other iPhone, more expensive, gets permanently (sometimes deathly) damaged by fingernails, keys, sand, plastic and literally anything that's harder than about a fingernail. All the supposedly unique usecases can be resolved by a $1 kickstand, a $50 speaker, or a $500 iPad plus a non-foldable phone. You can get a whole MacBook too. So, no thanks.
This is neat but feels like an uninspired shot in the dark. Apple’s been turning from industry leading to people pleasing in recent years. Not that its a bad thing entirely, but something is lost.
These threads are often amusing with people obliviously asking: why doesn't Apple make exactly what I want? And then stating with certainty how well their custom requirements would sell.
I'll probably wait and see how this phone does over the next few years. If it is still highly regarded by version 3 then I could imagine making the switch to a folding phone. For now I will remain conservative since my phone is such a critical piece of tech.
100%. It was so funny to see how for years, everyone on HN was harping on about how well a smaller iPhone would sell. Then Apple finally released the iPhone mini and nobody was buying it, so they had to kill it after a couple of iterations.
Basically, try to do the opposite of what HN is saying and you might just create a successful product.
> Then Apple finally released the iPhone mini and nobody was buying it, so they had to kill it after a couple of iterations.
And by "nobody", you mean "actually a lot of people, just not as many as the bigger model". It's ok to have a model that meets a less common, but still extant, need in the market. If everyone followed Apple's logic on this, people with very small or very large bodies would have to go naked because companies would go "that size doesn't sell as much, we have to kill it" rather than (as actually happens) charging more per unit to make up for the overhead of lower volumes of sales.
The mini accounted for 3% of sales. Personally I’m a believer, and a buyer, but 3% isn’t a good number.
"Try a different smaller form factor every couple of years" is a reasonable strategy. First Mini, then Air. Supposedly they're gonna refresh the Air next year, we'll see. But even if they don't: we're well into the "keep phones 3 years or more" era of the smart phone. You don't need an exact match for every phone for everybody every year.
6 to 7 million units is a good number.
6 to 7 million units at the scale of Apple is not necessarily worth the investment.
It's not ok if it uses resources that could be better spent elsewhere. At 3% share what do you expect them to do?
Contrary to popular belief, Apple did not kill the mini because iphone 13 mini sales were poor. And they were poor.
Apple killed it because Mini 14s are illegal in Europe. There are tons in the US though.
The Mini 14 never existed. Perhaps you're thinking of a specific (non-mini) model of the iPhone 12 which was temporarily banned in France or maybe the USB C requirement which went into effect ~1 year after new sales of the iPhone 13 mini were already discontinued by Apple worldwide?
I think maybe they're making a joke about the Ruger Mini-14? It's a rifle.
LOL, hilarious if that's what it was! Can't say I've ever shot one but it sure looks fun.
The mini-14 is probably the best and most useful rifle I’ve ever owned and would 100% recommend to anybody.
Being average person is like winning lottery. Everyone is making products for you.
Also you get most anonymity on the internet because they can't fingerprint you.
All those John Smiths out there are laughing at me
An average person would ironically be quite unique.
https://www.buildingtheelite.com/average-fails-everyone/
Except there’s no average person, the average itself is a combination of people with the most diverse needs and constraints. It’s like the joke that the average human being has 1 breast and 1 testicle.
My favorite similar statistic is that the average human body contains more than one human skeleton
"Bring back the headphone jack, it's what everybody wants and will sell squillions!"
As a recent Android foldable phone owner (Google Pixel), I'm excited that the Duo will get developers to actually design apps for foldables. Right now, some apps don't work at all and others are just stretched. I feel a better use of the screen space is around the corner for both Android foldable and Duo users.
As a dev who regularly works on apps for both platforms, I think one of the main causes for poor support for form factors beyond a standard smartphone on Android boils down to Google refusing to give developers fully fleshed out APIs to support said form factors.
Instead, they just hand you some poorly documented loose parts in a box and tell you, “good luck” and you’re on your own to fill the gaps. Compose is a little better about giving the tools you need than the preceding Android Framework, but it’s still much more “assembly required” and “batteries not included” than the UIKit+SwiftUI world is.
Many iOS apps built using system components will behave 90%+ correctly on the Duo by just compiling against the iOS 27.1 SDK because there are well supported methods of doing things that Apple can leverage to reduce dev work. In contrast, on Android there's 10 ways of doing anything none of which get full-throated support (on top of all the other ways devs invent), and so any time it gains support for a new form factor almost nothing is automatic and it all falls on the devs’ shoulders.
> Instead, they just hand you some poorly documented loose parts in a box and tell you, “good luck” and you’re on your own to fill the gaps.
Google is fundamentally a spy company, not a product company
All of FAANG is, if we're being cynically reductive.
???
WindowSizeClasses, Postures, Navigation3, ListDetailScaffolds, the list goes on. Android & Compose is pretty much flawless when it comes to develop for it, it's thoroughly documented and works well.
Layouts will not magically be not dog shit on iOS because Apple put out another version of SwiftUI that you can't use in prod because nobody has the update. 90% of the apps will be stretched. Horizontally. The reality of it is, it's pretty much never worth it to make layouts that are specialised for foldables/tablets.
Also, it's pretty fucking funny to be worshipping Apple like that when they have a single device to support, and then complain about Android that literally had to pave the way and today works on phones that can unfold three times, phones like the galaxy Z Flip that have instead half screens, etc. Apple will tell you they can't back port dynamic islands on last year's release, while latest Compose is happily running on devices from 10 years ago.
> WindowSizeClasses, Postures, Navigation3, ListDetailScaffolds, the list goes on.
Yes, those are the loose parts. They still have to be assembled correctly for everything to work as expected and every app does it a bit differently (there is effectively no endorsed "correct" way to assemble them). This means that Google cannot extend them with new functionality later without breaking some if not most usages of those parts in the future.
Compare that to UITabController in UIKit, which has been present since very early on and got extended recently. If the dev adopts iOS 18 revisions, configuring that single view controller gets you more or less correct presentation and navigation across all sizes and orientations of normal iPhone, iPad, desktop, and now iPhone Duo and implementation is close to identical between apps.
> …and then complain about Android that literally had to pave the way and today works on phones that can unfold three times, phones like the galaxy Z Flip that have instead half screens, etc.
That's fair, but users can't reasonably expect any kind of meaningful adoption of new oddball form factors like that until the platform vendor (Google) rolls out standardized APIs to streamline the process (which Google has partially done, but won't commit to a unified solution for).
> Apple will tell you they can't back port dynamic islands on last year's release, while latest Compose is happily running on devices from 10 years ago.
That is an advantage, but iOS users tend to stay much more up to date so it's something of a moot point. The userbase of versions just three major releases behind is typically below 5% and anything older is fractional at best, so unless you're a Google-scale giant you're probably fine only supporting the newest 2-3 versions of iOS. That's pretty nice since I don't need to keep a drawer full of prehistoric phones running ancient versions of Android to test adequately (so I don't find out about some weird behavior that only occurs under Android 11 in prod)…
It would depend on the sales volume. For a long time the iPad has been available and many developers simply are content to have a stretched version of their iPhone app on their iPad, because the sales volume isn’t sufficient. If foldable phones sell like iPads, this could very well happen to them too.
Exactly, I remember until recently even instagram didn’t have a proper iPad app that uses the complete screen space
Same here. I ditched the google pixel fold after a year because the hardware had some issues, also tbh I prefer the iOS ecosystem. I’m so glad this is coming out.
> "A large fraction of the flaws in software development are due to programmers not fully understanding all the possible states their code may execute in."
This is a quote from John Carmack and should sit over every developers monitor. At the same time, OS designers should be doing everything in their power to reduce the number of states a developer has to think about.
Like one of the things I hate about frontend development - and admire people who do this professionally - is the stupid and arbitrary rules browsers impose on you.
'You may only play audio if such and such conditions are met. However these are different based on browser and platform. Good luck making a solution fitting all these.'
'The browser might lie about what's the available screen estate is, but only sometimes'
'There is a perfect API for what you wanna do, however it's not in Safari'
And a testament on how obscure and arcane knowledge is on doing things right is that I thought there would be some npm packages that do these things for me, but no - you have to hunt around for solutions and fix things yourself.
And LLMs are completely useless and confidently wrong mostly about everything involving this.
I don't want to be pessimistic, but I can see a single app now showing two different feeds to doomscroll.
Subway surfers and tiktok at the same time. The future is now chud.
Instagram posts on one side and reels on the other side
> As a recent Android foldable phone owner (Google Pixel)
"There are dozens of us!" (not me though, I wouldn't buy a Pixel foldable)
Developers will design apps for Apple's foldables.
Cross-platform is a thing.
If anyting, Apple stands to gain from what was already developed for Android.
Like https://developer.android.com/phones-tablets-foldables
Which targets iOS also: https://kotlinlang.org/compose-multiplatform
React Native and Flutter are way more popular than KMM/CM, and yet both have struggled to support even small iOS visual changes in a timely fashion.
This is ignoring the fact that developers who choose these cross-platform frameworks don't seem to care much about quality and general polish.
It is a thing to some extent, but there’s also a correlation of companies that do cross-platform for simple apps being cheap on development, and making it work very well on some specific platform isn’t their priority.
Thought it will bring "desiging for foldables" onto the table which would benefit Android foldables too.
I'll give John Ternus credit: the demos are interesting and fun.
Maybe not $2k fun + inherent risk with buying the first generation of an Apple product particularly after the Apple Vision Pro, but still.
I agree. The demos were great. They really showed off how things you already do today are "better" on two screens. This is in contrast to the Vision Pro where the demos were of things that were neat but I can't see myself needing (watching 3D captures, watching a big virtual cinema screen).
I think this will be a hit, but the $2k is a bit much for me to even consider getting one. Obviously they'll likely drop that price over time.
It’s the exact same price point as the Samsung Z Fold 8, which is this phone’s exact competitor.
$2k is a lot to ask, but it answers the market 100% on “I’d like a Samsung Fold 8, but as an iPhone”.
Difference is that the Fold 8 started at 2000 Euro (compared to 2339 Euro including VAT for the Duo) and can now be bought here already for 1500 new.
That's 800 Euro less and Samsung will mostly decrease prices further while Apple will barely.
It's a shame Samsung dropped stylus support after the 6, but I guess the 8 is a good bit lighter weight than the duo.
honestly it's why I am not updating from Fold 5... the stylus is the part that truly differentiated it
Is it really the first generation though? The screen is obviously 1st gen for Apple, but you'd think the rest of it is not: OS, battery, camera.
Considering the most important parts of the Duo are the screen and the hinge, yes it's a first generation device.
It'll be interesting to see how many/how quickly apps adopt the UI that lets you make the most of the foldable screen. If it doesn't sell in big numbers app developers might not feel the need to and the user experience will be subpar. ...but I suspect it will.
> It'll be interesting to see how many/how quickly apps adopt the UI that lets you make the most of the foldable screen.
For iOS 27, apps are automatically automatically opted in to resizability. Apple was clear at WWDC that apps need to dynamically adjust to any available scene size at runtime, not just for iPhone Duo, but also for iPad windowing and iPhone Mirroring on Mac. There may be a grace period, but Apple hasn't shared one AFAIK.
Well, at the very least the ability to have a larger browser screen on landscape or having two apps side by side is already good on its own.
The previously released iPhone Air looks very similar to the fold, and I believe it even used the Apple modem C1 generation.
There is a lot of software support needed to make this work great. So first generation of all that for sure.
Admittedly, software that's influenced by the iPad and iPhone, so there is new software, but it's not that new. Multitasking in iOS has been a thing for a while (iPad).
I'm not trying to discount the efforts involved here, just pointing out that they aren't starting from scratch. And much of the required features to support a dual-screen (triple-?) phone has been in the works for a while.
Well, the screen is the new/groundbreaking part!
The Apple Vision Pro was a rare early entry into a field. Usually they wait until the technology is established and the userbase is just starting to take off, as is currently the case with folding phone displays.
Samsung has already worked out the major kinks for folding displays, over dozens of products used by multiple phone manufacturers including themselves, and Android has worked out how to handle the various use cases between the outer screen and inner screen, when closed, open, or partially open, so Apple can pull from the current state of the art and launch with a more fully developed product, as they usually did before the Apple Vision Pro.
>The Apple Vision Pro was a rare early entry into a field.
It was not an early entry into the field. Many well established devices already existed. It was an uncharacteristic entrance into a niche.
Which is exactly what foldable phones are. 1.6% of phone sales in 2025 were foldable.
Maybe they will take off. But the odds are this will be discontinued.
The reason I have hope is that Apple is the only company with a serious Tablet OS. When you unfold this, essentially you have an iPad Mini.
The screen real estate is bigger than the numbers indicate, as the more square a display is, the larger its area is compared to its diagonal.
I find it sad that they're doing it all pre-recorded.
Yeah, I wish they would go back to live, or at least parts of it live. They did a great job during the pandemic but it has lost some humanity and authenticity.
Especially with the studio recorded voices that uncannily don’t quite match the video.
Live was fine for Steve Jobs most people aren’t Steve Jobs who had the gift.
They still had other presenters at those.
Let a video do the big reveal and overview then let the people talk about details or do demos.
I don’t know exactly toy. But there must be something with a little more life.
They're still as cringe as they've been for years; with fake hand movements and marketing-pilled bs postures.
The marketing pilled postures seem to have been toned down a bit.
I wish they would stop changing speakers every other sentence though. I swear drone cameras were the worst thing to happen to video, I'm gettin seasick over here!
> I wish they would stop changing speakers every other sentence though
Apple employees get to claim very little ownership over their work (even in the context of a large tech company), so having all those speaker slots is one way they can provide that ego boost that is so crucial for long term employee morale & retention
> with fake hand movements
I don't get this complaint. People talk with their hands, it'd look more fake if they just stood there all stiff and wooden.
Hand movements are fine, but the comment is right that these come off as incredibly fake.
I wish these posts came with a demo video of you doing it better.
$2K starting price is rough. I’ve upgraded my iPhone every year since my first phone, the 3GS. It’s one of a few “splurge”-type things I allow myself. It’s a hobby and just fun to play with the new hotness. This year might break the cycle.
I don’t care for the 18 Pro colors, I still love my orange 17 Pro, and I’m not sold on the Duo (functionality or price).
I might still end up with a Duo but I’m very much on the fence. I’ll tell myself it’s for development/testing reasons, or just to play with the newest offering but I’m just not sure. I worry this will suffer from the same lack of developer interest as the AVP did. Yes, it’s very different from the AVP and SwiftUI will almost certainly make this process easier but I’m still not sure.
> I worry this will suffer from the same lack of developer interest as the AVP did
Pretty sure that developer interest is not to be a problem. The Duo will sell more units in a month (or less) than every AVP ever sold.
Apple told developers in June at WWDC to not assume fixed screen sizes. Well-written apps will work on any screen size thanks to Apple's APIs.
Some apps will need to be tweaked to take advantage of some Duo features no doubt, but I suspect that's not going to be a deal breaker.
Agree - this is going to have pretty wide adoption.
I’m in the exact same situation. Been upgrading every year for a long time (via the Upgrade Programme, making doing so more or less “free”). I was absolutely jazzed they finally did an orange phone, and this is the first year in a while that…I just don’t care. The Duo is far more expensive than I could ever entertain (plus buying a first-gen Apple product has never been a good idea), and there is quite literally nothing in the 18 Pro that makes me want to upgrade.
I may be swayed by a second gen Air in the spring, as I would like a lighter phone that feels less of an imposition in my pocket and my life in general. But it almost certainly won’t have the zoom camera, which has unexpectedly become one of my favourite and most used features of the 17 Pro. Why the two-camera phones all come with the ultrawide instead of the telephoto is baffling to me. Perhaps I’m an anomaly, but I never use the ultrawide lens.
> making doing so more or less “free”
except for those monthly payments you never get to stop making, yeah it's free.
Why do you think I put “free” in quotes? Realistically I was never going to keep the phone longer than the two year finance term anyway, because back when I started doing it a two-year old phone would be really starting to show its age running newer software. So I could either pay monthly and get a phone every two years, or pay monthly and get a phone every year.
Of course, these days a three or four or more year old phone is often still perfectly usable even for a tech enthusiast.
To get close to the same functionality as the Duo, you'd buy an iPhone 18 Pro ($1199) plus an iPad mini ($599); that gets you to $1,798. If you want more storage than the entry level iPhone 18 Pro or iPad mini, you're going to surpass $2000 pretty quickly.
> I worry this will suffer from the same lack of developer interest as the AVP did
Apple can force iOS devs to do whatever they want. It may be basic support, but Apple devs will do whatever Apple tells them to do.
Just checked the price in my home country (Brazil) and it's fantastic: the Duo starts at BRL 21999, which is roughly USD 4300.
You could do the leasing route if you upgrade every year. Might pinch less.
If leasing a fucking phone isn't a sign of the times then I don't know what is.
People have been leasing phones since at least the mid naughties, they just did it via their carrier. I distinctly remember standing in the Alltel store in 2006-ish, before it got gobbled up by ATT, and wondering if I could afford the extra $15/mo that the new Nokia candybar phone would run me. The only thing that's new is that Apple is offering it directly.
Leasing, as in long term renting, required to give it back after the lease period, in near perfect condition, or face a penalty?
Or financing, paying it off over a fixed term, after which you own it outright?
The latter, I understand. And I'm also familiar with it.
But the former, I find hard to believe. Although, I'm not from the US. Are you telling me people rented nokia bricks in the aughts?
You could and still can do both from your carrier, it's pretty standard. In my experience, it's somewhat uncommon for people to actually buy their phones outright unless you make a lot of money (like the folks who tend to frequent HN). Every two years, my wife and I would sign up for a new 24-month contract, which would include two new phones. After those 24 months, we could keep paying off the remainder of the phones and keep them, or we could return them and start a new contract with new phones.
> Are you telling me people rented nokia bricks in the aughts?
Myself and my family did, for sure. My parents made me pay my own phone bill too, so I spent a long time in the Alltel shop staring at the different phones and probably annoying the clerk.
> it's somewhat uncommon for people to actually buy their phones outright unless you make a lot of money
Or like many of us, you buy cheaper phones outright for your prepaid phone plans. The fact that people still go for contract phone services and finance a new phone every two years blows my mind. Especially when I can get all the data/minutes/texts I need for $15 a month on a service like Tello, and just get a phone for $200-400 that I can use until it dies. Which is currently a used iPhone 11 I recently opened up to replace the battery.
See my comment elsewhere in this thread, but you are blowing my mind. I'm not from the US and I did not realize that renting a mobile device was actually this common. I'm one of the lucky 10,000 today, thanks!
I mean, you might find this hard to believe since you have a fixed view, but I'm old enough that we had one of those old-school rotary phones. My family literally leased that phone as part of our phone bill up until the late 90s. I recall at one point we were forced to trade the rotary for a push button since the telecom was discontinuing support. When "caller id" became a new feature it only worked for the first while on the rented phones.
To this day, I suspect many people have a line-item on their Internet bill for their modem/router rental/lease.
Why you would find this hard to believe is actually the curious thing to me.
1. You can buy it outright at the end of the term by paying the remainder of the sticker price if you really want to keep it.
2. If you’re upgrading your phone on a one or two year cycle, you end up paying the sticker price minus the trade in value at the end of the term.
I don’t really see an issue in either scenario?
Most people are short-term thinkers if you talk to anyone around you at work, school or at home and if you merely suggest saving and controlling their spending briefly to buy something in the future good luck. I have given up.
I just buy more shares of blue chip companies and let them pay in the future for anything I want to buy.
A little bit of this, a little bit of that, we know the average, but we don't know how much time each of us has on this earth.
If leasing a fucking phone isn't a sign of the times then I don't know what is.
People have been leasing and renting phones since the 1930's. I guess you missed out on the Ma Bell century.
I honestly did not know this was a thing until today. I'm not from the US.
Where I'm from, it is common to finance a phone as part of a mobile contract: your monthly payment includes a device payment and the network subscription cost. Typically 24 months, but in recent years I've seen 36 month contracts as well. But at the end of the term the device is yours outright. No further down payments needed. Usually the device payment is effectively 0% APR over the 2 years, so it's a pretty lucrative deal. I've purchased all my phones this way over the past 20 years.
Then you’d like the upgrade program? The only difference is there is a final balloon payment for it to be yours. You end up paying exactly the same as paying up front.
Wait for 2nd gen, always
It's high, but Apple's financing arm has it at $84/month, which is a bit more stomachable if you really want it.
I don’t think it’ll face the developer interest problem. Devs go where the money is and consumers seem to love foldables.
I like that blue though.
I don't know, $1999 seems almost kinda reasonable considering how much an iPhone Pro costs and how utterly fucked the current memory prices are.
We keep putting more powerful chips into phones, and giving them bigger screens, but we never turn them into useful computers. Why is this?
I think it's clear that Apple has recognized that their target markets don't care to have useful computers. Just look way back to when Steve Jobs was still alive and he was talking about how "PCs are going to be like trucks. Fewer people will need them. And this is going to make some people uneasy."
They could certainly add features to make them more like general purpose computers, but there's a bit of product development and engineering "tax" they'd have to pay over time to maintain that aspect. Much easier from a product development standpoint to create products that provide a walled-garden experience, especially if that's what most customers want.
The truck metaphor is actually incredibly apt, because if you want to do "truck stuff" with your PC, a lot of people think you can't do that on a phone, but 90% of what people need a beefy computer for could be done on a phone if we had that kind of culture around it.
Macbook pros for a lot of us are effectively like daily driving a lifted Ford Raptor with a snorkel. Most of what I do on my personal device I easily could do on a Chromebook or tablet, and pretty much all of the rest is entirely possible on a Chromebook with the Linux subsystem setup (which is what I did pre-Macbook). It's like if I'd setup an expensive truck for off-roading, but in the end it turned out to be aspirational and I only take it somewhere that can't handle a Subaru Outback once or twice a year.
Trucks analogy is interesting. I (temporarily) live in the US South and trucks are 3:1 to all other vehicles here.
So true. Whether people need them or not, people will spend the money to buy them.
Steve Jobs didn't foresee that Americans would basically only buy trucks (and SUVs) in 20 years. You can barely buy a sedan in the US anymore.
Maybe small phones are like sedans, and the bigger and bigger iPhones are the trucks? Take this analogy where you will.
If that's the case, then why do we go to work on a computer instead of a phone? Oh, wait. A screen. A mouse, a keyboard. Really, if they wanted to, you could simply dock your phone and have that experience if the company was willing to put in the time.
Globally, mobile+tablet crossed 50% of web traffic in October 2016 (51.3% vs. desktop's 48.7%) [0]. For the world minus HN, we’re entering the second decade of phones being useful computers for the most common definition of useful.
[0](https://gs.statcounter.com/press/mobile-and-tablet-internet-...)
Samsung dex really excited me when I tried it, but it still had a little ways to go. I am shocked it's not a bigger priority.
Esp for Samsung as they don't have a consumer PC division that they would be concerned about killing...
I have a Chromebook with an ~11 inch screen. It’s basically the minimum size where a keyboard is still useable. I like it a lot, but it’s actually too big when I want to use it as a tablet.
I think this is the tension. Or maybe we just need to master one handed keyboards.
“Useful computer” is subjective. It seems to be difficult for HN users to imagine a device that doesn’t have a terminal for example, but the overwhelming majority of users simply do not care. Many of them manage just fine with a smartphone as their primary (if not their only) computer, so clearly they are useful enough.
Android is getting close, with Google adding desktop support akin to Samsung's Dex when the phone is connected to a dock.
Apple has had a patent[1] for like a decade at this point which involved placing an iPhone into a slot on a laptop so it could be used in a laptop form, with the phone itself serving as the touchpad.
[1]: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-patents-device-that-doc...
Edit to add: the phone itself is intended to be the main processing unit, the “laptop” is just a screen and keyboard.
At this point I don't even really need a phone. Nobody makes calls anymore and I can use my watch for 911 calls.
What I need is a more portable iPad. But that would cannibalize iPhone sales.
abuse over a monopoly is the reason. probably you already knew that though?
if they made it a useful computer, they couldnt charge 30% of revenue to their app store customers
That seems to be entirely the purpose of this device. Instead of just a larger display, it's meant to provide a "second monitor" for multitasking or more context.
With terminal emulators, tailscale, local and remote agents, there's never been so much computing capability accessible from your pocket before.
The 7.6" screen here is far too small to function as a second monitor type device. This is going to be for pure content consumption
If you still need a remote computer to do your work, in what way are you doing work on the phone?
I would love it if I could use it as a second monitor when working in a coffee shop or library. Unfortunately universal control was pretty solid at launch and then just completely left to die
What do you want to do on your iPhone that you can't do now?
Run game emulators with JIT. Currently you have to accept emulators either running very slow without JIT, or go through massive hurdles to enable it.
That feels like an exceptionally niche use case
Retro game emulation isn't mainstream but "exceptionally niche" is overstating it.
Have you seen how the average person uses their phone?
You want what, a terminal that you type on w/an onscreen keyboard?
Lots of computers have external keyboards, mice, and displays. Why not a powerful computer like the iPhone? Who cares if it's small? Lots of SBCs are small and are quite useful. This one even has a built in UPS.
You can literally use all those things with an iPhone. Including all at the same time.
So I don't know what you're complaining about?
you can connect those things though right? or you want a mouse and keyboard attached by default like a tiny laptop?
Apple's lack of vision and fear of innovation. Jobs is gone. We're back to 90s Apple. Dumb ideas become dumb products, and no one has the balls to say, No.
It's easier to make an existing thing better. But far harder to come up with a new idea.
You can get something quite useable these days by plugging a pixel into a USB dock with a monitor and a keyboard + mouse
Android Desktop mode looks so promising, it just needs to support higher resolutions/refresh rates but this is probably a side effect of at least the Pixel having weaker performance versus other flagships.
Although I can’t wait for the more powerful Motorolas with GOS to release. Maybe that’d be enough to make a phone my sole computing device.
How are you gonna do mandatory age verification on a full fledged computer?
do you not consider your phone a "useful computer"?
I'm guessing they mean one of the following:
-Installing software without App Store approval filtering
-True multi-tasking and background execution (though this hurts battery)
-Write iOS apps from an iPad
I certainly don't. You simply cannot get actual work done on a phone anywhere near as easily as on a real computer. There's a reason that companies issue laptops (or have desktops even) instead of giving employees a phone.
Artificial limitations open many new avenues for new and exciting revenue streams.
The moment apple ship MacOS on their iPads, sales for their macbooks will all but collapse.
Will they though? They would capture more windows users. They already have the Neo actually. iPad still has another job mainly around simpler tasks. I’ve not yet got to love the Macosy windows management.
What are you talking about?
A MacBook is optimized for a larger screen and comes with a better keyboard and trackpad.
I use both my MacBook and iPad all the time, because their hardware form factors are better for different things.
I don't want to read books on my MacBook and I don't want to do development or writing on my iPad.
I briefly tried using my iPad as a Mac through the screen sharing. It's not as useful as you are imagining.
That's what I thought when they announced the folding phone, but iPad sales
Have you ever tried to do serious work on a tablet?
Absolutely sales of laptops would continue.
Have you ever connected an iPad to an external display, mouse, and keyboard? I agree with you that laptop sales would continue, but I bet they would decline. Apple could do the MS Surface much better than MS did.
I’m not so sure personally. A MacBook Air is not that much less portable than an iPad, but is far more useful for work when not docked than an iPad because it still has a keyboard and a precision pointing device. And it can still be docked when you need a bigger screen.
The areas where the iPad beats the MacBook are still (imo) the same as the day it launched: web browsing, watching video, and reading. Workloads that are heavy on the Apple Pencil too, but that’s a fairly narrow slice compared to anything else you might do on a computer.
I mean my iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard case has fully replaced my Mac for everything. I haven’t touched my Mac in months. I literally do all of my work via GitHub Codespaces (soon to be self-hosted Coder). Yes it’s not all on device but it works (for me).
I don’t see anything in my use case that I’d gain from a MacBook over this setup.
Let’s just ignore the price comparison though lol
and increase power usage?
This is the biggest disappointment, imagine running a full blown "Ubuntu Touch" that gives you the freedom of Linux with full root access. This is the biggest failure of legislation in the 21st century so far that has enabled a strict Android/iOS duopoly.
I sincerely hope one day we can free these hardware devices from the shakles of their software and run anything that's possible.
Until such a time iOS devices are strictly off limits until at least a grapheneOS can run iOS at a minimum.
You can already run postmarketOS or PureOS on a phone and get the full desktop mode with no restrictions, except the computing power.
* Select models only. Limitations and restrictions apply. Warranty void in all countries.
There’s a standard for paper sizes called the ISO 216 international standard, aka A-series paper sizes. You may be familiar with it outside of the American 8.5”x11” letter size. The simplicity, for example, where an A3 sheet is exactly twice the area of A4. One A3 sheet folded in half becomes two A4 sheets. This is intentional: when you fold or divide an A-series sheet exactly in half, the resulting sheets have the same proportions as the prior. The aspect ratio is preserved across all A-series paper sizes.
The iPhone Duo is designed with this in mind. The aspect ratio any way you view it, folded or open, is preserved. Apple design knows a thing or two.
It was useful for paper because it helped save time in cutting, folding, printing etc. None of that matters for a phone.
This is such a non issue given that iOS developers already have so many resolutions to test.
> None of that matters for a phone.
Of course it does. They show the most basic example right on the page, which is that you can side-by-side full screen apps.
This would matter for bigger versions of the same thing. For side-by-side, the aspect ratio is unimportant since you naturally unfold to have two of them.
Not sure if I'm misunderstanding you, but of course the aspect ratio is important. If you unfold a square, you don't get two squares.
I think the person you are responding to is not thinking visually. They basically seem (to me) to think reformat-flowed fixes this, and that having the view of a web page alter because you open a book, is "not a bad thing" when you (and I) are of the view, if you maintain the aspect ratio and simply decimate how many pixels are available to show it, the actual "change" in the layout is kept to a minimum WHICH IS THE INHERENT GOOD HERE -the whole point of the A, B and C series is that the scaling function preserves the ratio of sizes of the contents, under the quality change of bigger or smaller fidelity of presentation.
Unless there is some upsight I am missing, I think the OP just "doesn't get it"
The upsight is that they are responding to a point about side by side apps, not a single full screen app on the unfolded screen
I don't think this is a killer logic either. If you consider that the apps were both running, both full screen on the folded state and alternate which is in view, and now can come into view side by side when you open, surely the "good" is that nothing positional in the layout or styling changes, when you move from swipe-and-select to side-by-side.
>If you unfold a square, you don't get two squares.
yes, you do. Two squares will fold together into the space of one square, and the same with 2 A4 sheets of paper, or two 8½x11 sheets of paper, two of them will fold together to make one of them.
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say, or what would refute what I said.
Hm, my folding phone doesnt have this aspect ratio and I can still do that.
I think they intended to continue "... without changing their aspect ratios".
I.e. an aspect ratio of Sqrt(2)is the only one where the inner screen (full) and inner screen (half) match, and they seem to have tried to make the outer screen share a nearly identical aspect ratio too. I guess it's a nice consideration for more consistency in layouts for apps targeting the device. Not sure I'm particularly excited about that myself though.
it's a neat tidbit, but not important in the slightest imo. Probably helps with smoothly transitioning between modes, but that's not been a particular pain from my foldable use.
Android devs have always had to handle different screen sizes. Not the case for iPhone devs e.g. I have a game "Ridiculous Fishing" (from 2013) which is a mess layout-wise on my iPhone because it seemingly hardcoded some pixel values and used percentages for the others. They have a fixed version for Apple Arcade.
The first new resolution for an iPhone was 2012 which also saw the introduction of Auto Layout. The second new resolution was in 2014 which added size classes. It's entirely possible that the 2013 game was built before they actually started caring about this. This is a non-issue for almost all apps you're realistically going to encounter.
>I think they intended to continue "... without changing their aspect ratios"
but the context was "see, you can have two different apps running side by side, each with the same aspect ratio as either of the apps when run in the space of the folded screen. not only the same aspect ratio, but the same dimensions"
the whole A3/4/5 scheme is completely overblown as a feature for consumers. You format a document for A4, ok, but you wouldn't print that document A5 because the fonts would be completely shrunken. nobody does that. We use word processors to format documents for the space we have, and we don't ever print wedding invites on A3 or A4
this isn't great design, it's tautology. of course the phone open is twice the size of it closed. it would be hard to make it otherwise.
You have to understand 1:√2. It’s not merely folding in half. The test is the folded half has to be the same ratio as the parent. It’s same ratio all the way down.
“The mathematical brilliance of A*”
https://youtu.be/oQfzSt5bLVs
You are not answering the parent comment. If the original aspect ratio was a square, making the "full screen" aspect ratio 1:1, then folded out it would have aspect ratio 2:1, fitting two squares side by side.
The sqrt(2) aspect ratio allows a portrait full app to be scaled up to the exactly to the folded out screen. But does anyone want that? You probably want to fit more content on the bigger screen, so some layout necessarily changes.
It's still folding in half, so you can have have one app taking up the whole screen, or two half-screen apps, all with the same aspect ratio.
But its two states. What do you mean “all the way down?”
You can keep folding it and it keeps the same aspect ratio. Scaling becomesa simple matter of multiplying everything by 2^+/-n.
Everyone knows its impossible to fold a smartphone in half more than 7 times.
I failed at 2 times. My folding couch couldn't supply the required pressure beyond that point.
It isn't just twice the size.
Both sides have the same aspect ratio as the whole screen.
> this isn't great design, it's tautology. of course the phone open is twice the size of it closed.
Well, it sounds obvious now, but before Archimedes, ancient engineers split their screens 60-40, so the full screen wasn't twice the size of either side.
Yes, I do understand the issue with the aspect ratio, which is indeed good design, but parent comment's example is that "you can run two apps side by side" is the tautology. Well, at least since the invention of double-entry bookkeeping and getting rid of Archimedian phone design.
No, you can't, unless the apps are designed for different aspect ratios.
If the outer screen has dimensions X by Y, then you unfold it to have the inner screen with dimensions 2X by Y, which cleanly permits side by side apps at the original dimensions of X by Y. This is true for any ratio between X and Y.
If the user isn't going to be multitasking, then the app needs to additionally support the widescreen dimensions of 2X by Y, and the portrait orientation of Y by 2X. Both of these are so drastically larger overall that aspect ratio is a barely-relevant part of the UI layout problem, because nobody wants every button and text label to be double the size (which would mostly defeat the benefits of having the larger screen for anything other than multitasking).
The inside screen, when divided in two vertically, along the fold line, is exactly the same dimensions as the outer screen. Pretty much by definition. Any folding phone, of any aspect ratio, can run two apps on the interior display side by side.
The issue of the internal screen being the same aspect ratio as the external when rotated is completely separate.
But, the iPhone Duo has a different aspect ratio from a regular iPhone. So your app needs to be designed for multiple aspect ratios anyway.
which they have to be anyway, to support normal iphones and maybe ipads and in many cases a cackle of Android phones too. (but I still think this is brilliant design)
in this thread many people have clearly never developed for iOS
Here's just the screen sizes, not even taking into account actual resolution:
Now, you can leave out a few of those as hopelessly obsolete like the OG iphone, 5, 12 mini, arguably the x, but it's still a pretty wide selection.Good list. And if you support both portrait and landscape, you need to support twice that, and you need to be able to switch on the fly.
But for the apps that don't currently support both orientations, it's possible they don't have support for switching aspect ratio on the fly. This design might help with those apps not completely breaking when folding/unfolding.
Yeah to be fair I'm all for the 1/sqrt(2) aspect ratio, I just think it's funny that it's treated as some kind of holy design constraint when they're all over the map on phone sizing :)
And the extra irony is I'm currently shipping an app that doesn't deal well with different size phones (just pads the edges), heh, so do as I say, not as I do.
first - it's not hard to make. Outside screen size doesn't have to be half of the open screen.
second - main idea is about proportions, if you want to design apps that seamlessly transfer from one screen to another they have to have the same proportions of the sides. This is not a given and depends on the height and width.
If you take iPhone 18 Pro resolution : 2,622 x 1,206 doubling it would make the screen with 2,622 x 2,412 - almost a square screen.
They chose to have the folded phone to have 1.4:1 aspect ratio which is consistent when folded and when unfolded.
What app is going to design to flow nicely with a iPhone Duo but not a iPhone 18? Unless Apple has a 1.4:1 ratio across their entire product line, app designers have to deal with variation.
Also, when you rotate the device, the ratio changes. This is especially common when unfolding a foldable.
Folded and unfolded will both be designed for 2 aspect ratios. 1 for Portrait and 1 for Landscape. Opening the fold and rotating 90 deg will give you the larger version while keeping the aspect ratio
"larger version while keeping the aspect ratio" is of minimal benefit. You still need to present a different layout, because eg. any toolbar is going to be a different fraction of the available area depending on whether the app is on the small outer screen or the large inner screen in portrait orientation. Nobody wants a naive 2x scaling of the phone app on their iPad.
The tools can look however the dev wants them to. The utility is for content. It is an aesthetic choice
You don't seem to be engaging with the point, which is that the space available for content after subtracting out the space taken up by other UI elements is not going to have the same aspect ratio folded and unfolded. A real UI doesn't actually get this supposed benefit. Only something like a full screen video player might (depends on what kind of keep-out zone you need for the front camera), and maintaining the same aspect ratio folded vs unfolded for video content isn't particularly helpful when the aspect ratio in question isn't popular so you'll have letterboxing regardless.
You're right, it will only look the same for content where the other UI elements disappear
People keep saying it’s so an app can resize to the full interior screen but none of the marketing photos actually have this. So its hard to say “what a genius masterstroke by Apple.”
Most have the closed screen plus another view. Or the lock screen which is a full photo open and a small section closed.
Im not saying its not possible but it doesn’t seem like that is their intention.
A lot of people will look at this and say. Eh I already have an Ipad and a Imac why do I need a phone with such a large screen.
Their selling point is: Not having to switch from one app to another when Multitasking.
The difference is that it has the same aspect ratio folded and unfolded. If you look at other folding phones the inside screen is twice the area, but the shape of the phone is different. 1 : sqrt(2) is the only ratio where you can fold one side in half and the ratio stays 1:sqrt(2). Any other ratio of sides and the inside and outside have different ratios. Therefore, things have to move around, or scale.
Yes, but 1:√2 keeps the ratio even when you rotate the screen vertically. A folded 1:1 screen becomes 2:1 when "unfolded" and the area doubles, so you can go from showing one 1:1 window to two 1:1 windows side by side. But when rotated to a vertical orientation, you can't just scale that 1:1 window to double its size. With 1:√2 you can.
But apps can just rejigger into widths that fit. It would be more of an issue back when mobile sites were first becoming responsive and we pragmatically chose 2 or 3 media query widths to serve different layouts and then applied the same thinking to mobile apps. Of course the initial mobile apps, particularly on iPhone, stuck to just one and later just a few sizes themselves. As there was a wider range we did things more responsively on a continuum.
I still think the broader point of there being design reasons to hit these ratios stands and is great. I just think the idea that it needed to be precisely twice the width so apps can fit full-sized doesn't hold too much because there isn't really a "full size" notion. Or if there is, the full-size is probably the double width one. If it wasn't exactly twice the width, most apps are already built to fit into varying iPhone/mobile screen widths.
App rejiggering is not an exact science, and is often poorly done.
Even if apps transition well between aspect ratio / screen size breakpoints, there is a cognitive load to maintain 2+ UI configurations.
Preserving aspect ratios eliminates these issues. It'll make every app better.
^^This.
Despite all the responsive design tools and declarative layouts to ensure a great layout even on an oddball resolution... the fact is that in practice it's nontrivial, and remember that the companies that make most of the apps you use have finite design and QA budgets. They need to actually use the resolution in question in order to really do a good job of designing for it, and giving them double the work, for a $2000 and up phone which probably won't be super highly adopted, is a recipe for getting apps that end up with layouts that aren't optimized properly on one (or both) of the screen sizes.
This is already something every app needs to deal with on iPad, where users can arbitrarily resize apps and windows. And apps that support landscape layout on phones have always needed to support their UI being rendered in different aspect ratios.
At WWDC this year, Apple introduced a tool[0] to let developers arbitrarily resize their simulated iOS device screens.
Flexibility and adaptivity are more front-and-center for iOS devs than ever.
[0]https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/configuring-...
I agree it will feel super nice to go from the front screen to the dual screen and have nothing "move". And similarly it will feel "mildly infuriating" if it doesn't do that.
I also think that I (personally) don't need a front screen and would love to have whatever cost savings or improvements would come if there weren't one. This last sentence is of course a me thing, but I mention it because I think that if people start on the front screen and then open the Duo, they may just want the full screen app or something else entirely. I'm not sure the use case of being in your banking app device folded, deciding midway through flow to open it, and wanting to be in the same UI is really what I want. The part I question is what's going on that step 2 came about—I think it's either you want to go into more depth on it or you're just opening the device the way you would had you not been in your banking app.
The case where I open it to find the app using half the screen and then I have to press something or drag something to make it full screen is not that great (and isn't great today with current iPad window resizing). The best case I can think of for wanting the app in the same size format when I open it is for is something like multitasking, I guess we'll see how that looks or feels and how you get the second app open (or whether it's very common use case anyway).
In general, I've long felt the folding tech is for tablet use cases not for phone use cases. I think Apple's foray (finally) into it more or less validates that. Even though there will be a meaningful number of people buying it to replace their phone, I think this is largely because their phone use is already tablet use case-y (for entertainment especially). I assume many people will also buy it as a(n expensive) tablet replacement in addition to their phone, which is perhaps related to the timing of iPhone Handoff (same SIM on two phones) too.
Apps already work on Apple devices with many different aspect ratios.
This way you don't need to design your app to work with different aspect ratios, because it's always the same.
But you still do need to support different aspect ratios if you want your app to work on any other iPhone models, because many of them differ.
Even if it were true you would also have to design the app for when the device is rotated.
Easier to support one more aspect-ratio then two.
Unless these things start selling like hot-cakes (unlikely at the price) a lot of developers just might not bother.
Proportions absolutely matter for displays, both for aesthetic comfort and for efficient scaling. Most of the world uses ISO216 and its pleasing 1:sqrt(2) proportions. Leveraging aspect ratios with wide acceptance is a win both psychologically and for graphic designers.
The algebra proving why "halving long side H and flipping maintains aspect ratio" implies a ratio of 1:sqrt(2):
Our world is full of artifacts from a previous ages and using some of those as standards is useful/convenient.
We still use QWERTY keyboards even though our highly futuristic typewriters don't jam anymore. We type commands on tty teleTypeWriter, we save files with buttons using a floppy disk icon, etc etc.
The way this comment was going I was pleasantly surprised to see that the iPhone Duo adhered to the ISO standard.
From Apple's diagonal measurements [1], it looks like the screen is actually a few mm off from the closest ISO 216 sizes.
d = 7.58in = 192.532mm [1]
d^2 = w^2+h^2
Unfolded:
h = d/sqrt(3) = ~111.1584mm
w = h*sqrt(2) = ~157.2017mm
Closest ISO 216 size: A6 (105x148)
Folded:
D = 5.36in = 136.114mm [1]
H = D/sqrt(3) = ~78.5855mm
W = H*sqrt(2) = ~111.1366mm
Closest ISO 216 size: A7 (74x105)
[1] https://www.apple.com/iphone-duo/specs/
I always forget the US doesn't use A4 etc. (or do you?)
How can you forget? Growing up in Australia, every computer I’ve ever owned has defaulted to “US Letter” as the paper size. (Even when your computer was set to use Australian localisations.) If you didn’t change the setting, you couldn’t print. The printer would complain that it was out of paper, because it didn’t have a tray with the requested us letter paper in it. It was one of those things you always had to check.
I don’t think I saw a “us letter” sized piece of paper until I was an adult.
Must be an Anglosphere thing. Every non-English computer and office software I've ever used correctly defaulted to A4.
Na, was normal in the UK to have A4 too
PC LOAD LETTER
Trail paper was letter format in europe.
That's funny because (living in the US) I've noticed that many printers default to A4. Maybe 20 years ago, one printer at work would think A4 paper was loaded in it after every power-failure and we'd have to go through the menu and change it, or it would require you to clear a warning before it would print anything sized for US letter.
Every windows install I've ever done (in Australia) I picked "English (Australia)" when possible, and "English (UK)" before Microsoft provided that localisation option. I've never seen US letter as a default.
We (normal citizens, businesses, government) mostly use “Letter” size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_(paper_size) which is slightly shorter than A4
Apparently the reagan admin is responsible for making this our official government document size, and no one knows exactly why this size was chosen.
Like most of your standards. No-one knows why, but it's obviously advantageous to defend it religiously as "better than everyone else"
> it's obviously advantageous to defend it religiously as "better than everyone else
Or laugh at ourselves about it, which is what we normally do.
At a certain point things get so engrained the cost to switch would be huge and the benefits don’t (seem to) outweigh it.
I think switching to metric would make far more sense than this.
I don't know in terms of saved paper because the printer has somehow switched to Letter again I think an argument could be made...
Here here! I will walk 500 km for this.
It was just chosen earlier.
I'm sorry our paper size offends you. Had we have known it would cause such an inferiority complex we never would have done it.
That Wikipedia article was lacking citations so I dug some up with ChatGPT: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CPUB-101spub9/pdf/GP...
On page 52 (57 of the PDF), there’s a letter dated December 18th 1978 (Carter administration, not Reagan) from the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing adopting 8.5”x11”, effective January 1st 1980 so departments & agencies could use up their 8.5”x10.5” stock.
I also found this article from Time from January 15th 1979 that this was actually slightly cheaper despite using more paper: https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0%2C33009%2...
The government adopted 8.5”x10.5” to save money back in 1921 vs what was already the industry standard of 8.5”x11”, but this ended up backfiring and a General Services Administration report in 1972 recommended switching to 8.5”x11” would reduce by 5% the amount of times a secretary would need a second page. The Joint Committee of Printing estimated this change would save several million dollars.
> On hearing the news, one straight-faced bureaucrat in the Government Printing Office said of his colleagues' reaction to the news: "Some people think that this issue has been inadequately studied."
Apparently the American Forest & Paper Association is under the impression that it was the Reagan administration’s proclamation:
> Oddly enough, the United States used two different sizes - the 8" x 10.5" and the 8.5" x 11". Separate committees came up with separate standards, the 8" x 10.5" for the government and the 8.5" x 11" for the rest of us. Once these committees found out about each other a couple years later, they agreed to disagree until the early 1980's when Reagan finally proclaimed that the 8.5" x 11" was the official standard sized paper.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120220192919/http://www.afandp...
I should have shared this YouTube short:
“The most beautiful invention of all time”
https://youtube.com/shorts/KW_bvB33kBc
Like as a standard? No. But I can go to a stationery shop and buy an A4 notebook.
No, "letter" is the standard
Or "legal".
legal is a standard, but not the standard. letter is the standard
And for writing a letter, ed is the standard editor.
But it's not really the same aspect ratio, is it?
Because one is used predominantly vertically, and the other horizontally.
As long as there's this landscape vs portrait difference, how does the aspect ratio similarity actually help?
If you unfold and have two apps side-by-side, then the aspect ratio (and seemingly size?) is the same as having one app, closed. Seems nice to have.
That doesn't require a special aspect ratio.
I mean that's true for side-by-side foldables in general isn't it? It doesn't require what Apple is saying about the aspect ratio here.
I want to be able to open the phone and get the original closed-state image, but stretched to fit the new total hardware viewport size.
You mean unlike all of the marketing photos?
Yes, that's what I mean. I didn't see the desired mode in any of the marketing materials. This mode would be an effective 1.4x full-screen scaling. To be more specific: if the OS desktop has XxY virtual pixels in closed mode, if the user opens it and rotates 90 degrees, the desktop still has XxY virtual pixels. No new usable real estate. Everything previously seen just gets a bit bigger. I don't expect it to be the desired default for most people, but I have middle-aged eyes.
I really assumed the point of this was going to be to complain about how no phone/phone cases are exactly the same... which is an absolute scourge on society that I assume is continued by Apple here.
People mythologising Apple design will never get old
Too wide to fit in anyone's pocket, but the ratio is the sine of 45 degrees! Seems like a very non-Apple thing to do, honestly. My jeans don't care about math.
It’s the size of a passport, which does fit in most pockets.
Take a sheet of A4 paper. Fold it in half. Fold it in half again. That’s about the size of the Duo inner screen (a little larger actually, A6 is about 13% smaller than the Duo screen).
That's not far off the 4:3 of the Samsung Z fold 8. Around 4.24:3.
There are compromises to any proportion decision. A tall rectangle is much more natural to hold than a fat rectangle, especially at the size of this device. The user also has to relearn the location of on screen buttons that have always had a consistent location.
Surely the next version will unfold twice to reach A3 size
You mean all two states?
sounds useless and ridiculous
But what's the point?
With a ratio of 1:√2, you can cut the sheet in half parallel to its shorter side, and each half keeps the same proportions.
I think the parent comment meant: "What's the point with respect to a phone's screen". As far as I can tell this is irrelevant for a technical screen size and app ratios? As far as I can tell the toothpaste is already out of the tube when it comes to reducing the aspect ratio testing burden for developers but maybe I'm just way too far away from the mobile development space to be aware of the pain points this is solving.
It's to make commercial use of paper mind-numbingly easy in terms of calculation and avoiding waste.
Aspect ratios are very important for UI design.
But why paper's ratio is important?
He is explaining that if you design an app that displays as desired on the outer display (in portrait mode). Then if you display that app to the inner display (also in portrait mode), it will show up exactly the same, just with everything twice as large.
This obviously makes life easier for both users and developers.
It's mathematically the only aspect ratio where this holds and thus you can resize in half and nothing has to move around.
One reason is making it easy to scale things up or down for printing on standard sizes of paper.
Moreover, app developers for iOS have to support fewer aspect ratios than developers of Android apps. In theory, this allows for more attention to be given to the UI design for each aspect ratio - rather than having to use a spring-style stretch layout.
If I were to guess, this does look like a new ratio to support, but at least it's just 1 instead of 2.
I would imagine this helps a lot having two screens side by side. You can remote into another phone and help a user like an old relative accomplish something. Or run a virtual machine or AI control panel
There is no doubt this is why Apple did this.
I often make the argument about whether metric is "better" being split by "is it better on paper" vs "is it better in day to day life" - and most metric stuff breaks down in the latter, meaning, the non metric systems seem to be perfectly fine in day to day life, but almost always better on paper.
Like Celsius - sounds great on paper, not any better (and in some ways, worse) in day to day weather/temperature.
One of the few exceptions I find is metric paper sizes. It's such a beautiful way of designing the sizes that is not only perfect on paper (pun proudly intended), is also totally practical in real life.
> "is it better in day to day life"
Speak to a carpenter or construction worker from any country with the metric system. Measure anything by simple powers of ten and simple decimal shifts makes life so much easier. Quick, what is half of a yard-length beam less 12 1/16"?
Assuming you mean (3 ft / 2) - 12 1/16 inches, it's about 6 inches, which is probably the accuracy you need. But it's exactly 5 15/16 inches, which is also easy to do in your head. Carpenters do it all the time, and even a doctor can.
My head did 36" divided by 2, so 18", minus 12 1/16", so 5 and 15/16". That is harder than working with quarters or fifths of meters, but easier than thirds or sixths of meters.
I don't know which is better. Considering how nothing stops you from doing decimal inches or fractional meters, but people rarely do that, both ways seem fine.
33.3 cm is easy to measure out, and 99.9 cm is exactly 1 mm short of 1 meter, well within tolerances for carpentry. Narrower than the mark left by your pencil.
But also like, we have calculators…
Not sure how Celsius is worse? Its unit is the same of Kelvin, just shifted by 273. 0C is freezing, 100C is boiling. Some people say Fahrenheit is more representative of how people feel, but that is very subjective and biased towards the West and Northern hemisphere.
> biased towards the West and Northern hemisphere
The widest range of temperatures found in any country is the USA. In the continental US alone the temperatures easily exceed -50°C and 50°C in both directions (much colder if you include Alaska). The USA also has the largest temperature change ever recorded in a 24 hour period, at 57°C.
Merits of specific measurement systems aside, the USA is arguably the most representative single country on Earth when it comes to temperature and "how people feel". It has among the hottest, coldest, and most extreme temperature ranges ever recorded.
Yep, highest outdoor temperature ever recorded was in the US. Even if you live in Death Valley, F makes more sense than C.
Celsius in a lab (or in cooking) is perfectly fine.
But as a way to describe daily weather (and thermostats) it's woefully inadequate.
The sum total of "comfortable" temperatures in celsius has to be squeezed between maybe 17 to 24 - why? you never ever use anything above 40 except when talking about people that died from a heatwave.
It's based on the freezing and boiling point of water _at sea level_ which almost none of us ever encounter (whether it's sea level, or the boiling point of water).
Fahrenheit is a much more intuitive scale (again... to describe daily weather or human temperature) - 0 - 100 better models the temperatures we experience daily, and you can intuitively separate into 10s, the way you "feel"
For example...
100s - honey, please, let's move to a cooler place.
90s - uncomfortably hot
80s - hot in the sun, not too bad at night
70s - you'd probably want a light sweater at night
60s - light sweater all the time
50s - medium sweater
40s - sweater, maybe a coat
30s - coat
20s - sweater and coat
10s - why am i living in this region?
0s - honey, please, let's move to a warmer place.
The point is that there's enough resolution to describe the actual human experience with temperature.
For everything else, celsius is perfectly adequate, totally agree.
FYI, none of this has ever made any sense at all to somebody who didn’t grow up with Fahrenheit. Numbers don’t need to go roughly between 40 and 100, and then occasionally 212 and 450.
The difference between 20 C and 20.5 C is not generally noticeable. The difference between 20 and 25 really is.
You’ll just have to face the fact that you feel comfortable with a really weird system that nobody else can see the point of, but it’s what you’re comfortable with. That’s OK, you’re allowed.
It's common here to say something like "this week it's in the 70s." In places that use Celsius, "in the 20s" must be too broad, so do they instead say something like "high 20s"?
They also accidentally got MPH right for cars. Fastest highway is like 85. 100 is the fastest a normal car can go and also a reasonable point to arrest the driver.
> The sum total of "comfortable" temperatures in celsius has to be squeezed between maybe 17 to 24
30° is perfectly comfortable for me.
> Its unit is the same of Kelvin, just shifted by 273
You mean shifted by 273.15 because Kelvin doesn't have tidy fixed points at the freezing and boiling point of water, unlike Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Celsius and Fahrenheit are both utilitarian systems. Kelvin is the scientific system. Arguments about the relative utility of C° and F° are subjective and neither is particularly optimal for science.
"Just shifted by 273"
To be clear, I don't have strong feelings. Obviously in a lot of science/engineering fields we use Celsius degrees a lot. But we also us Kelvin absolute scale a lot which would be ridiculous for day-to-day usage.
I am used to Fahrenheit but it is also a finer scale and a nice round number for boiling is largely irrelevant for the vast majority of purposes. Yes, knowing the freezing point of water can be important but memorizing one simple number probably isn't a huge stretch especially that the reality differs based on a number of factors. Arguably, knowing that 0 degrees F means fricking cold is sort of a higher latitudes bias but I'm not sure the degree to which Celsius simplifies.
Celsius isn't granular enough. Many digital thermostats will even add decimal places if you switch to Celsius mode that aren't present in Fahrenheit.
Secondly, the highest temperature ever recorded outdoors was 56.7˚C. So no matter where you are, from that to 99 is wasted.
I have a kitchen thermometer for making caramel (can't remember exact number but ballpark is 200C). I occasionally use my oven at 250C. My wife fires her ceramics in a kiln at around 1000C. I don't feel like I'm "wasting" anything here.
> Celsius isn't granular enough.
This argument would be reasonable if we didn't have to cut inches into 16 or 32 parts to approach decent granularity. At least we use decimal for cutting Celsius up...
As you said, it's occasional. Temperature describes weather more often than anything else. And there's no advantage to Celsius for the ovens either.
Yup, because neither has significant advantage over the other. The only place where Celsius imo has a slight advantage comes from how often the phrase "below freezing" is used when talking about weather. That to me suggests that 0C/32F has some special significance, and thus makes Celsius a bit more elegant because it acknowledges that point. The granularity doesn't matter too much, as long as we agree to use decimals for ease of calculations, instead of using 1/32nds or some other barleycorns.
As an American, I find Fahrenheit much better for ambient temperature and body temperature, but I hate seeing it for things like melting points of materials and the like. I'm always thrown off by statements like 800-degree pizza ovens, because once you get above 500°F it is out of the realm of everyday measurements, and I have trouble mentally separating the values for metals melting in °C and "gee whiz" temperatures in °F.
All scientific and engineering use should probably eschew the customary measurements, even in the news. For example, in aviation, they use °C now unless your airplane is very old. Unfortunately, in the US we still use inches of mercury for pressure, both knots and MPH but never km/h or m/s, etc.
Only Americans feel this way about Celsius. The only downside is that Celsius requires 3 digit precision to really accurately characterize what temperature a room feels. I would be willing to bet humans are woefully inadequate at knowing the temperature of the room they are in anyways
I dunno I’m in a room and guessed that the temperature was 72°F and sure enough it’s 72° in here.
I put more details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49635310
I do concede the overwhelming majority of people that argue that one is better than the other (both ways) are basically just arguing "the thing I grew up with is better" - because when you probe further, there isn't really any supporting argument, just "I understand this system better because I grew up with it" but it's equally vacuous coming from people who grew up with Celsius.
I came to the US when I was 12, so I grew up with Celsius but didn't pay attention to the weather as a young child. But still, I've lived in both systems.
Celsius is not really related to the metric system. It's just a temperature scale the entire world (minus the US) agreed to use.
The only connection off the top of my head is that mL of water increases by 1˚C if heated with 1 calorie. Which is annoying because 1 Calorie is 1000 calories.
Why do you think Celsius is worse in day to day life?
Because in Celsius, 0 lets you know the water outside will likely be frozen and 100 lets you know the water in your pot is likely boiling. This is utterly useless information.
It is nowhere near as useful day to day as knowing 0°F means a very specific saltwater brine mixture will likely be frozen, and 90°F is kind of as hot as your insides. Or 96. Or 98.6 as the third revision decided.
I find F way more intuitive for weather. The larger scale helps. 100 is hot. 0 is quite cold. Boiling point is irrelevant. 32 freezing is the only thing that feels arbitrary.
Yeah and freezing point is whatever because that moves anyway and also doesn't say a lot about whether or not there will be snow
in celsius:
50 hurts to the touch, your chip has likely broken and given off its black smoke 30 is good for swimming in cold water >25 is worth worrying about sun stroke. make sure to drink a lot of water 24-26 is a nice summer day 18-22 is comfortable room temperature >15 is good enough shorts weather 0-10 needs at least a light jacket <0 you have to be attentive about frost bite, but not worried -5 either wants gloves or good pockets -15 wants a sweater and jacket < -15 you should probably plug in your car -10 - -25 is good downhill skiing weather -20 - -27 is right cold, full winter gear: toque, scarf, mittens, thick socks, the whole kit and kaboodle, but still chic -30 - -40: ski version of the full winter gear, including snow pants, double socks, and good boots. both your warmest sweater and ski jacket
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its really just what you grew up with that will make sense.
like, wtf is 72 and 54 and mid 80s? i have no backing reference to put them into scale, even after living in the states for a decade. 500, 275, 425, 150 do make sense in F for me because thats what ovens list
I find that increments of 1C are too small to be useful in daily life but increments of 5C are quite big. As a result, you can't really round degrees Celsius to a multiple of 5 whereas full precision integer temperatures are too precise. So for example 15C and 17C feel like different temperatures, but each 1C step from 15C to 16C to 17C is not really useful.
In contrast, it's very reasonable to round temperature to increments of 5 degrees Fahrenheit. So for example 58F and 60F are basically the same temperature as far as my perception is concerned.
It's literally does not matter in day to day life. In the end you get to X degrees is cold, Y degrees is perfect and Z degrees is hot regardless of C or F.
I grew up using C and now I'm using F, if I move to a country that uses C, I will switch again. Its meaningless.
This is the correct take. The better system is the one that you have intuition in - just keep using that one if building up intuition in a different system is not worth the cost to you. At least when it comes to temperature. :)
What are you talking about? The same can be said about 59F (15°C) and 60F (15.56°C)
"One fahrenheit increment doesn't feel like anything"
At least Celsius are grounded in reality, should I be worried about ice? Just check if temperature is below 0°C. But hey you may need to check if your solution of water, ice and ammonium chloride is frozen, so I just need to check if below 0F. That's probably something you do often right?
theyre both grounded in reality because the represent real temperature conditions.
theyre both just arbitrary degrees though, since 0 isnt actually 0. they both have better alternatives too - Kelvin and Rankin. your criticism about freezing applies to celsius too. freezing is at a certain pressure and temperature, so both the 100 and 0 celsius only sometimes describe boiling and freezing
I can sense 0.5C changes when I set my AC at home.
1990s LCD HVAC thermostats that didn’t go down to half degrees had better precision when set to °F vs °C.
There's also this famous comparison chart meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/t0lnjt/fahr...
...making the point that Fahrenheit's 0-100 range is better suited to normal day to day measurements than 0-100 Celsius. The numbers that feel easiest to communicate with are scaled nicely relative to the range of temperatures you most often want to communicate about.
i assume most of it is a joke?
> It is more precise. Fahrenheit has more frequent degrees, allowing for greater resolution with analog thermometers.
this is really about the graduation and size of the thermometer? you can print a useful line pitch as you like, and have it represent what you want, where thats a 0.25C, 3F, 10c or whathaveyou.
everyday temperatures are pretty well centered around 0C, half the year above, the other half below, and the 10, 20, 30, and 40 increments feel quite similar to each other in severity of the season. +30 is damn hot and -30 is damn cold. +/-10 is all mildly warm or cold, with +/-20 really being where you do seasonal acitivites like swimming or skiing.
as far as western units go, C fits fantastically for the the traditional western culture with 4 idealized seasons. I could see F being better for places outside the idealized west - eg. the american south/sun belt, the PNW, southeast asia, south america, a lot of africa, etc where the seasons are different
I like how the comments are like "um acxshaully as a Canadian [citation needed] [you forgot </s>](xkcd/234234)"
Yes we all know USA is the only country in the world.
I mean, I wouldn't hate it if they got into cars
I'm very glad those Apple Car rumors didn't materialize
An Apple Miata is the dream. Take the design team from the MX-5 NA days and marry it to Apple's design team. Both are exemplar in engineering and the result has me drooling as I day dream here.
Apple design is the polar opposite of the MX-5. The MX-5 is a masterpiece of mechanical design and function. Apple makes minimalist purely electronic fashion gadgets that are highly form over function and remove user agency.
The Miata is good at one thing which is being fun. It’s not good at being a car. Apple’s devices meet most people’s functional needs very well.
What does it mean to not be good at being a car?
It’s a terrific car if you want a great handling convertible at a low price point. As you said, it’s fun.
It’s not good at moving a lot of people or things, or going really fast, or lasting for 500k miles, or being as cheap as possible. Other cars are good at some of those things, but what is the Miata missing that is otherwise required to be a ‘good’ car?
Stickshift option instantly gone, with a recall to swap existing manuals to automatic
There's already Ferrari Luce
I imagine it would be held together with glue and tiny screws.
And the charging port will be on the bottom.
And it'd be a nonstandard charger
This has worked fine for Lotus products such as the Elise
I hope the tri—fold format catches on (Huawei mate xt 1&2, Samsung z trifold).
If I’m going to carry around an insanely fragile and expensive device I want to maximise screen area and aspect ratio.
The good news is Apple made a more practical dual-screen device than most previous attempts. The “big square” UI was awkward for both reading and video. Apple not only made it rectangular but kept it in the magic aspect ratio that’s able to be shared by single and dual screens.
I had written off dual screen when the square layouts were the norm, but I think Apple has struck a good balance here between screen size and price+chunkiness+serviceability. I won’t be holding my breath for an iPhone Trio. (Not to be confused with Palm Treo.)
Did anybody else notice the choppiness when the guy was texting on duo?
Imagine buying a 3000 phone but typing on a screen like it’s 2015.
So much for Apple doing it better than competition despite being years late to the party.
It's priced identical to the Samsung Fold 8.
The dimensions are also close.
From a visual aesthetics perspective, I prefer the square edges of the Samsung Fold 8.
Eager to check out the reviews of the software capabilities of the iPhone Duo.
And I'm not sure about the inner screen's selfie camera. The under-screen camera has failed in previous devices, especially for zoom calls, it was abysmal.
Excited for the nano texture displays though. For far too long, Samsung had beaten Apple with non-reflective displays.
I trust Apple likely did better, though they’ve made bad decisions before (Studio Display camera).
My biggest worry is the lack of Face ID. I love Face ID so much. I know I can do the Apple Watch unlock, but I don’t want to. I just want my phone to immediately look unlocked to me. and Face ID did that the vast majority of the time.
So I’m very curious to hear what the hands-on impressions from people are. Is the screen good? Can you notice or feel the crease? Is there anything else wrong? Is not having Face ID as annoying as I suspect?
At least there’s something really interesting this year. It’s more than just faster and better cameras, which is nice. And having actual aperture blades on the pro is great.
But this is more interesting.
I'm okay with the lack of face ID. Fingerprint unlock power button works perfectly well for me.
Did they mention MagSafe?
I'm not sure if they mentioned MagSafe for the iPhone Duo.
That could be a deal breaker.
It does have MagSafe support. https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/
Ty, phew!
I hadn’t even thought about that. I don’t think I could do a phone without MagSafe again.
FWIW (and this is not directed to you specifically but anyone reading this) the police can use biometrics to compel you to open your phone without a warrant, but they cannot force you to give up your passcode.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/biometrics-vs-passcodes-what-l...
This is partly why iPhones have a feature to disable biometric unlock by holding the lock + volume button (same gesture as emergency mode).
Doesn't fingerprint mean that someone could knock you unconscious and unlock it with your finger? I don't know if I'd install my bank apps here.
Im not normally around people willing to do violence to get my phone,
That's possible, but unlock doesn't work after death.
TBF they never should have removed touch id. It's bonkers that we can't have both with phones that expensive.
> It's priced identical to the Samsung Fold 8.
Not around here it isn't. The iPhone Duo starts at $2999 for the base storage. The Fold 8 is $2399 and even the Fold 8 Ultra is $2699. This only confirms that Apple has been steadily pricing themselves outside what I'm willing to spend. Can I afford it? Yes. Will I get $3k of value from it? No. This one is not for me at this price.
Just want to check, do you mean American pricing? It starts at $1999 not $2999, which is surprisingly competitive with the Fold 8. (Of course, Samsung discounts the shit of the Fold in ways Apple never does).
I'm in Canada and those are the prices I saw when I looked at the Apple and Best Buy websites this afternoon. Apple seems to enjoy charging a premium up here.
Is an inner screen camera really worth it? There's already a camera cutout on the outer screen, plus you can open the phone and use the full-size camera with the outer screen, which results in much more flattering imagery than the wide-angle lenses selfie cameras use. It's like taking the difference between an under-screen selfie camera and a regular selfie camera, and applying that again.
It makes sense to have one screen for an as-large-as-possible uninterrupted display, and another for maximum utility.
I like that Samsung doesn't cut as much corner off as Apple, but ideally I'd like to find a manufacturer that doesn't cut corners at all. Even though I'm not likely to buy another iPhone product, I am excited that Apple doesn't cut holes in their interior display, because that'll probably get other manufacturers to do the same.
I suspect there are plenty of people out there who habitually buy the most expensive of what Apple has to offer in any category. I guess Apple was leaving money on the table by not having anything in this price range in the first place.
> It's priced identical to the Samsung Fold 8.
The Fold8 is $1,899.99 (street price significantly lower as usual), the Duo is $1999.
That may be right, I was referring to list price, which is identical between Apple and Samsung. (I'm located in EU)
With Samsung, they're going to heavily discount it over the holiday season.
With Apple, the device is actually going to retain its value in the second hand market.
So there's this value argument that can swing both ways.
The list price is different in the US. Apple may be trading off lower margins in the EU to keep it below the psychological 2000 mark.
The under-screen camera essentially doesn't matter. For the three times you're in a meeting with it, it'll hold. For everything else, you'll use the primary camera and the front screen.
Yeah, but I'm not really sure.
There's a perfectly good use case of using this device unfolded with their kickstand powered folio case and a portable keyboard — While getting some zoom calls and productivity / work done.
Lots of people use facetime for personal calls rather than zoom meetings.
Or tiktok dances
Apple usually gets heat for not being the first to a feature, even when they’re the first with an implementation that’s actually good, not just a gimmick
I've had two folding phones and I am not going back until the issues are resolved. Here were my problems:
1. After a while, I think dust would inevitably get in the hinges and wouldn't fold flat. I've seen demos in stores of newer gen Samsung foldable phones and it looks like those wouldn't fold flat
2. The inner screen protector eventually lifted off the screen, causing catastrophic damage, and requiring repair (under warranty thankfully)
3. The aspect ratios were weird. I ended up using native app sizes, making the extra space kind of a waste
One thing I did like about the Samsung foldables was that when they were folded and using the front screen, I finally had a phone that fit my smaller hands! It was nice being able to use my thumb to reach the other side of the screen. Will be interesting to see how this works out because it looks decidedly wider.
> After a while, I think dust would inevitably get in the hinges and wouldn't fold flat. I've seen demos in stores of newer gen Samsung foldable phones and it looks like those wouldn't fold flat
For your first point, the iPhone duo is rated IP 68 Dust and Water protection. Literally none of Samsung's book foldables so far have achieved this IP rating.
The Pixel Fold 10 (and 11) is IP68 rated
I trust Apple to do better here; for example, after about ten years, no one has caught up to Face ID yet.
I get the form factor difference but Windows Hello (which actually works extremely well, probably due to its incubation with Xbox) came out two years before FaceID.
One thing I love about metric paper is the beauty of the simplicity: When you fold it, it maintains its ratio. This is because it is 1:1.41, aka 1:sqrt(2)
When I saw that this new phone is 1:1.4, I instantly appreciated why it is that way. Metric paper wins again!
Of all the ISO standards I wish the US would adopt, ISO216 would be it for me, hands down. I recently needed to buy some A6 thermal paper, a size no one seems to offer anymore. And who cares! Why would they! I can just buy an A4 sheet and cut it in half twice, no fuss.
Same here. I wish I could just use A4 paper, but usually when I put something on paper it is to share with others, who will not have an easy way to store or process it. It has to be a widely mandated switch.
Like only allow A* paper for government forms or something that would force everyone to switch their paper handling infrastructure to A*.
As a reference point, I’ve stubbornly been using A4 paper in both USA and Canada for years now with governments and businesses. Never had any problem with IRS, passport agency, CRA refusing to accept them, or even mentioning it at all in person.
No problem buying it either, though it’s about 2x the price of letter. (I go through about 100-200 sheets per year mostly due to my daughter drawing on it.)
I don’t actually store any printed paper since anything gets scanned and shredded, so no comment on long term filing.
(Due to this experience I recently partially switched to B5 paper, which is a nice size compromise instead of A5 which would be too small. Anything A4 will print to it without scaling issues of course, just takes up a bit less space.)
I think it would be pretty rare to find a paper "storage or processing " device that can accommodate letter but not A4.
Rare? A simple shipping cardboard box is sized to fit either A4 or letter sized piles of paper. Simple enough to change, but fairly common.
The US would need a president who is bullheaded enough to executive order a thing, like drop the penny or paper straws, but that also likes Europeans, so we might be waiting a while for a push from the US government. Printed media nerds, however, already know about benefits of A* and will switch as soon as they're in power and can spend the millions and millions of dollars it would cost their company to switch. Printed media is not as important as it once was, though, so the switch is really to start outputting PDFs as A4 and letting people print scale-to-fit when they actually need to print something you've sent them. Given how often my printer sees use, I doubt most people would notice if the PDFs you send them started being A4 instead of US letter.
The aspect ratio is the biggest problem with foldables.
The main reason I'd want a bigger display is for more immersive content like videos, which are typically 16:9. On a Pixel Fold, you have all the added complexity of the fold to make the videos you watch on the train 1cm taller.
The iPhone Duo unfolds to be the same height as the iPhone Pro Max. Sounds like it has the exact same problem - a bunch of added complexity without a practical use for it.
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> Touch ID is integrated into the side button
Another major flaw with the foldable form factor - it's hard to distinguish holding the device e.g. to pocket it and holding the device to use it. My foldable does the smartphone equivalent of butt-dialing way more often than any phone I've had before because it likes to unlock itself when I'm putting it in my pocket
Great point.
For media consumption on the go, I use AR glasses. They are considerably cheaper than the upgrade from an 18Pro to a Duo, and give you an absolutely giant screen.
Which AR glasses? I'm looking more for a travel MacBook virtual display that doesn't weigh so much as the Vision Pro. I would gladly trade away most of the Vision Pro features, but I'm also a huge snob about pixel density so remains to be seen if I can tolerate alternatives.
3+ year old XREAL Air AR Glasses.
I bought them to code more effectively on my laptop at my then girlfriend (now wife)'s house. The display was too pixely and distracting for me to code on. However, its plenty good enough for videos.
For videos I mostly use it with my phone (16 pro). Some apps are great (Netflix, AppleTV) and are smart enough to turn off the iPhone screen. Others (VLC, HBO) leave the screen on and burn battery at 2x-3x the rate of AppleTV or Netflix. I can watch AppleTV or Netflix on a coast-to-coast flight an still have plenty of battery left over. With HBO I use probably 20% battery per hour.
iPads have the same issue (to a lesser extent) if you're really looking for a device primarily for fullscreen 16:9 video. To be honest, the iPhone Duo (and iPads) are much more suited for multiple tiled apps and multi-column app layouts than they are for fullscreen 16:9 video.
I enjoyed the subtle shade (presumably at Samsung) when they discussed existing foldables having an awkward size, and choosing their new ratios and the asymmetric form factor. One edge square, one edge rounded, so all edges are rounded when open.
It's literally the same size as the Z Fold 8. The Samsung is $100 cheaper too.
Yep, it's same "passport" form factor as the (non-ultra) Z Fold 8, I just bought one last week and love the size.
I don't understand the value of the asymmetric corners, it seems to be working around their decision to have absolutely massive corner radius? Why would you want that?
I have a Z Fold 8 in the same passport form factor and it has slightly rounded corners on both the front and interior screen that are symmetrical along both axes. The usable space on the front screen is greater without those edges as it's just a ... normal phone screen?
Am I missing something?
> I enjoyed the subtle shade (presumably at Samsung) when they discussed existing foldables having an awkward size
I don't think that was subtle shade...
That being said, short-and-wide foldables have been done before, they just never stuck around. Google should've stuck with it on their Pixel Fold, same for Oppo with the Find N.
Shame that the short-and-wide foldables took this long to become more mainstream, since to me it's been the obvious form factor ever since I tried the older Galaxy Folds.
Samsung’s choice of square corners makes more sense for this type of device.
I suppose Google too. Basically every single one.
My pockets don’t care much about ISO paper standards (not sure why you call it metric? That doesn’t have much to do with the metric system as far as I’m aware?)
It's metric insofar that A0 has an area of exactly 1m².
B1 is exactly 1 meter tall.
Do you call ISO216 metric in the US? Where I’m from in Europe we just call it ISO/OSI or DIN standard format
Most people in the US aren't aware that everyone else uses a different size of paper. Heck, most people in the US aren't even aware that there are names for the sizes of paper we do use.
But it makes it really weird to type one handed I think.
As a reading device that is great, but as a phone that is wide.
I see a possible future where we have ultra thin devices that can be successively unfolded to larger formats based on this ratio, making size-based product variety obsolete. After that we get screen origami.
Nearly impossible to actually buy A4 paper in the US
Amazon typically has it; https://www.amazon.com/Hammermill-Paper-letter-Bright-Sheets... by Friday. I occasionally need some for Australian paperwork and forget where I stashed it every time. Some day I'll open a closet and find 20 reams of the stuff with a page or two missing.
I had no problem buying a ream at Staples.
I can have 10 reams of Hammermill 20lb in A4 at my door in less than a week for less than $100.
You get it online. I keep it around to print booklets for certain community purposes. I can set latex for A5, design the pages, then print the A5 pdf to A4 paper booklet and Tex, Mac and Brother understand with zero further brain investment from me .. . Letterpaper is a nightmare
Apple's submarine introduction of A* papersizes to the US.
Oh man if this is what got the US to adopt metric paper I would be so happy.
… wait you don’t use A* paper sizes? wtf do you use then?
Letter, Legal, Tabloid, and Ledger:
https://papersizes.io/us
It's bizarre and makes no logical sense.
I always thought when people mentioned a “legal pad” in us tv shows they were referring to the colour which always for some inexplicable reason seemed to be… yellow or blue…
now i know…
Why do they insist on every new phone being bigger than the phones before them? I don't mind folding. I think it's cool, and a nice way to get a useful space. But I have big hands, and I can't use my iphone 17 now without two hands. This is even wider before unfolding.
Who wants bigger phones? Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
I want smaller phones. The width of the iPhone 4 was nearly perfect imo. If they would take modern display technology with approximately that width and expand it to 16:9, I think it would kill, even if it were relatively underpowered compared to the modern top of the line.
> Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
Me. I get why people like small phones. But, I've have the iPhone Jumbo Huge edition for a long time now. I use my phone as a pocket tablet 10X more than as a phone.
Looking at the Duo specs https://www.apple.com/iphone-duo/specs/ vs my current 12 Max Pro specs https://support.apple.com/en-us/111874 it looks like the differences I care about are
1) 1878 pixels over 4.64" vs. 1284 over 3.07" 2) Default camera mode is 48 MP vs 12. Other modes are surprisingly similar. 3) A much faster CPU
I'm sure there are 1,000 more small differences. But, my 12 Jumbo Huge from late 2020 still runs great. If I were to upgrade, I'd get the Duo. We'll see how much longer I keep waiting, I guess.
The other night I was at an event and pulled out my iPhone 13 mini to show some people a video I had taken -- the two people on either side of me exclaimed and pulled out their iPhone minis and we all laughed about holding on to them until they turn to dust.
lol i have upgraded multiple times and i always end up back on the iphone mini. it's cost me a lot of money to find out how much i truly value small phones. my phone use is so balanced compared to some of the people i sit around who are just glued to their damn phones all the damn time. i love the utility that i can literally do whatever i need on the iphone mini, but i don't feel drawn to pick it up and just scroll much. i think the size helps reinforce that a lot, and i mostly feel like i have such a healthier relationship with screen time than my coworkers, family and friends.
if there was ever an iphone that was the size of the iphone 5 it would literally be over for me id pay 2000 dollars for it i dont care. there's literally no other options for small phones that don't suck right now i have looked exhaustively. the 13 mini is still the small phone king it's the best damn phone in the milky way.
Still to this day Apple 12/13 mini has been my absolute favourite form factor for a hand-held device. I appreciate Apple must have had their valid reasons to discontinue it, but it's such a shame.
I chickened out at last minute and went with the non-mini iPhone 12 because it had marginally better battery life. I regret that choice to this day.
The iPhone 13 mini feels huge compared to the 4s... I'd still use the 4s if it didn't have such horrible battery life or could run modern apps.
Also still haven’t moved on from the iPhone 12 - it’s a beast. I’ve dropped it thousands of times. Refuses to die or break. I think we’re due another mini run. They seem to come every 5-6 years.
> Who wants bigger phones? Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
I have bad eyesight. I've worn bifocals since I was 16, and I'm twice that age now. I literally used to carry around a 7" tablet in my pocket in college because I didn't have a smartphone yet. I want to be able to make things big so I can read them easily and not have to scroll constantly.
At this point it's feeding screen addiction.
When I go for walks I only bring my smart watch. If I break an ankle or someone has an emergency we can talk. But I can't pull up a bench and doomscroll for an hour.
I don't think that follows. You can doomscroll at any screen size, small or big. If they don't fit in your pockets, it's probably harder to doomscroll on the phone, not easier.
It does follow. A bigger screen is more addictive.
The problem is some people thinking they know what's better for everyone
I actually read more ebooks with a foldable. It gives me more functional options for entertainment other than doomscrolling. Videos are also obviously better on the inner screen.
> Videos are also obviously better on the inner screen.
How? Most foldables I've seen have an inner screen with a ratio so bad that the full screen video results in mostly black bars and the image is barely bigger than watching it on the outside screen.
I can't help but notice how many times they mention "viewing content" during the demo.
It almost feels like they make smartphones not to be handy tools for the digital age (who am I kidding), but for ultimate content consumption.
They're vending machines. And they should have big windows.
People in their forties with money and declining eyesight who refuse to wear reading glasses until they really have to. (Me)
A tablet the folds up and fits in my pocket is perfect. Tablets are better for reading and watching things - they just kinda suck to carry around.
Lots of people. There’s a reason folding phones have been a big story for years.
Maybe they only sell to 5% of users but they sell and at top prices, meaning more possible profit.
And you can’t grow the iPhone at the current sizes. Everyone who once wants at one of those sizes already has one. You either have to convince them to upgrade or switch, and those are both hard.
However, if you give them a choice of something they haven’t had before, it’s way easier. Get the people who wanted to fold and went to android and would like to come back. Get the people who have a max and want something bigger. Get the people with an iPhone 13 who are simply curious enough to do the upgrade, but otherwise would’ve stood still.
Gotta sell.
I think they could get 0.1 to 1 percent increase in sales by fixing family/ screentime. It doesn't work flawlessly and a teenager is basically the same as a hacker and there are too many workarounds and it is very hard to harden either iPhone or Mac.
It also needs a kill switch. (Non parents will judge I am sure)
The device with good parental controls will be the go to for many parents regardless of practically anything else.
> Who wants bigger phones? Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
I literally just got 7 pairs of pants tailored with bigger pockets so they could hold my freaking phone without it falling out all the time. I would love a smaller more petite phone.
You are, I'm afraid, in the minority.
Apple produces a "small" phone (S or Mini series) only every few years because that's enough to saturate that market.
Yep. Last time they made a mini iPhone it didn’t sell as well as they expected. It seems the market loves big phones. I bet these folding iPhones will sell like hotcakes.
Soooo anytime now to bring it back right??
I want the rest of you to have big phones, so that the concept of "mobile friendly websites" can die. This is my sole interest in phones. So I hope the Duo can be held comfortably in landscape orientation, but I guess in fact it can't be held comfortably at all. Oh well.
It is true that mobile oriented design killed a lot of great web designs from the 00s. But its not just screen size, thumbs are less precise than mouse cursors, necessitating larger buttons and click areas.
Bad luck, accessibility standards require you to support 320px width without horizontal scroll bar for most elements, especially the main layout. (1280px with 400% zoom)
Best are websites that in order to be "mobile friendly" make it impossible to pinch-zoom images
Why? Responsive designs are great. They often work better on desktop, too - if you resize the window, you get a layout that “just works”.
Lots of companies make terrible websites, but has been true since long before mobile phones existed.
I like my Apple phone 4s too it was fine in its time but these days I need a bigger phone because the eyesight isn’t exactly what it used to be. I don’t need a giant phone, but I need something a little bit bigger than a 4s.
There was a while where the bezels were getting smaller and the pixels cleaner where getting a new iphone/ipad pretty much kept pace with my declining near vision.
But these days I pretty much need to buy different pants so the goddamned phone fits without dislocating my hip.
I kind of thought the same and then I invested a bit of money into seeing(!) an ophthalmologist. If it's correctable, do it. Better investment than a damn phone. Now I can go back to asking for a smaller phone.
If everybody thought like you they wouldn't have discontinued the iPhone mini because nobody bought it.
There's also plenty of small Android phones.
> Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
Me! Sounds great. Ideally a full fold up laptops or some sort of HUD, but I'll take a pocket folding tablet for now.
Well, I'm with you and I was very excited when the iPhone Mini came out. However, the capabilities weren't equivalent to the regular-sized Pro (probably due to space reasons). So I didn't buy one despite loving the size and now cannot complain that it was discontinued.
I did buy one and I am still using it. It can do all the things I need a phone to do. Honestly if anything it’s still a bit too big.
I don’t know what I’ll do when this phone becomes obsolete. Get surgery for bigger hands?
It seems mad to me that it wasn’t more popular. Though a lot of things that are popular seem mad to me too.
> Honestly if anything it’s still a bit too big.
Stumbled on my old iPhone 5S in the back of a drawer recently and could not believe how good it felt in my hand, even having only used 12 and 13 Mini models since 2021. What an excellent form factor and construction. Would happily pay a big premium for a modern version of it. Dreaming of a sub-mini phone trend. Sell me a $1500 Zoolander phone—not even joking!
The older phones didn’t have the screen extending all the way to the edges, but the size was ideal. And yes, Zoolander promised a future that never came!
IMHO, one of the reasons I've been delaying an upgrade is because the standard sized iphone 13 ( not even pro ) I've had for a few years now is big enough already, anything larger just would not be ergonomic ( and I have large hands )...
Me. I love my Pro, and this year I'm switching to Max. My eyes (at 48) aren't what they used to be.
Why don't you try an increased font size with the display size you already got?
Because then less stuff fits on my screen? What a question
It was a genuine question. I also suffer from eye issues and a bigger font and warmer colours really help, with no need for a bigger screen in my experience.
Absolutely no need to be rude.
Felt like you hurt his ego I think you made him feel stupid, lol. Bet he didn’t realise you could do that or sommat.
what a response
> Why do they insist on every new phone being bigger than the phones before them?
Folded, I get, I want it to be a "regular size", but the only reason I don't like big devices is because they are clumsy to store in my pocket and use/grab one handed. If I can use it BOTH ways, now I have a choice. One handed for quick usage, and two handed for extended sessions. For $2K, yeah, I'm going to want a full fledged computer in my pocket.
I carry an iPhone because I love the size. I carry an iPad to read. This would be nice, although I prefer to keep these devices separate. The iPad isn't connected to my life, so it can enter my bedroom.
It's not a 2000 buck problem though.
Why not get a significantly cheaper (and much nicer for reading in my opinion) e-ink ereader?
I'd like to think if Steve were around, the apple watch would have been pushed for more battery life and connectivity instead of more health monitoring, which is a gimmick people mostly use for a few months and then turn off.
I'd like to carry my iPad and tether it to my watch instead of my phone, and just have those two and the headphones as my Personal Area Network. Nobody is even doing an all-in-one device anymore, but we keep pretending like that's the world we live in.
The problem is, health is easily the biggest thing in wearables. The problem for Apple is their health stuff isn’t up to snuff with their competitors.
As someone in the market for my first wearable, which devices are better for health tracking? thanks!
I don't wear a watch for health bs. I wear a watch to tell time; the fact that it can also call my family is a bonus. Or show the current weather.
I used to be a fan of smaller phones -- my current one is a 12 mini.
I'm getting this thing.
Changes in eyesight change your priorities.
I also want a small phone. I was happy with a Sony Xperia X Compact which is one inch shorter than my current Samsung A40, which is shorter and lighter than almost everything else.
The answer is people want that. It's not a novel idea. Huawei's folding phones are even bigger and they sell like hot cake at least in China.
That's why I prefer the flip format, over fold. Typing this on a Flip 3 I've had since 2021, very happy with it.
My iPad is my primary computer so... me.
Don't blame Apple. They tried.
They tried mini iPhones. They didn’t sell well. Unfortunately the market is just not there.
The same thing goes for cheaper phones. Apple has made some phones that were a little bit cheaper than the flagship phone, but most people still buy the more expensive phones if it’s not the most expensive, it’s the next one down that most people buy.
5c, three generations of SE, 16e and 17e
Apple has been pretty consistent with cheaper iPhones.
They sold just fine. They just didn't sell a billion million units, so in Apple land that was considered a "failure". Most manufacturers would've been stoked to get the sales figures the iPhone mini got.
It will be interesting to see Ternus’s moves in this space.
most people want bigger phones, apple made smaller iphones and they didnt sell
The obvious answer is that people actually want bigger phones and you're in minority. But no, let's pretend what you personally want trumps that and ridicule them for it instead.
But Steve Jobs taught me to jeer at people that would dare consider using a stylus with their phone. I need something to jeer at.
> Who wants bigger phones?
That's a mix, people like phones of all sizes.
> Who is like, "damn I wish I had a tablet that I could fold up and still barely fit in my pocket"?
But this question is silly. When your reference point switches from people buying phones to people buying tablets, there's a huge demand for tablets that are more portable.
Yeah I’d love another mini, but alas.
The flip side is I used to be the person that upgraded every year. Meanwhile I'm now sitting here with the most recent mini model and HODLing. I realize its' a drop in the bucket for them, it's their loss that I no longer purchase new equipment.
What's particularly frustrating about the discontinuing of the Mini is that it really didn't sell badly, just below _expectations_. Compared to every other model of phone sold by other manufacturers, I suspect the Mini outsold all but the most popular models.
From that perspective, the discontinuation feels more like an act of embarrassment by management than the result of a rational cost/benefit analysis. Given that reportedly the Air is selling substantially worse than the Minis, and I suspect the Duo will also fail to match its internal sales target because IMO Apple _usually_* overestimates the number of buyers willing to drop $2k+ for personal purchases (lots of corporations are willing to buy laptops for $2k+, but I suspect that almost all AVP/iPhone purchases are direct to consumer), I wonder if Ternus be willing to adopt a strategy that will keep profitable products around even if they don't meet their target. I suspect this is sort of an effect of the predictors being in some kind of high income bubble where _everyone_ they know has enough cash to drop $3500 to try out an AVP.
I had a Mini 12 and upgrade every 3 years, so I didn't bother with a mini 13. I ended up buying a base 15 and hoping that I wouldn't mind it, but my regret has only gotten stronger over time.
* Exception: they have dramatically underestimated the number of people wanting to buy high ram minis/studios for local AI.
> I suspect that almost all AVP/iPhone purchases are direct to consumer
I have worked for multiple companies that provide iPhones to employees, but neither of them would budget for the newest best version, unlike with the macbook pros. Companies know that if they buy devs computers with more ram and a bigger high resolution screen, we will get more done, but the main reason to provide a top end iPhone is as a perk.
Might be different with the Duo because I can see an argument for it being a better productivity device for people who need to send a lot of emails from a mobile.
There's a sizeable amount of us. I finally had the battery changed in my 13 Mini a few months ago. I don't want a larger phone.
The Duo has the same diagonal as a Mini when closed (5.4"), so I'd love to see them eventually embrace that size and release a 7:5 ratio SE or something similar.
Same, and I even always got the Pro, too. I'm still (happily) on 13 Mini.
I'm curious, what iOS are you running on it?
Yup. They released the air - but that’s not what I want. I want a smaller phone, not thinner.
"Who wants bigger phones?"
Everyone who buys larger phones instead of the iPhone Mini. The market decided that.
Kinda of. But the mini was released at a terrible time to get accurate data. The iPhone SE had launched 6 months earlier and had been lauded as the phone to get if you wanted a small iPhone. People who bought the SE were not ready to upgrade straight away to the mini. I suspect if the mini launched today it would see (a little) more success.
I'm sure Apple, and most other smartphone companies who have released a smaller phone before, are also at least as capable as us at accounting for launch timing in their investigations of what causes a phone to sell well and what doesn't.
Even outside of iPhones there isn't a large market for small phones. It's a niche market
the iphone mini unfortunately did not kill nor do most small iphones
How many times do HN users have to be told they are not the majority?
If you look at phone sales Pro Max out-sells the regular Pro
Regular people like big phones
Can attest to that. My wife always complains how big phones don't fit well in her shorts. But when I remind her of that when she is buying a new phone, she goes "Yeah well its annoying, but videos are nicer on a bigger screen".
Oh well :)
I’ve heard that many times…
By this logic they should discontinue the regular Pro.
>I want smaller phones.
You want a Zanco phone. They are tiny. Apparently designed to be small enough for prisoners to keep in their orifices.
After four years of watching the JerryRigEverything YouTube channel snap Google's foldable phones in half at the same spot along the antenna lines, I'm looking forward to seeing how well this holds up.
Something this expensive should not be that fragile year after year.
new foldables are surprisingly strong along the spine. Not impossible to snap or damage but would support being accidentally sat on without it being catastrophic, for example.
> new foldables are surprisingly strong along the spine
Have you seen the video in question from two weeks ago?
> GOOGLE MADE A MISTAKE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUT3rUZGqLA&
Google is not a serious player in this space. They make benchmark phones for their industry partners.
- It works with the pencil! This is a big big deal. I can do whiteboarding with customers quickly without having to break out a separate device, for example. Definitely unfortunate for the reMarkable Move and devices like that.
- They actually might have nailed the hinge and crease problems.
- I've been excited for this release ever since the rumor of the iPhone Air being a prototype of sorts for this came out. Two iPhone Airs fit very comfortably in my hip pack (though I only ever have one at a time).
The fact that it works with the pencil is a huge selling point for me. I wasn't really interested in a folding iPhone, but having something I can write on without also needing to carry an extra device or pocket notebook is really cool.
Just a reminder to everyone, always buy the second version of any new product category, even from Apple. The first duo will look primitive in a few refresh cycles. It does look really cool though!
Considering how many comments I regularly see on Hacker News from people who still love their M1 MacBooks, I’d say that’s not a particularly strong maxim.
The AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, HomePod, MacBook Neo, and AirTag are also all devices that have had well-received (if not always breakout) 1st-gen releases.
The M1 Macs were a bit different because Apple had already been designing their own CPUs for years, and the machine designs themselves were almost identical to previous iterations with Intel CPUs. The only thing they needed to get right was the software, which they did (and which could have been updated after the fact if they didn’t).
Yeah although my M4 is more powerful I somehow don't perceive it much and it's so heavy and gets hot. My aging M1 is still snappy for most workloads, the battery holds well, it's light. Only thing I resent is the stupid touch bar instead of proper F keys.
But I'd say it's the exception. In general it's better to wait for later generation.
Ah yes the m1 air for example which couldn't drive 2 external screens
Listen, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I will say I hope I'll at least get to update this comment down the line while holding that gorgeous looking phone in my hand
I get the sensibility of that advice but isn't that the case no matter when you buy it? I mean, they announced a nice iPhone Pro, optimized over multiple generations, and then immediately made it look primitive with the Duo. :)
v1 to v2 is the biggest leap, and each leap after that is smaller and smaller. Just look at the difference between the 17 pro and 18 pro.
M1 -> M2 wasn't a big leap, iPhone -> iPhone 3G wasn't _that_ big a leap (though 3G was nice to have)
what products _did_ have big leaps from v1 to v2?
3G also got gps and the app store. I'd say that was a pretty significant upgrade.
MacBook Air -> MacBook Air 2: unibody aluminum construction replaced plastic, ssd option introduced.
iPad -> iPad 2: cut thickness and weight by 30 %. A4 -> A5 doubled performance. Dramatically better screen. Introduced the magnetic case ecosystem.
iBook G3 -> G3 dual usb: from colorful clamshell/toilet seat design to sleek laptop. 30 % lighter, half the volume, twice as durable, 2-3x the performance.
And… Apple I -> Apple II? Apple I was a motherboard, the II was a complete computer.
I'm drawing a different conclusion than you about that upgrade. Sorry! I definitely understand your advice; it's especially the best option when you are financially risk-adverse or pessimistic about technology but need to participate.
*especially from Apple. I live by this maxim.
Of course, if too many people heed this advice there won't _be_ a second version to wait for.
Especially Apple. Buying a first gen Apple product hasn't been great since like 1999 at least. Very few exceptions.
John Ternus, and his co-presenters, still presented with the now institutionalized Apple-voice: obviously-rehearsed, emotionally-flat, robo-replay.
They spent their time practicing to recite, instead of talk, to people.
So hard to sit through.
I had assumed that was a genuine, if not inspiring, reflection of Cook's controlled non-spontaneous personality. Relative to Steve's emotionally-rich casual-coded excited-to-share delivery.
One big difference from Steve: it isn't the Steve show anymore. The people showing this stuff off are the people who lead the the teams that work on these things.
It's so much cooler to me to see the people closer to the work talking about it rather than just Steve Jobs, as amazing as he was to watch. I'll take slightly stilted any day of the week as a tradeoff.
Ternus did introduce a new rhetorical thing, though. He framed some of the guiding principles during the opening and throughout as ideas originating from himself, not Apple. Cook rarely said "I" in relation to a claim, other than "I'm so proud of" X, Y, Z. That's a bit more product guy, a bit more Opinionated. I am hoping for more of that.
I disagree twice. It was very cool to see Steve Jobs, and he was heavily involved in the work and design decisions, perhaps even more than the people presenting.
How? How involved? Like what exactly did he do?
He was often critical down to the specific detail, such as amount of padding on a button.
People under estimate how hard it is to talk naturally in front of a camera.
There’s a reason why acting as a profession exists.
As someone who has spoken on a lot of stages, it's hard. I do sort of agree that falling back on an obviously rehearsed (over-rehearsed?) style isn't great. Jobs wasn't that way but (mostly) but he was a real talent who could have sold sand to arabia.
I do think there's a general high-end corporate tendency these days to over-rehearse for big stages. I could name some CEOs who were doing it years ago. And I could name some CEOs who were terrible presenters but were very successful at least for a time.
He maybe didn't present that say but he did rehearse a lot
*way
Rehearsal is definitely real. I've certainly guilty of running through presentations mentally and then cringing here and there when I actually give them because some stuff that worked in my mind doesn't really work with an audience. They're almost certainly better when I deliver a modified version a month or so later.
That said, it's also the case that casually recovering from tech glitches is pretty key.
slightly meta, but remember the time SJ got mad on stage and threw his demo camera?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M4t14s7nSM
That's true, but if you wanted to boil down the art of acting to one sentence it would be "do not pretend; actually do".
Jobs was a great actor in that he did not pretend to be excited. Whatever coaching is being given here is exactly in the opposite direction of acting.
It is just one approach, often referred to as method acting.
But good actors trained more classically can be just as convincing by pretending.
One is not better than the other, these are just different approaches, both capable of delivering excellent or terrible results, depending on your skills and practice. Being excited doesn't mean you look excited to an audience and vice versa.
Surely they have enough money to hire either someone to teach them to do it better or someone to give the presentation instead.
It’s also hard to be the CEO of a multi-trillion dollar company. Speaking is part of the job.
Nah, this is a deliberate choice.
Do they?
I think everyone knows how many hours they practiced and the depth of talent they could draw from. The inhuman consistency demonstrates a deliberate choice, that undermines their own message.
Care about impact wasn't just a Steve quirk, it was the reason keynotes were worth having.
Try saying "And one more thing..." in recent-Apple voice, without laughing or crying.
You can have the best acting coaches in the world and still not get ‘it’.
Comparing anyone at keynotes to Steve is challenging. He really was among the best at presentation.
I agree, expecting Steve would be unfair. And trying to duplicate him would be a mistake.
But find a voice that works for whoever is presenting, or get different presenters.
The visuals and videos were excellent. The product was cool.
> But find a voice that works for whoever is presenting
That's much much easier said than done. Sometimes the very rehearsed voice is as good as you're going to get, without the person being a professional lecturer.
> or get different presenters
It seems as though Apple is prioritizing having actual team leaders speaking about the products instead of just having hired actors do it. I'm perfectly happy with this.
You're not going to get Steve. For which I'm genuinely sorry.
But, yes, Apple has made the deliberate choice to have presenters who rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse. But many are not natural actors and will never be. You can mix things up a bit on a stage. But Apple does want a smooth production and puts a lot of money and effort into it.
I always think of this piece: https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/doing-a-ted-talk-the-full-sto...
The best presenters are those who have the natural affinity (or enough practice) to do method 2 really well. What we get from Apple (and most other professional-level speakers who aren't willing to take risks) is method 3C.
Apple trying to make presenters 'act professionaly' is the problem, not the solution. Somehow it worked pre Apple campus?
Infinite Loop seems to have missed somehow. The old Apple with multiple dodgy buildings all over the show was perhaps a bit more chaotically creative. Now it all seems very rehearsed, architected. Too perfect, just like the campus.
Don’t forget about how they desperately try to figure out what to do with their hands.
It is distracting. Just use your hands normally. It just feels a bit alien and scripted.
Personally, I always loved the way Tim Cook would always do this little bouncy thing while he talked. He kept his knees always bent a bit, and every few words would do a little tiny bounce. Once you see it…
yes, the cringiest thing in the entire show.
I do hope John Ternus & his team change it up, but I wasn’t expecting it from this event. He’s only been CEO for 9 days & this was probably shot before then.
There is no matching Steve, but I would like to see Apple try at least one live event again a year. Covid is what brought around the super rehearsed video presentation, and it fit Cook well, but are the days of live keynotes really done?
It’s been a while since I watched an Apple presentation, but I caught a bit of this one. And I spent the whole time trying to figure out who it was for - the presenters didn’t seem to express any genuine excitement about the products, and it didn’t convey any useful information that couldn’t be better shared by just posting the slides.
The only thing I can see is that it generates some clips for the presenters to share on their LinkedIn pages. I assume there is prestige in being selected as a presenter, and the rest of the show serves its purpose simply by existing.
They need to do these live again with an audience. Miss the old steve days.
Doing it live isn’t going to bring Steve back. He was a natural showman, the people doing it now aren’t. They’re engineers and executives. Putting them on a live stage is going to make it even tougher on them.
me too, but I guess they feel they cannot afford any missteps.
I still enjoy Marc Benioff presentations. He's very engaging to watch, though not nearly as good as Jobs in terms of storytelling. I feel Jobs honed the craft more though.
Apple needs to bring back live keynotes instead of this overproduced TV show.
> Relative to Steve's emotionally-rich casual-coded excited-to-share delivery.
Example 1,494,298 of “most people aren’t Steve Jobs.” Can’t believe we are still doing this comparison. In a few weeks it will be 15 years old.
That’s something I noticed as well. It was very subtle, but my brain was telling me that something was off and the way people spoke was very artificial.
apple needs to rethink so much more fundamentally. Ternus talks identically to Tim Cook. Indistinguishable. It’s like when Jobs left, Apple became a reflection of the superficial touchstones that Jobs left behind, rather than the CEO defining what the culture is, and evolving it.
Give him 6 months... usually it takes a bit to change things around (including marketing / pr presentations).
But, he has been part of Apple for too long, and probably has internalized that style.
Hope he brings good change though...
Steve Jobs built sand castles at Apple, these guys are building Kings Landing.
Brand is brand. CEO is not brand.
Craig F with his constant foot-shuffling...
Despite that, still one of the most natural speakers in all their recent events.
I loved the disclaimer at the end of the iPhone Pro model that felt distinctly non-Apple and more akin to a drug commercial, "Usage of heavier models may be limited. Subscribers to certain iCloud+ plans will likely receive higher usage quotas. Now here's Sri to talk about electronics!"
People are insufferable with the amount of criticism
Like no one is above reproach and def everyone is open to criticism, it to open a thread with 1200 comments and see this as the first comment was super annoying
So much stuff to discuss and we are focusing on some presenters tone? jfc
I use it informally as a metric for whether there is anything meaningfully bad that I should be aware of. If this is what people bitch about, then probably the product is mostly pretty good.
I couldn't agree more with the criticism being too much. The negativity adds up and drowns a thread so much faster than the neutral comments. I don't know the reason it feels that way. And it seems so pervasive in so many places.
I wish there was a way to just put all criticism in a single thread and leave other thread trees for technology topics. Of course my first thought is a technology answer to a human problem.
That said, I simply couldn't sit through this presentation and did find it insufferable; and I've been waiting for a foldable iPhone for a long time. Having to close the presentation out of frustration tainted my purchasing decision.
a very neurotypical response
It felt very "un-Apple" when they called it a foldable phone _before_ revealing it.
The folding part is the thing the tech journalists say; done right, it shouldn't matter whether it's foldable or not.
Bigger screen, pencil support, nano-glass, etc. The foldable part is obvious, why say it?
Finally, the foldable iPhone is out
It’s too expensive for me to even dare to have, but I do want to use it
But if there’s no particular improvement in the user experience, I would prefer the base model of the iPhone 18 coming out next year above all
What I’m most looking forward to on a foldable iPhone is viewing photos
I really love that sharp, fresh feel when viewing photos on the iPad, and I’m excited because I think I’ll be able to experience a similar feeling on this foldable iPhone as well.
I still don't get the fanfare over folding phones. They tend to be more fragile, and if I really need a larger screen, I'd much rather use a laptop or tablet.
There's totally valid criticism to be made about the durability, not to mention price, but the pitch is crystal clear, "your phone can be a tablet on-demand". You (the proverbial you, not necessarily every person) always have your phone with you, but often don't have a tablet or laptop.
For many people the phone is the only computing device they use. Keeping portability and offering a larger display is a compelling offering for those people.
I tend to agree with you.
> For many people the phone is the only computing device they use.
I suspect the crossover area of the Venn diagram between people who spend what a foldable costs on a phone and people who have no other computing device is extremely small.
Why so? For most people a computer (in the traditional keyboard/mouse sense) isn't a leisure device, a phone is. They scroll social media feeds and watch YouTube or whatever.
I'm sure most of us on HN use them for leisure, but for most people a computer is a device for work, not for play.
I quite like the idea of a tablet I can keep in my pocket. If there was some sort of first-party attachable keyboard (a la the iPad magic keyboard), I'd be strongly considering getting this. In the age of AI and increasingly-mature cloud agents, I can get a lot of my work done from a setup like that.
Galaxy Fold is popular with older people who have trouble reading small text
That’s a good point bigger text is possible on the iPhone but you can display less of it so it might be nice to have the bigger screen.
I no longer need an iPad Mini in my bag with this thing...
$2,000 for a phone? Holy price point, Batman. No thanks.
I assume the people who would buy something like this have enough money not to care, and also would not care about the second part of my comment, because they want New Thing or use their phones enough for it to be useful.
I guess it might be the case that the only way to make the folding screen thing even remotely work is a very, very expensive manufacturing process. But as is often the case, I don't see how it's worth it?
I want my phones smaller and with Touch ID, not enormous and wrinkly.
> $2,000 for a phone? Holy price point, Batman. No thanks.
Isn't that basically in line with the competition? Cheaper, even, than some of the competition?
$2800 here. What kinda of problem does that solve that's worth that kind of money? I'm seriously asking, because I can't figure it out. I can completely see buying an iPhone 18 Pro because you use it for work as an influencer or media creator, but this is close to twice the price and much less of a tool.
I don't think luxury phones necessarily need to solve problems. They're just luxury phones, people who can afford them will buy them because they like them, not because they're solving problems.
>What kinda of problem does that solve that's worth that kind of money?
If it means I don't have to put reading glasses on to use my phone, I'd pay a lot more...
Have you checked the accessibility features of your phone?
Incredibly useless. It is obvious that Apple doesn't have UI/UX designers over 40. Increasing the font size doesn't effect everything and breaks too many things. For example, you can't change the size of the time in the top left. Style > usability all over the place. Don't get me started on the stupid watch...
That does sound annoying :(
I can't really answer that because I'm not the target for this particular model. I'd rather have a new Mini.
But I think this could be really appealing for a large number of normies who have a phone as their sole computing device.
An influencer needing the latest iphone is also ridiculous when you think about it. They are running instagram and tiktok after all, not waiting for software to compile. They don't even need the latest and greatest camera because all their content is only going to be viewed on a palm sized screen.
Influencers want a device like that for status and branding. Technical specs are not a huge factor.
Doesn't it hide in a giant pink jelly case with a pop socket anyhow?
It's basically for people who want an iPhone and iPad, but in a device that's worse than both, while being more expensive than just buying one of each.
Good god, is it? My current phone is an iPhone SE 3rd Gen and I paid $250 for it on eBay.
That’s not a brand new folding phone. Those start at $1900 MSRP from what I see. However, you can get them a few hundred cheaper. Some of them cost even more than Apple.
People have been saying “Oh my God, who would pay $600 for a phone“ for 20 years. Clearly there are such people.
Most people don't actually realize they're paying $$$$ for their phone, as they get a phone with their mobile plan and they pay some monthly small sum for 24 months that lets them forget they'd never be able to afford it otherwise.
New flagship product with lots of features is more expensive than old entry level product purchased used?!
Not sure what expressing the cost of your current phone has to do with the discussion here, but I’m guessing this phone certainly isn’t for you. Some people choose to spend more on their phones, and some less.
A price difference of 8x for what this offers seems crazy to me.
A $10,000 car and a $80,000 car are going to be markedly different. Same for a $100,000 house vs a $800,000 house.
This $2,000 phone does not seem 8 times better than my $250 phone.
> This $2,000 phone does not seem 8 times better than my $250 phone.
Well lets adjust the comparison you just made, then.
> A $10,000 car and a $80,000 car are going to be markedly different.
I can buy a Maserati Ghibli for under $10K on eBay and it will be very similar to the $109K Ghibli that Maserati would sell me today.
Well, other than being 10 years old, having 100,000 miles on it, most likely needing a new timing chain, suspension, and generally needing a new cooling system, sure.
That's why they're $10K.
Meanwhile for about the same price differential, $10K on eBay will get you an Audi RS 5 ... engine ... with 60K on it.
I don't know that the Ghibli makes the point you want to make.
It's not really fair to compare a used phone price to a brand new one. The SE 3 sold for almost 500 when it was released.
Is this foldable 4x better than your SE 3? Almost definitely, by every metric, except size if you're into small things.
Your phone does not offer more screen area on demand. That is genuinely useful for many people. Apparently, not you, but that's OK.
Your opinion is duly noted.
have you considered that you might just not be the target market ? :)
Who exactly is the target market? Millionaires?
As an engineer in a high cost of living location, you can buy this phone and still save some money in the same month.
However, maybe you can't buy a house there. For that you'd have to be a millionaire.
But people like me cannot be the target market of Apple because that would be a very limited number of customers. Also even if I could afford it, I don’t see any use case for it so why would I even buy it?
Pretty sure Apple and other manufacturers do market research before pouring tons of resources into it.
I guess the time would tell. I’m pretty sure they did market research before the Apple Vision Pro and we all saw how it turned out
256GB galaxy z fold8 is ~$1900
I might get one. I've been using a mini for years and am pretty much giving up on Apple ever making one again. The AI features finally seem worth an upgrade, and I don't love the size of the Air, standard iPhone, or Pro/Max models.
If I'm going to have to two-hand it, this is perhaps not the worst. Also, it might be more one-handable when closed than regular iPhones.
Is it very expensive? Yes, especially if you don't opt for the base storage (256 is not enough in the age of LLMs). But I've not upgraded in 5 years, so I've got budget to spare.
> $2,000 for a phone?
> I assume the people who would buy something like this have enough money not to care, and also would not care about the second part of my comment, because they want New Thing or use their phones enough for it to be useful.
But what's the monthly price with Apple's upgrade program? I'd bet that's how most people will be buying it (me included, if I decide to get one).
they're definitely hoping the people who can't afford it simply lease it like an expensive car.
Lots of people can afford it. If you keep the phone two years, that works out to less than $3 / day. The lease option is even less. They're going to sell or lease a lot of these.
I think it's going to be very interesting to see how well the sales for the Duo do in year two and three. I suspect sales will go up, but wouldn't be shocked if they drop.
The number of people who buy junk food on credit they can't pay off is pretty much unfathomable at least in the USA. There are plenty of people for whom "$3 / day" is something they very realistically can't afford.
Yup. I mean I don’t have any need for this one, but in general, the cost it’s pretty low when you look at it from a monthly cost or a daily cost
You remind me of the (in)famous comment by Steve Ballmer when the iPhone was first introduced .
The functionality and user experience provided by first iPhone compared to its peers at time completely justified its price.
In comparison iPhone Duo only offers a bigger screen and even limited functionality when it comes to camera if you compare it with iPhone 18 Pro.
The first iPhone did not have 3G when it came out, no GPS either, and no App Store - you were stuck with all the stock apps. It was definitely far behind its peers in several key aspects
Here’s a flashback: https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/original-iphone-review/
I’ve said it before, but Ballmer was exactly right WHEN he said that. I know because I was one of the very few people in my area, notable for being a tech hub, who had an iPhone at release… only because my employer at the time paid for it.
I had a large, relatively well-paid, tech-savvy circle of friends (and many random strangers) who openly envied me but could not justify the price point.
The numbers back this up because iPhone sales didn’t start hockeysticking up until the next version was released, which allowed carriers to further subsidize smartphones with data plans that brought the upfront costs down to $200.
The iPhone was as much a technology revolution as it was a consumer financing one, but it is never discussed as such.
Most people don't buy their phones, they just finance it through the phone carrier as an "upgrade".
The phone carriers then upsells their more expensive plans.
In Canada they range from $3000-$4800. Absolutely bonkers prices.
Just Klarna (or shall we say, "Apple Upgrade" [1] now) it. You need to consume. Not want, need.
1: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/07/apple-upgrade-launche...
5 different people messaged me today saying they are pre ordering a duo
None of those people have ever messaged me about any other phone event ever
Is this such a big news that it'd warrant texting people over?
I don’t see the problem with the pricing. It’s the most used gadget and its an iphone and ipad in one.
Few pay it directly. It's paid in installments, subsidized by the carrier, traded-in for for an old but still okay phone, etc.
And those who want to boast, can of course buy for the full price. This is a non-zero share of the target market.
> subsidized by the carrier
You misspelled “you’re overcharged for your mobile subscription and get a phone”.
I try and usually succeed at using my phones for around 3 years, so it's not out of the question. Still have another year on my current one, I'll check out the next duo next year.
I am with you on this one, probably sales charts are up for foldable phones but I am not sure those people are reading the room correct. We want smaller devices more tactile if we wanted ipads we would get ipads.
Depending on the age, people are spending between 4-6.5 hours a day on their phone. How much are people spending on computers? Their mattress? 2,000 for the cutting edge version is frankly reasonable for what a phone provides in this day and age, especially considering the last 3 years of inflation in the US...
to sell a phone for such a ridiculous price you need to make it as obvious as possible - a folded phone is pretty obvious - now people can buy it as a status symbol. what's the point of a status symbol if not everybody around you immediately recognizes the item as very expensive. there you go.
$700 premium for Duo compared to iPhone Pro Max 18. Exactly the price of iPad mini 256GB.
It's not a phone, it's a status symbol fashion object.
Ok maybe it's that but it's definitely also a phone
I'd imagine its targeted in particular at producers - e.g. content producers.
There's enough buyers in the market.
It has Touch ID
Yes, I think this is an artifact of the new under-display camera (at least on the inside). The official copy states:
> iPhone Duo uses Touch ID, which is integrated into the side button. This gives you an easy, secure, and consistent way to authenticate iPhone Duo, whether it’s closed or open.
Probably no way to do FaceID from under a display yet.
And thank goodness for that. I loathe, hate, despite, reject Face ID. The Duo is too pricey for me, but Touch ID makes me reconsider.
It is also enormous and costs $2,000.
Shutup and take my money!
/s
Why do you like that over Face ID?
Not the person you're replying to, but Face ID just works much less reliably for me. I usually wear glasses, and when I get up in the morning and am not wearing them yet, it usually takes a number of tries before my phone will unlock. Sometimes it will also randomly not work in the middle of the day, maybe because of glares or something. Touch ID always just worked.
After jumping from an iPhone to a Pixel and back, the only thing I miss is fingerprint unlock which is way faster and more convenient than Face ID. You don’t need to adjust the phones position or anything if it’s too close to your face or in a position where it can’t scan your face.
I prefer TouchID because FaceID doesn't work when my phone is flat on the table and away from me. That's is how I use my phone most of the time, I don't really hold it up to my face.
I echo what lutoma said. I hateHateHATE the endless having to tilt and/or move around the phone all the time (especially, but not only, after awaking) to get Face ID to "work". Give me Touch ID any day.
according to the blurb you can lease it $60/month
Renting. It's $57 per month for 24 months and then you have to hand it in.
So you pay $1368 for the privilege of using the Duo for 2 years.
You get the choice to pay the remaining value of the phone and keep it, or enter a new "lease" agreement for a brand new phone at the end of the term. The formula is simple:
purchase fee = device list price – lease payments made – remaining discounts or trade-in credits.
If you're paying $1368 over 24 months, you could pay the remaining $632 after those 24 months and keep it with 0% interest.
So let's say you go to Hertz or Avis at the airport, you get a car for a month at $1700. The car has an MSRP of $40,000 and Hertz/Avis gives you the option to buy the car for $38,300 after you return it.
Is that leasing or renting in your country?
Let's say you go to BMW or Lexus or Ford. You pay them $3000 and agree to pay them $500 a month for the next 3 years to use the car according to some conditions. The car is worth $60,000. You pay $21,000 over those three years. When you bring it back, they offer to let you buy it outright or to just hand it over to the dealer.
Is that leasing or renting in your country?
Is the difference between renting and leasing even meaningful? You chose a car rental agency for your example because it costs more per month to rent from a short-term rental agency. What is a lease but a long term loan? What difference does it make that I rent my apartment by signing a document called a "lease agreement"? Am I a renter? Or a leaser?
Renting/leasing is not automatically bad. The terms are what make one a good or a bad deal.
Is that $3000 a deposit that you get if you return it in good condition? In that case we would definitely call that renting.
> Is the difference between renting and leasing even meaningful?
Where I live, yes. If you lease you are the owner, with the financing company having the ability to seize it when you don't pay. If you rent you are not the owner, but are allowed to use it. Renting is a bit plebeian.
Lease. You can buy it out at the predefined price at the end.
English is not my first language, sorry. If you have a device that you pay a monthly fee for, but you can't keep it at the end of the contract, where I am from we call that renting.
Leasing is a financial construction where you actually own the product / property, with the bank having the option to claim it if you fail to pay.
This is not true, with leasing you don't own the product or property at all. Leasing is basically long-time rent. For example, when you lease a car, you don't own it - the leasing company does. In some cases, you can buy out the object at the end of the lease (like cars), in some cases you can't (like apartments).
> a financial construction where you actually own the product / property, with the bank having the option to claim it if you fail to pay.
This is called financing - basically, buying a thing with bank's money which they give you as a loan. For high-value purchases, there are often limitations on what you can do with the object, or requirements (like a requirement to have homeowner insurance for mortgages), but there are usually less restrictions compared to lease since you are the owner.
Ah.
Renting is you pay $X a month and when the contact ends everyone walks away. You don’t get the thing back, the other party does.
Leasing is close but slightly different. You still pay $X, you still don’t own it and can walk away at the end.
But with a lease you are given a choice to buy the thing at a pre-arranged price when the lease is over. So when you sign the contract you know that at the end you can pay $700 and it’s yours. Or you can still walk away.
It’s far, far more common with cars. The dealership guesses how much the car will be worth and offers you at lease based on that. If the car is worth more at the end of the lease than your buyout price, you can buy the car cheaper then you could, on the open market. If it’s worth less, you can walk away. You didn’t lose as much as you would have if you had gotten a loan, and you could go buy the same car used if you wanted for less.
For something like a phone, I’m not sure it really matters that much. So I don’t know why they decided to do leases.
It’s a lease, not rent. I don’t know the exact numbers on this but you can pay “rent” for two years and then pay like $300 (I don’t know what the right number is here) at the end to own it outright at that point. So at the end of the day you pay like $200 more than someone that buys it outright from the get go.
The upgrade program cost including the buyout is the exact same price as if you paid it all upfront.
Interesting. So everyone should be doing the lease.
No, because then you pay full price. If you buy your iPhone at a third party retailer the price is much lower.
The iPhone Air is €1329 at Apple and €849 at retailers.
That's almost three of the phone I use daily per year.
$2800 in most of Europe
yeah, insane.
Yeah, these days hard to justify anything more than a $500-800 Android unless it's heavily subsidized.
For $2800 I'd rather have a laptop + phone.
It’s $2250+tax for europoors
Europoors is gonna be my favourite word from now on
Have you never heard of this derogative term?
Plenty of arrogant Americans use that term
Frankly this is the first time I’ve seen this term. At first I thought it was a typo
i love that we get these comments, even 20 years later. the phone costs what many (most? even?) folks on HN make in a day, after taxes.
You think most folks on HN are making $500,000 after taxes (being charitable and assuming "in a day" means a working day)? Moreover, does one commenter have to represent most folks? If someone makes less than $500,000, are they not allowed to voice their lack of desire for a phone that is affordable for the alleged majority who do make $500,000?
something around 20% of the site is from the bay area, where that is a somewhat middling salary, so yes.
and of course they can voice it, it's just boring; the point being there are more than plentiful amounts of folks that can trivially afford it.
> something around 20% of the site is from the bay area, where that is a somewhat middling salary, so yes.
What the hell, 500k after tax in california is likely close to a million before taxes. This isn't middling, even in the bay area.
Come on, most people are not making 700k a year even on HN. Probably closer to $300k at the high end and there are a lot of Europeans on here so probably closer to $100k.
you would be surprised; i would bet on the plurality being > $300k. hard to survive on much less in the bay area, in any case.
Honestly, that doesn’t seem all that crazy. I was actually expecting it to be closer to $3k
Then it would most probably have had the fate of Apple Vision Pro
My wife's first question:
Will this fit in a woman's hand?
Formally specified: there exists some human woman, in whose hand this will fit.
Can this woman play Rachmaninoff?
An olympic water polo goalie perhaps
It was clever that they used the reference point of a passport. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone complain about passports being unwieldy.
Personally I find passports slightly too large to comfortably fit in my pants pocket, and a passport is definitely thinner than this phone. Whenever I travel and have to have my passport in my pants pocket I’m always a bit uncomfortable about it, I usually prefer to keep it in my backpack or somewhere else. If you’re carrying this in a purse then it sounds great. The passport aspect ratio is pretty awesome on phones, I tried one shaped like this at a Chinese phone store last year and enjoyed it. But shoving a $2000 device the size of a thick passport into my pocket on a daily basis feels like a bad idea.
You hold your passport a few times a year, for maybe a few minutes. Probably less than 1 hour total per year. Many people will 5x that usage-time in just a day.
Passport is also thinner than a pencil, not rigid, and will fold a little around your thigh in a tight pocket.
People don't try to type on their passport though.
They briefly showed the Duo opened partway like a laptop, and even had a keyboard displayed on the lower portion. Maybe it would be kind of like a smaller GPD Mini but with touchscreen instead of physical keys.
True, but passports are one of the few readable objects I can think of that regularly get used in both vertical and horizontal orientations.
It will save people a lot of time because they don't have to go to the Apple store, they can use their own passport to discover that the phone is still too big in a different dimension to use with one hand.
Just like the iPod's "deck of cards".
you don't carry your passport in your pocket every day
They are so unwieldy that the US has a passport card because the passport is too big for frequent travellers. I also will complain about how my passport's ID page is the second, not the first page, so you open the passport, and then always have to flip to the second page (unless you use a tiny bit of tape).
The passport card is almost exclusively for people who go back and forth to Canada and want to keep it in their wallet. Nobody is complaining about the size of a passport.
The passport card is only used for land and sea entries, it's not a full replacement for the passport (would be nice if it was) and never has been. It does work as a federally issued ID if you need one.
What. No. A passport card is not the same as a passport book in its capabilities.
I was actually looking forward to a smaller iPhone. To have less addictive screen time. It looks like the Air was a once-thing. I don't see them releasing an e-ink phone either.
Maybe the answer lies in only wearing an Ultra watch if it becomes powerful enough and can function independently of a phone.
I'm thinking of doing the same thing but I actually think the current Apple watch is already powerful enough.
Daily life is ok with it but most of the issues come from banking and governmental apps.
I wish society was not as keen on making everything go through smartphones nowadays.
Perhaps with a PopSocket.
I’m a little disappointed with how big it looks folded, I was hoping for a mini that could unfold…
Same. The product page strategically has zero images of a hand holding it folded. https://www.apple.com/iphone-duo/
After looking one up... https://www.engadget.com/img/gallery/apple-iphone-duo-announ... It looks awkward to hold.
The dimensions closed seems like a weird form factor. I'd be interested in a folding iPhone (horizontal or vertical), but this seems off.
or pocket
no
There aren't many phones that fit in the tiny pockets that plague women's clothing. The clothing/fashion industry is to blame on that count.
bring back the mini!
Most women I knew with shattered screens had relatively large phones (max, plus, etc.), and the few of them who listened to my advice and got smaller phones, never broke the screens. Either girls over estimate their hands size (I guess compared to some YouTuber they see), or maybe bigger screens is just a status, or something else, but most girls have large phones for some reason.
If they mostly doomscroll tiktok they tend to want bigger screens
In general I've simply never known someone with an iPhone who's never shattered the screen lol.
I feel like it’s actually designed more with women in mind. Instagram influencing type women who will think nothing of spending $150 a month on it.
At some point these phones are powerful enough that we need to be able go get a desktop experience that can run macOS. Why is a 600 dollar neo more capable for productivity than a 2000 dollar iphone with a much beefier chip?
Canonical was simply 14 years too early, but we are rapidly apporaching this vision: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/02/ubuntu-for-android-c...
This is Apple's Achilles heel.
If another company could release something like the Duo that seamlessly switches between phone, tablet, and desktop experience and make it Apple quality then Apple are in trouble. The technology is all there since the days of Ubuntu Touch.
Sadly I don't think there is a company in a position to build such a device that could compete.
I don’t think Apple will ever do it.
I personally would like to see the phones behave like iPads when connected to screens and mice and such. I don’t need it to pretend to be a full Mac.
But we all know they’re on the same OS at this point. iOS and iPadOS are completely identical, and this only makes it more obvious.
This is what I want. If the Duo did something like convert into an iPadOS-like environment I’d buy it day one and sell my non-fold iPhone and iPad.
But I don’t want macOS on an iPhone/iPad. If I wanted a device with poorer hardware security that ran an OS with a fundamentally weaker security model I’d just buy a MacBook and be done with it.
Even if most people never use it, they already have everything they need. And they could market it as a big feature.
Basically no one knows Samsung Dex exists. They could be the ones to bring it to the attention of the mainstream.
I like the idea that if I was stuck in a car dealership or something for service, I could just plug into a laptop docking station with USB-C and use my phone on a bigger screen. Realistically, I’d probably never do it.
But they also might be afraid it would cannibalize Macs, especially now that they have the Neo. And it would certainly just be one more thing to test and keep working.
IDK how a 2000 dollar phone would cannibalize macbooks more than a 700 dollar entry level macbook.
It's possible that the audience for anyone that would plug in their phone to a KVM setup is just too niche to care. Just seems like with computing being so expensive these days, I really want to get the most out of my devices.
Running android in a DeX mode is fine, but its still android. Now that MacOS is already optimized to run on mobile chips, it seems so limiting that it can't run on iPhones just because of customer segmentation.
Do I think it realistically would? No. Do I think they want to risk it at all? No.
iOS/iPadOS has way more optimizations under the hood than macOS does in order to keep heat/battery life/performance not poor, the most obvious feature being the way apps and tabs get killed or refreshed in the background.
I don’t think Apple should or even would allow any sort of bare metal macOS mode on their mobile devices, but at least for iPads with M chips I could see them offering macOS via VMs. We know hardware acceleration works, there’s a working virtualization app that runs macOS at native speeds on jailbroken iPads.
I get why they do it, but it sucks that at least at minimum we don’t have a mode that turns it into basically iPadOS when connected to an external monitor, even if the performance and heat problems would be worse. But making that feature available and exclusive to the Duo would have made it more appealing.
iPhace Duo https://news.microsoft.com/surfaceduo/
Looking back now it was quite ahead of its time.
Actually kindof awesome! ...but when I saw the phone call at the end my mind immediately went back to "Taco-Talkin' w/ the Nokia N-Gage"! => https://sidetalkin.com/original/
The main problems from that Duo was that Microsoft didn't believe in it.
This lead them to use a garbage CPU and support it for something like 2 years.
Apple has the balls to keep updating the vision pro even after it flopped and it will probably get 7 years.
The fedex driver that delivers to my office is still maining one of these. Its so cool.
Zune'd
August 12, 2020
Still use mine!
I will say it was a pain in the ass to open and answer calls though when you were busy doing things.
With some of what they showed, I wish they never separated iOS and iPadOS. The duo seems to be bringing more of the iPad features and if they could position this as one device to replace both (and the price point sure reflects that) it could be interesting.
But without that, I don't see the use for myself. Though I also rock a 13" iPad Pro so even with that it would be a hard sell to replace both.
I still am not sold on the entire idea of a foldable, there is some interesting things here and I will be interested to see how they position it over the next few generations.
I wish that too. Too many convenience features on both sides that are accidentally or intentionally not making it over, even when they would apply to both. I wish it had to be an explicit decision to lock functionality to only iPad or iPhone, rather than it having to be an explicit decision to make functionality available to both. Make the more likely decision the default.
I was quite surprised to see the under display camera. Wasn't expecting that.
Other than that, looks like there are some nice Duo specific features on iOS. $1999 is also surprising given that news outlets were reporting up to $2500. Plus it's price competitive with other foldables in the market.
I'll be curious to see how the hinge holds up against wear, tear and small particle intrusion over time. If people get to 2 years and it's still going great. Then I may pick up a Duo 3. But my adoption really comes down to the problems around the hinge.
This is what it comes down to for me as well. If Apple has somehow magically solved the reliability issues this will be fantastic, if they are just fad chasing it'll be DOA
What's up with all the negativity? Apple is finally doing something radical (for them) again with the iPhone, their bread and butter. And I'm all here for it. 10 years of the same form factor was getting old. I'm gonna buy this on release, easiest decision ever.
> What's up with all the negativity?
It's the horrible form factor.
I listed the 3 ways to make a folding phone (with examples) in my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49636355
If they had chose either of the other two folding formats, and reduced the amount of screen they cut off in the corners, they probably would have had gold on their hands and shifted the market towards foldables.
Instead, they chose the bad one.
I have an 11 Pro iPhone, which I’ve had since 2019 now may be the time to upgrade.
Are you new to HN? There is literally nothing that the users on this site won't bitch and moan about.
What about left-handed people? Will the controls line up on the left?
I'm right-handed but I always keep my phone in my left pocket and use it with my left hand (keys have always been in my right pocket). I'm also pretty curious about the answer to this.
I’m in a weird spot because my iPad is old and my iPhone old.
So I’m in the market to buy new ones of each.
So I’m now having to decide if I just buy the Duo … instead of a new phone and new iPad.
But seems like a worse phone and worse iPad - than standalone.
(it does look like the best foldable I’ve seen though)
The folding/unfolding animation is one of the coolest I've seen from a foldable. So slick.
That impressed me too. Be if those “Apple touches” of yore. I kind of wonder how well it works in person, but it’s nice that it’s there at all.
"Seated. Set iPhone Duo down and watch a show or follow a workout at the perfect viewing angle — with easy access to the controls on the bottom." -- Is the outside screen REALLY that strong? Is it okay to put it on a rough surface like gravel?
I think the idea is the outside screen would be propped up, not on the ground. Though I do wonder if the outside-screen-down orientation is supported.
> Is the outside screen REALLY that strong
iPhone 17 pro glass is insanely strong
current iphone would have no issue with this as long as you dont apply pressure.
To be honest, I'm still having a hard time believing that Apple would release a device that you can completely ruin with just your fingernail...
That starting $2000 price tag.. is this going to be another Vision Pro?
Put MacOS on it and then we'll talk
> is this going to be another Vision Pro?
100%
The market for a phone like this is extremely small and the price makes it even smaller.
Exact words were said numerous times in Apple's lineup over the years. I don't think this is like Vision Pro however
I really hope that in the coming years we will be able to get smaller phones back into the market. Apple compared this to the size of a passport. A passport seems even bigger than a normal iPhone, even when folded. A number of people (especially women with smaller hands) I know are holding onto their iPhone Minis for as long as possible. I’d love a phone that was roughly normal iphone sized when unfolded but was a flip phone à la Motorola razrs in years gone by. I wouldn’t even need a screen on the outside. I know it’s hard for a company like Apple to be able to market “less phone” as a good thing, and I know the iPhone mini didn’t do great commercially but there’s a small cohort of users clamoring to have something for them.
I think you’re out of luck. If Apple can’t sell the mini I don’t know who will enter the market.
They still sold millions of minis. Can't sell is about relative terms to the rest of their iphone sales. Against that it looks poor. Against mac pro sales probably looks amazing. Sold by any other company the phone would probably be considered a success and still in the lineup.
And really, poor sales are no excuse. How many macbook skus do they have that barely move when you go through all the permutations of config? I don't want to work it out but I'd guess there are something like 24 skus of macbook pro they are barely selling in comparison to iphone sales. What's another model iphone in 3 storage tiers?
Another phone model is massively more expensive compared to changing RAM or storage in, say, the macbook lineup.
Yes, a challenge for a company as small as Apple.
They can do it for sure, but they've deemed it's not worth it. I trust that they're in the business of making money when they feel it's worthwhile.
Apple sold plenty of minis. It just wasn’t a blockbuster. They also didn’t sell many pluses. They also didn’t sell many Airs.
For context, Apple sold 6 million minis, most Android manufacturers (other than Samsung and Google) can only dream of that volume.
Apple can do it, they just choose not to. It’s not like AVP is a roaring sales success.
They came out with the AVP saying it was niche production and made very few of them to begin with. They expected not to sell very many of them.
With that logic they shouldn’t sell a $2k folding phone either, it’s a niche market
Difference is they made a mini, it sold poorly, every time they make a phone with a bigger screen it sells like hotcakes.
They could. I think it would be nice if they would choose to.
I doubt they lost money on it. I’m guessing they just “didn’t make enough“ and decided it would be more profitable to spend that money elsewhere.
I will say as a software developer it was rough getting things working on that tiny screen.
But I know people loved it. I have family members who did. And I totally get it. But it just doesn’t seem to be a big enough part of the market for any of the big players to care at all.
Yea, I'm in this boat. My 13 mini has been dropped a couple of times. The screen is still functional, but it's on its last legs.
I spent a few hours researching the other night on what replacement phone I'd buy, and.... the answer was a refurbished 13 mini.
Same, 13 Mini is perfect. As soon as they release a similar form factor I'm all in.
Have you looked at the new Motorola Razrs? They're great. 4" external display that is easy to use one-handed and can run any Android app (though some apps and websites struggle with a screen that small), and it unfolds into a phablet for when you want a huge display.
I believe Samsung has a new one with a similar form factor too, though I haven't looked into it.
The Razrs are significantly larger, heavier, and wider than the mini. And they add the complication of a flip phone. Not really comparable.
The comment I was replying to said:
> I’d love a phone that was roughly normal iphone sized when unfolded but was a flip phone à la Motorola razrs in years gone by.
So the Razr does seem pretty comparable to what they were requesting.
Light is making a flip phone [1], and it's somewhat hackable now that they release an SDK [2]
[1]: https://www.thelightphone.com/shop/products/light-flip
[2]: https://developers.thelightphone.com
I totally accept that I'm the minority.
When I was 12-13 I started taking a steroidal inhaler which inhibited my growth, so my hands are literally the same size as when I was 13. (maybe slightly wider).
As such I have about the same finger length as the average woman, and when I used the iPhone 4S and 5S I had no problems, I was not able to comfortably use the 6 with one hand, and it came with that ugly camera bump, so I returned it and tried to go Samsung. (it was big, but the rounded edges helped a fair bit) - the software sucked.
I bit the bullet and went back to my 5S, and when the SE (2nd gen - shaped like the iPhone 5 but with beefed internals) rolled out it was a day 1 purchase for me.
Ever since then I've been looking for a phone -- the iPhone "Mini" was as large as the 6 which was too large (I did buy one though) -- I eventually bought an iPhone 15 pro, but honestly, I hate it. It is the heaviest thing I carry daily and it doesn't do anything more than my 5 did that i care about, and I can't comfortably operate it. I start really disliking mobile devices because of it- and the software is getting worse year on year too.
I'm getting serious fatigue from this, but the world has not only caught up to a mobile world, now many things actively expect/require you to have a modern smart phone, especially in Sweden.
I suspect you might be interested in this crowdfunded project - https://smallandroidphone.com/
There has been no movement on this since 2023, and Migicovsky is now busy with reviving pebble
there is not demand. sales prove this. there is no amount of antidotal evidence you can offer: small phones don't sell.
same. my current SE 3 is starting to limp battery-wise and I'm about to switch to my backup one. Hoping they come to their senses before it wears out.
Why not change the battery? It’s fairly cheap and if you’re in a city lots of places can do it
I already had the backup but I'll keep that in mind for next time. the screen is fairly beat up too so I don't mind. I'll keep the old one around in case the replacement gets lost or stolen.
Apple Stores will happily swap the battery for you to a new Apple one for $79 IIRC
Give me a single-screen phone the size of this thing closed, and use the extra space inside for more battery and not more displays.
Aside: I'd also love it if it could be plugged into an external display and have a "desktop mode" (like a macos VM) that gets suspended/resumed on connect/disconnect instead of just expanding the "mobile mode" across the new screen. I realize this is probably a dream too far for most companies though, as it doesn't allow them to segment the market as much as requiring people to buy multiple devices.
I remember Ubuntu were going for that “dock it and it’s a full computer” idea about 10 years back with their failed phone OS project.
just buy this phone and don't open it up
Nice. That's right up there with "pretty sure a macbook pro could fit into most cargo pants pockets".
$1999 is ridiculous.
Edit: Wow, I didn’t know Samsung foldable was priced similarly. It’s a lot of money to pay for something inherently fragile.
While I won't pay it, it seems pretty comparable to other flagship foldable from Google and Samsung.
Doesn't make it less ridiculous, and that price for the other brands isn't less ridiculous either.
> $1999 is ridiculous.
Plenty of people on HN earn that much money in a single day after tax.
That's about $675k/year, assuming a 35% tax rate. I think that is a small fraction of HN users, but more to the point, if your argument is that the phone is not expensive if you make over $500k/year, I'm not sure that is a compelling argument...
It's also more than the cost of an iPhone Pro + a MacBook Neo (or several other combinations).
I'm just not seeing the value proposition for a $2000 phone. I already can't comfortably hold or type single-handed on the normal-sized Pro.
I base many of my purchases on how many hours per week I use them.
In terms of usage hours, my mobile phone comes out near the top. This makes the price almost immaterial.
your underwear must be expensive!
For most people this can replace an iPhone Pro, a MacBook Neo and their iPad.
For those people, $2000 is a good price for a device that does all their digital work.
The correct price comparison is between an iPhone Pro and an iPad Mini, in the US that would be $1199 + $599. So for an extra $200 you don't have to carry and charge 2 devices. Not a terrible pitch.
Sure, I guess, but I don't have a Mini, or any tablet for that matter. I used to and found the form factor didn't meet my needs. I'm happier with a phone and a laptop.
We'll have to see but it has a titanium frame with Ceramic shield front and back.
Obviously Apple knew where other foldable phones fell short; they clearly planned to overcome those shortcomings.
The retail price of the equivalent Samsung phone is $1900 (1899) - or $2100 for their 'Ultra' phone. Seems just in line to me.
I think there were rumors going even higher since Apple is so often a premium priced product.
Matching their top competitor in price is a good look.
They could’ve absolutely floored everyone if it had been $1500, but there’s no way that’s possible, at least having margins anywhere near what Apple likes.
My first thought is what happens when I drop a $1999 device and break it.
Definitely a v1 product but it's an interesting device. Apple is rarely first to market, but they definitely produce the device that indicates the point where there is a market.
You can also see where they are going. In a couple of years, assuming it sells well there will be a Pro model with a 3x fold and better camera system. I'm guessing to make in thinner they will have to drop USB-C and come up with a flat charging/data connector. The EU won't like that.
The final interesting thing is this is the first Apple product that I can think of since the iPod era that they've released a product that will cannibalize another Apple product. If you were looking at getting a high end iPad Mini this replaces both phone and tablet.
> Apple is rarely first to market, but they definitely produce the device that indicates the point where there is a market.
There's been a proven market for years already, but it's been less obvious in Western markets. In East Asian markets, foldables have had a very sizable market presence, especially in China.
There's other trends that are less obvious to US and western markets, such as phone crossbody straps (which are also very big in East Asia).
There is a reason that foldable is not taking off. The final test is this.
Apple: Every one else does folding wrong!
Also Apple: We've done it the exact way Samsung and Microsoft did it! We even used the same Duo name as Microsoft!
This comic from 14 years ago remains evergreen https://hijinksensue.com/comic/surface-tension/
Samsung had 7 generations of the wrong way, then one of the right way after they learned what Apple was doing. Microsoft literally does not have a product like this.
The real trick is waiting to see if they make a iPhone Duo 3 or 4. Knowing they are committed to the form factor and it’s not another Mini would be nice to know.
Also time to work out the hardware and software issues. Not trying to spend serious money on beta testing like a Vision Pro.
I think it will be like Apple Vision, a device that is more for developers than end user.
$2000 for an iphone, just insane.
I will gladly bet you an iPhone Duo that they’ll be unobtanium deep into 2027 and that they’ll sell millions of them on day 0.
Yeah this will singlehandedly triple the percentage of foldables out there
I wonder if there's a practical way to protect the phone with a case, given that it folds and the dual screen is a big selling point. It feels like one accidental drop on concrete or a ceramic floor would cause a lot of damage.
One thing I always wondered about Apple specifically is how do they actually coordinate so many layers of integration -- materials, hardware of various kinds, manufacturing, software. How is that done on like day-to-day basis?
https://www.apple.com/iphone-duo/specs/
It took me a while to figure out I had to click "Explore" to get to the specs, so I'm saving you the trouble.
As long as I'm griping about the web site... Apple, when you introduce a phone with a new and different form factor, please just tell me the dimensions straightaway. This one is shorter and wider than most phones. Is it too wide to fit in my pocket? I need the dimensions to answer that question.
It's a bit disappointing that it's 50g heavier than the Z Fold 8, and similar to the Pixel 9 Pro fold in weight and thickness, at 254 g / 5.2 mm / 11.3 mm.
I guess that's the tradeoff for Pencil support and the under screen camera.
I'm still salty these were removed from Samsung folds after the Fold 6, but having a thinner phone is nice too.
IFF I can replace some of what I almost never use my iPad for with this, it _might_ be worth that price tag.
I'm on the fence! I do like a bigger but not too big screen for movies on planes etc.
Wayyy too wide. it's wider than the 17Pro. So impossible to operate. It will sell out because it's new. But it will flop. More than the mini and the Air.
They should've used the iPhone mini width, and adjust height to that.
Super skip..
I actually disagree, I think this will be a massive hit.
I've long thought that the aspect ratio of a normal phone just feels old fashioned now and sucks for most tasks. So many times I go to do something on my phone and reach for my laptop instead because I know it'll be easier. But with this I could do most things on it.
Very cool, but yes, the form factor, which is the most crucial point, seems off.
10% wider than a pro max. I can't imagine that's going to feel good in your pocket
100% agree. The market for this will be miniscule. Look at how small the market for the iPad mini is. This will be even worse because it's 3x the price and has to be carried as a main device. How many people are wearing pants that can even physically fit this? This device is almost certainly too big to be comfortable in your front pocket. And if you are wearing something like athletic pants it's going to be so heavy it will pull your pants down... It's just impractical.
Somewhat related, Apple snuck in a $100 price increase on the regular iPhone 17.
All existing iPhones:
https://www.macworld.com/article/3229342/iphone-price-increa...
I’m curious to see how using Windows Remote Desktop iOS App will feel at this size if I can be productive or not.
My previous thought was to use XReal glasses with my existing iPhone but that’s not realistic in an office environment.
I am seriously tempted to get this phone (or the next iteration) when the time comes to upgrade from my iPhone 13. I think the aspect ratio would be perfect for coding on the go which is always a bit painful on a standard phone. Although there's just some inherently uncool about a folding phone, like I'd think twice about getting it out of my pocket at a party
Duo screen: 7.6" vs iPad mini: 8.3". Duo will support Apple Pencil later. I wonder if many people with iPhone+iPad combination can now replace it with one device.
In the FAQ it says "Yes. iPhone Duo will work with Apple Pencil (USB-C). Coming later this year."
It kinda sounds like it's a new model of the Apple Pencil coming soon (rather than support coming soon), and older Pencil and Pencil Pros will not work at all. Which, if true, boo.
I never trust the later with Apple. Too often have they failed to deliver. Why release this without the obvious benefit?
I just want a smaller phone
I might be a minority but I never had interested in this foldable phone trend where you get just a bigger screen. I can't even consider dual display smartphone as a foldable phone. The benchmark for a foldable phone was Motorola Razr V3. I am not sure where they are going they really need some new people with some fresh ideas and vision. Sooner or later someone is going to start eating their lunch.
Will have to give it a fingernail test in the apple store so I'm not destroying my own $2000 phone.
JerryRigEverything will deploy his hardness pick test in short order I'm sure.
This is pretty cool as a next-gen mini replacement.
The one downside of my iPhone 13 mini is the rare case where I do need more screen.
I couldn't spend $2000 on a phone, but I don't mind the direction.
I had such high hopes for this phone, but now I know it won’t replace my 13 Mini. It looks so wide you can barely hold it comfortably, let alone use it one-handed — and that's the whole point of a small phone for me.
$2000?! I know this is mostly sticker shock, but I wasn't expecting this price.
Looks like a cool device though.
The new iPhone Duo in single screen mode is the same size (5.4") as the iPhone 13 mini but with a different aspect ratio
https://photos.reportinglive.com/p/2026-09-09/f-bf86c6f5adb3...
It's uglier than the z fold 8 imo. Idk why manufactures even bother with the corner curve. It look imbalance.
A smaller closed size than current phones would be the main appeal for me. Phone bloat has gotten out of hand.
That's why I'm interested in the Motorola flipping phones which seem to be really small folded up and will support GrapheneOS.
As someone approaching mid 40s..
Is Apple screen enlargement over the years just matching the aging eyes of their core demographics? Close focal vision degrades, hold phone further, bigger phone useful.
Kind of like the stat how burning man is getting older every year cuz its mostly the same GenX cohort going since forever...
Screen size would have always been big, absent production costs and marketing price. Over time display tech just got better and cheaper to finally do it.
I would think it has far more to do with content consumption than it does eyesight.
On a side note, the amount of text on the page is just crazy. I remember older releases of apple products being basically just a slide show. Now we have a wall of text and image carousels?
This has some interesting features, but also a number of questionable decisions. The inner front camera placement is awkward for non-camera use, because despite being under-display won’t be completely invisible (as some shots in the presentation show). The on-screen unfolding transition is cringy and distracting. Apps and multitasking behaving differently on the inner screen depending on whether the hinge is flat or bent creates complexity and trade-offs, like when bending then phone so that it can stand on its own, or lie on an uneven surface. On the front screen, reserving the edge for special controls reduces the thumb reach for general content (like the app icons on the home screen).
A 2.39:1 cinematic movie occupies about 16.13 in² on Duo and 16.26 in² on 18 Pro Max
iPhone Duo 2 with working dual FaceID cameras will be a headline feature for sure.
It's made for viewing 70mm IMAX /s
PSA: Spoiler alert for the show Silo in some of the demo shots.
Product demos spoiling TV shows… What a time to be alive.
I'm a little worried about the buttons moving up along the side, since I use my phone with my left hand... Hopefully there is more information about whether the OS supports moving the controls to the left, or even keeping them at the bottom.
So, just in general, I've been seeing more and more foldable phones like this. How well are they holding up now? Having Apple use one seems to be at least somewhat of a vote of confidence that the tech has reached some level of acceptable maturity, so I assume "not trash", but I don't know how good that represents. I'm a compulsive fiddler so I'm not really in the market for a phone I can fiddle to death without even consciously realizing it, but I'm at least curious if the tech is reaching the point where one might expect a more normal user to casually expect them to last 2+ years with normal use.
I know the early ones were really bad. My impression is I’ve stopped hearing about them failing all the time, so I assume they’ve gotten decent.
Curious to see all the new interaction paradigms people come up with now that we have something physical that can sense degrees of freedom.
A dumb one off the top of my head:
When reading a book with both screens open, have the outer display show the cover of the book, and closing and opening the screens together causes a page turn. (Unfortunately also a great way to rapidly wear out the hinge mechanism.)
There are some amusing apps which read the MacBook's lid angle sensor. I remember one of them played a creaking noise through the speakers when you open or close it... Somehow I doubt App Store review will let that in for the Duo, but we can always hope.
I still remember when people realized the MacBook had a sudden motion sensor and used it to make lightsaber noises:
https://osxdaily.com/2006/12/06/macsaber-turn-your-mac-into-...
Interesting that there seems to be no FaceID? They only mentioned TouchID. I assume it’s a limitation of the under-screen camera.
They’ve been doing Touch ID instead of faceID with some of their products a few times, I think some of the iPad models? but unfortunately touchID has like a 20% success rate with my fingers. FaceID works 100% of the time for me. I’ve never had good luck with any fingerprint scanners. I hope they can someday solve the issues with FaceID under the screen.
I wasn’t going to buy this product anyway. My current phone works and I have zero reason to upgrade. But if I was in the market, no facial recognition is honestly a dealbreaker.
Hard agree but only because I think TouchID on the sleep/wake button sucks. The home button-less design and gestures introduced on the iPhone X were obviously designed in tandem and only work with FaceID. I have Touch ID disabled on all of my devices that have it because it's so damn annoying now.
I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they mentioned both Face ID and Touch ID in the stream. They wanted to add Touch ID because of the various angles people might use the phones with. Also mentioned that it'll unlock with your Apple Watch, like the Mac does right now.
I _much_ prefer Touch ID. Always hated Face ID.
FaceID is good in winter or cooking.
They need to just do both, honestly, whenever possible. Both methods have legions of fans and detractors.
I am happy that I will have managed to completely skip the requirement to use FaceID.
prob tech and UX issue. FaceID can't do side ways, and people opens side ways half the time. Maybe there are also functions unlockable wihtout clamshell opening. can't put 5 faceID on each side and facing every which way.
While at launch Face ID did not work in landscape, it does now. I can unlock my phone with my face in both landscape and portrait, although I guess not upside down? That might only be because I’m on an iPhone though. iPads might be more flexible.
Anyone noticed the headline has two "Hello"s for a phone that folds in two? John Ternus' first tweet was just "hello" and he opened the event the same way.
This has to be on purpose.
All this so people can watch The Odyssey as Nolan intended whilst on the go.
More seriously though, now do just the front screen on a non-folding device. It can even remain as thick as this thing when it's folded.
I wonder if you can hook it up to a monitor and use it like macOS. That would be the killer phone and killer laptop, then you just need to connect a mouse in and display or tv and work wherever. But I doubt Apple will ever do that, I don’t think they are bold enough to cannibalize their laptops.
Imagine being able to hook up a small slab to a keyboard or mouse Bluetooth then connect to a monitor, tablet or hotel tv, like the Samsung Dex can do. And run full laptop/desktop applications. One can dream
I would be excited if they shrunk a full laptop into a smaller format for working, but I can’t be excited about another device to steal my attention. Give me a device that’s the size of a mini tablet that expands into a laptop, not this abomination that just wants my eyeballs on advertising.
Despite what the marketing material would have you believe you can always see the fold. Even when it's fully open. Folding screens have been a solution in search of problem for like a decade now
> Folding screens have been a solution in search of problem for like a decade now
The problem is I want to have small phone that can be expanded to have large screen when needed, glad I’ve solved this decade long conundrum!
I like folding phones that go from half to full size. Fits in my pocket and I still get a big screen when I want.
How do you know? Have you seen a Duo?
I would legitimately purchase a 'smart' phone that's just basically a 15-year old flip phone with maps and a modern battery + software stack. Awaiting the inevitable analog trend to kick back up so there are solid options here.
I've been rocking out a Casio F-91W (Retails new for $23) for about 3 months now - And all the annoyance I had with with my Apple Watch Ultra (16 hour battery, constant annoyance to upgrade, endless and useless notifications) - is gone. The CR2016 battery last 5+ YEARS , replacements are < $2. Watch has everything I ever cared about - Date, Time, Alarms, Light, Stopwatch, water resistance.
And, I don't think I've once missed having the big annoying clunker of a watch.
In the nicest possible way, are you in the wrong thread?
This is about a new folding phone not the watches.
(I am glad to hear you like your watch though. Casio are classic).
Correct thread - The Casio F-91W is the "FlipPhone" of watches. Going Retro on all our electronics. Retro Phone, Retro Watch, just walk away from the insane consumerism gadgetitis and find what makes you happy.
Aha! OK I can respect that.
There's definitely something satisfying about a product that's both cheap enough that it could be disposable but well designed enough that you actually want to keep it forever.
I think that Jobs would approve of the Casio F-91W.
If that's all you cared for, why would you buy an Apple Watch Ultra in the first place? Like a Casio F-91W is a great watch but it is a fundamentally different category than an Apple Watch Ultra even though they're both "watches". It's a bit like saying, " Hey, my calculator has a battery life that lasts years, while my super powerful laptop has a battery life that only lasts 12 hours and has to be updated constantly.
Like yeah.
100% every word you wrote. I watched the Apple video. Thought it would be great to have this amazing GPS capable watch, with a cellular phone (that, I will confess, I did use three or four times and it was really good) - maps, remote finding of my phone, etc...
Honestly - if it wasn't for the incessant nagging me to upgrade, letting me know it's going to upgrade, letting me know it had failed to upgrade, and the never ending useless notification that I kept having to edit/unsubscribe/remove stupid apps that I never installed - I probably wouldn't have switched for a short period of time.
What I would have never predicted is how getting rid of all that noise has just made me so much happier.
Also - didn't realize how much I hate having to charge my watch every 16 hours.
I think he's highlighting the all the bullshit the Apple Watch comes with has ended up meaningless crap after initially buying in to the Apple Watch hype for this guy. A laptop is a fundamentally different category than a calculator in both utility and capability.
I just got one of these (https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho...) that I'm hoping to try and make my weekend phone. It's a small Android phone. It runs WhatsApp / Google Maps. I am going to set it up to forward my calls to it on the weekends. It just arrived, so I'm excited to try it out.
Wow, that's exactly the kind of form factor I'm looking for.
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18lMelOWpQo
This and their newer Aura A1 I've wanted to get cause of the compact size, but they seem to lack support for US 5g bands
Please let us know how this works. It sounds like it might be a fit for my needs.
12 years, not 15, but there are currently BlackBerry Classic shipping with modern internals. I love mine, though I've flashed LineageOS for Android 16
https://zinwa.com/
Just put your iWatch (with LTE) into a 3D printed case; that gets you most of the way there minus battery life.
What I'd love to see is a modern Sidekick. The form factor was basically perfect.
Well there are options. https://commodore.net/callback/
Commodore Callback, maybe?
There are plenty Symbian phones around on 2nd hand shops.
Have you considered an Apple Watch Ultra? That way you can send/receive messages, calls, do maps and directions, listen to music, etc. but you can't mindlessly scroll media.
honestly an apple watch + airpods is basically that.
Can you just use the 2 without a phone?
Yes, if you get cellular on the watch.
For some values of "use". You cannot do without an iPhone (with a recent enough version of iOS): https://support.apple.com/en-us/109015
The folding phones are genuinely interesting although all the cool demos I've seen people do irl have been quite reliant on android being quite liberal as to what software you can run
let's see, next year i'll be due for a new iPad mini and iPhone pro max. $1300 for one, $600 for the other (or $750 if I want cellular, which I actually do), and suddenly this doesn't look out of reach... if only I could use a stylus with it!
Looks quite similar to the Huawei Pura X Max[0]. Funny how the cycle inverted.
[0] https://consumer.huawei.com/cn/phones/pura-x-max/
I have never understood the appeal of foldables, but I guess with Apple launching them now, they're probably going to see significantly improved software support within the next few years
Did anybody want this?
Yes, with a much bigger screen I can definitely see this making me more productive and it is in between an iPad that getting through even minimal productivity tasks would work and bigger screens help a lot. Even though $1999 only gives you 256GB at least you get that low of a price point. Would have to see it in person though especially about the crease and the camera(s). (EDIT) I have a Clicks power keyboard which I can use with this. Seems like I should clarify that I can use this where a regular laptop can't be used. And since more people are interested in what I can use email, calendar and codex / Claude code (in fact Claude codr is why I have the clicks power keyboard)
Like what exact productivity tasks do you do on a phone for 2k USD that you cannot do as an example on a MacBook neo?
The ones I want to do on my iPhone.
This is usually because my iPhone dings more, and is connected to an always on network connection + phone network, so it's often the point of first-contact with any specific task/response/conversation/work unless I am sitting at my desk at home already.
And while I am someone who does take a laptop and an iPad with them in a backpack at lot of the time, that's not all the time. I'm not walking around the grocery store with a MacBook anything propped up on my cart. I'm not hanging from a strap on a bus or train with a laptop in my hands. And using a laptop on the couch usually makes my wrists hurt.
Here I am wondering why you are doing work while also grocery shopping.
This is the real philosophical deep take of it all, are we using these devices, or are these devices using us?
But what exactly productive tasks that you need the bigger screen? Because for any productive task I can think of that requires a bigger screen I would need a keyboard and a touchpad/mouse as well.
I'm someone who often thinks of things to cook while grocery shopping. Oh theres such-and-such on sale, oooh they started carrying X, what the hell is that what can I use that in, that sort of thing.
When that happens I'll often want to look up recipes for that stuff right there in the store. The web has gone to trash. The mobile web is even worse. Adblockers can only help so much, its just that everyone dumbs everything down for small screens. So its very frustrating trying to process some search results and find a decent recipe for some-such and find the rest of the ingredients I need to buy. This is a low time committment task, I need to do this in a busy grocery store, and not block the part of the shelves I parked myself in front of for too long. I mean, I guess I could go home and use my desktop, but odds are I'll just forget. And no, I'm not gonna ask AI for a recipe.
On a screen that big, using Orion and locking it to "always show me desktop mode", I could more comfortably browse and look up these things than I can on my Pro Max sized phone now. The inner screen has a higher resolution than an iPad Mini.
Another example, and it was one they showed only very briefly in the video: I just want a bigger keyboard damnit. They showed an app taking up the top "half" of the inner screen, a keyboard taking up the lower half, with the phone folded at a 110ish degree angle. It's a Sidekick with a touch keyboard. So any time I have some serious typing to do (Slack message regarding something that requires a prompt response but isn't just a few words, not that hard to imagine other examples), that bigger screen is going to give me a keyboard that is much easier to type on than a Pro Max can, because the keys are going to be sized much larger and will not need to rely on the on-device typing guesstimator as much (and that thing is dumb as hell). God, being able to ssh into something and actually have some room for all of the extra keys that make working in a terminal easier, what a world!
Having a real computer for any of these tasks would of course be the ideal, but as portable as those have gotten, they still don't hold a candle to something that fits in my pocket and has a software stack that reliably lets me interact with it in a meaningful way without having to make room for a keyboard and a trackpad.
That’s a very niche use case and gonna be a very expensive recipes look up. Also I’m not sure the desktop mode of a website actually look better on a Duo because the text and links would be quite small to navigate with a finger and most probably it would by default get the website optimised for iPad/tablet view.
As for the bigger keyboard, I have tried that in iPad mini. It’s horrible. Because the distance between the keys is too far in that case and it actually slows down your typing. I can imagine the same in Duo when you use one half of it as the full keyboard
You can do a productivity task where you can't just have a MacBook Neo out.
Like what? Do you do your office or schools work in your phones?
You can’t carry a neo in your pocket or use it on the bus
But that’s what I’m curious about, like what productive tasks do you do on a bus? I usually read something or scroll instagram and for neither of tasks I need a bigger screen
It’s much nicer to use terminal on larger screens.
I know that, but how many people use terminals on their phones?
I do, don’t know about others.
Nice! I like this answer. If I was someone who worked on the go more often I could probably see the appeal.
https://www.clicks.tech/ca/powerkeyboard
That's a very neat product.
I was hoping I didn't. But after watching the event, I kinda do.
I have to hand it to them, they added some really nice touches to the OS for the new form factor. Seems almost like the best of an iPhone and a iPad Mini.
Still not sure I want something that bulky, and maybe I'll wait a few months to see the reviews and how the hinge and screen fold hold up. But tempted for sure...
Why were you hoping you didn't?
I'm the sort of person to absentmindedly flex a metal fork enough times it snaps, so it's definitely not for me.
Probably, but do enough people want it? The iPhone SE and the mini was discontinued do to "poor" sales, meaning poor for an iPhone. I'm interested to see if Apple will stop selling the Duo if it only sells at the same rate as the SE.
I don't know who this is for and can't figure out what problem this solves. It's cool, but it's not $2800 cool (yes, it's $800 more expensive in some markets). For that price is has to do more than fold in half, maybe fold into a swan of something.
They just have to make it appealing enough, a loooot of people buy ipads because they're cool and they project themselves into all these fancy advertised situations, 90% of the time it ends up gathering dust or being used 15 min on a sunday morning while you're too lazy to get out of bed.
Most people I know who use iPads do so because a phone is too small to see or type on, but an actual computer/laptop is too complicated and intimidating to use.
From hunting mammoths to being intimidated by inanimate slabs of metal and glass, what a time to be alive
Yea. If there is one thing I learned over the years is that people always prefer a bigger screen, as long as it is still reasonable to hold.
This is especially true in the younger generation where many of them don’t own a computer. They do everything on their phones or iPads.
Are you suggesting Apple made a foldable phone without doing any market research on demand?
Apple isn't infallible. See AVP.
I can't think of an application outside of travel or long commutes on a train where I would use this. For a daily driver its too big to fit into a pants pocket and the price tag is TGH.
Yes I'm quite interested in a foldable from Apple. Have been since I got an 7" Acer Android tablet ~13 years ago and was annoyed at the necessity of carrying 2 devices.
No, for that money I can buy an iPhone and an iPad. Just checked, iPhone 17 256gb plus an iPad 13inch 256gb is about 100 euros cheaper than the cheapest iPhone duo.
A lot of people own Samsung foldable phones? They’re especially popular in China and South Korea
Are you offering?
I'm just reaching the age where I need reading glasses late in the day, and so in a couple years when I'm out of school and employed again, this is starting to look like the best option in the Kindle / Tablet space: it isn't just a flat pane of glass and it's no bigger than a Nintendo DS, so it will fit on my crowded surfaces and in my purse.
Do I want it? Ehhhh. I hate heavy objects. I stopped buying the Pro line because the weight just kept increasing. So I will probably not particularly enjoy that mass of batteries dragging on the purse strap. But I enjoy reading glasses less and I just don't want an unwieldy bigscreen that I can't hold easily like the iPhone Air.
I definitely didn't want one 30 minutes ago, but now that I've seen it the idea of a phone that can be smaller in the pocket but unfold to give a large screen is pretty darn appealing. Appealing enough to pay 50% more for it? Eh... probably not.
I do.
It’s not if anyone wants it or not. There’s always some melon who does. It’s more will they sell enough to break even on it.
They were very evasive on what the inner screen was made of. I'm going to assume its the same plastic all the other folding phones are made of.
Evasive? They literally discussed the layers of materials, with the outer being a polymer.
They went in pretty extensive detail for the internal parts of the folding screen?
They talked for several minutes on the materials and engineering that went into the screen and how it wasn't "the same plastic all the other folding phones are made of"
Modern foldables use ultra-thin glass (UTG). There’s a factory-installed screen protector layer on top which can make it feel plasticy.
Doesn't removing the "screen protector" destroy the pixels? Or was that just some early Samsungs? (that made an important built-in layer look like a screen protector)
Yea, it’s not supposed to be removed.
I was hopeful that the Apple foldable would use glass as the top layer so it doesn't get scratched. Plastic does not inspire confidence; no coating can actually protect it from damage because it can still simply get plastically squished.
They never mentioned wireless charging so I assume there's none?
What happened to faceid and island? Is this actually just a straight up Huawei clone.
This is really nice for people who read books and want to ditch carrying around a mini tablet or e-reader, I just wish it had the camera array of the iPhone Pros.
I saw it reported that it has a crease. personally I liked the surface duo better with it's 2 seperate screens.
Can I pay $1,000 and just take one of the smaller halves?
I would love that too. Dual-sided screen, 6mm thick.
Think I'll just wait for the rumored iPhone Air 2. iPhone Air is for sure the best phone I've ever owned, the battery life doesn't bother me but the camera isn't ideal at all. Duo looks cool but I'm not sure I need a device that will encourage me to "play" on my phone more than I already shouldn't.
I'm a bit biased here, but I feel like the more form factors we introduce, the worse apps are going to get as developers now have to account for it (and they won't, eg YouTube on ipad). Do people actually like foldable phones enough?
I don't see the appeal of foldables personally but the way the screen animates during folding/unfolding is a very clever touch
The issue with this form factor is that the on-screen keyboard will take up half the screen on landscape with the phone open.
Typing in portrait should be very nice, however.
iPhone Duo is more like iPad Pocket. Touch ID + Apple Pencil Support coming later this year. It looks physically uncomfortable to hold.
I was really hoping they were going to slap an Apple Watch screen on the back of an iPhone Air and fold that in half.
I'll be waiting for an iPhone Duo Mini, I guess.
i'll be waiting right alongside. when i fold the phone i want it to be very small and preferably thin as possible. when i have the phone to my ear during a call i want it to be light as possible too. this is what lead me to get an early rehash of the razr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Razr_(2020) but even that phone requires hand repositioning to reach the top of the screen when open. the 'chin' part allows it to be thinner but alas i wish it were thinner still, especially folded in a pocket. 6 years of use and i dont want a bigger phone, i want a smaller foldable but the product lines are doing the opposite!
i hope apple give a duo mini a serious try. apple, the market segment might be smaller but like a restaurant that includes special dietary needs for one person, that brings the whole family along for dinner!
I cannot believe that the central crease could disappear altogether!
Suspiciously could not see reviews of it yet - usually bloggers like mkbhd get their hands on early, and they release the reviews moment the embargo is off, usually when live event is over. This time nothing.
It doesn't come out until October. There won't be anything to review until then.
That's not true, the journalists are hands on with it right now.
Here's a live stream of the popular obnoxious streamer, he held it a few minutes ago (also talked with MKBHD).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CPAtEmHAio
A terminal app would be cool where the bottom half is a decent keyboard with arrow/pg keys
I guess it's not cool but if i had a fold phone I'd much prefer it be like the nintendo DS with 2 separate screens (taking up the whole space though). If they can make it foldable they should be able to have 2 screens without a bezel
The phone shows a date of April 1 in several screenshots. I would guess that is to pretend that the images were for an april fools joke in case they leaked?
You know Steve Jobs would have said it's 2x too thick, 2x too big and way too asymmetrical
What's the value of using one of these phones running iOS? iOS is great for media consumption and not so much for productivity... so I don't understand very well the use cases... apart from watching Netflix I guess?
iOS runs plenty of productivity software, many which run great on larger screen devices like this or iPads. What does "productivity" mean to you? Or is it just terminals and coding?
I might be a weirdo, but even the mail client on iOS has serious deficiencies. Just getting an email with a zip attachment where I have to edit / sign a document with a certificate / something, rezip and send back is a hell in iOS, while it simply feels natural in Android.
That is a huge market that they are ignoring.
Slightly better for documents and spreadsheets? Although I have a laptop for those, so... I guess I'm not the target audience.
Most people aren’t doing productivity. They’re watching videos and playing games. This would mean I don’t need my iPad on flights or when travelling. And when I’m travelling I don’t need to be doing productive things.
I used to be one of those people that would countdown the hours to Apple's launch events and tune in for the live stream. I was never someone who updated my iPhone every year, but I _did_ update my iPhone every two years.
Now, I can't even remember what version iPhone I have. I just remember that I bought it after my last one stopped working (after maybe 5 or 6 years of having it). I won't lie: part of the reason is that I'm just getting older and care less about these things.
But a bigger part is that new tech just isn't fun anymore...
I _hate_ using my current iPhone for surfing the web... because I can't run the full suite of ad-blocking software that I run on my computer (Firefox + uBlock, sponsor block; Little Snitch with tons of block lists). I hate that all that ad-blocking software is necessary... but that's a totally different rant.
I _hate_ that I'm being asked to spend $2000 on a device that will, by default, surveil me 24x7. I can spend HOURS trying to disable every feature designed to track me... and still not be certain that somewhere in the TOS that I've still given permission for them to vacuum up SOME piece of information about me.
And I _hate_ that Apple is now an ad company.
And yes, I acknowledge that with respect to privacy, Apple is STILL the less bad choice (compared to Android).
And yes, I acknowledge that there are other options. In fact, when this iPhone dies, I plan on getting a Pixel and putting GrapheneOS on it.
I guess what I'm saying is... I hope that there are more people like me out there... who are sick of paying thousands of dollars for devices that, instead of serving me, serve those who want to collect my information so they can sell me stuff.
edit: "because I can't" instead of "because can't"
looks nice, but if i still can't use terminal or closer to native cli, the pixel fold 10 with termux is still the right device for on-the-go development. termius is ok, but with termux i can run emacs on the pixel.
This made history because Apple never copied Microsoft before. https://news.microsoft.com/surfaceduo/
Always loved the Surface Duo. I really liked the separation of the screens too; felt like dual monitors vs. ultrawide. It also forced the technology to focus the valueprop on multitasking versus more immersive/more bigger/more better. I'm curious about the iPhonr Duo; I have not been a huge fan of iPadOS or iOS, the former making me often wish for a macOS experience and the later having felt slower and less responsive over time (mostly due to animation speeds/aesthetic choices rather than a hardware defect).
They made a better version of a Microsoft product, this seems like par for the course.
Why not make it have equal corners. This forced rounded edges is insane. The lack of symmetry is absolutely bad design
How do you put a case on a foldable phone? Or do you not put one on, rely on the ceramic to protect the screen, and pay for Apple Care for cheap replacement screens?
It’s in the article: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2026/09/apple-unveils-...
Thanks, I missed it on the event presentation.
They had two. One it appears to snap on magnetically, I think the other might have had too small hinges on it, but I didn’t look very hard, and it wasn’t on screen long.
The weight is interesting: 8.96 ounces (254 grams).
Not much more than the 18 pro max - 8.78 ounces (249 grams). The Duo sure looks chonky, but that's not the end of the world.
Well "kid cue" is pretty uncomfortable for some reason
Agreed. Disturbing.
I don't have kids -- what's wrong with this feature?
It's a vague ick.
Both parent and child are now mediating their experience through technology with the parent blaring recognizable intellectual property at the child to psychologically manipulate them into a better photo.
I mean, I remember having a guy squeak a rubber ducky at me when we took family photos... that part isn't new. What difference does it make that it's recognizable IP? It's Snoopy. Kids like Snoopy.
I can't wait to see how bad the hinge does with ifixit.
It looks very useful with all the software integrations. Now the price tag however... Without financing it would be hard for majority of buyers to justify.
Doesn’t almost everyone finance their phone anyway? You pay a carrier x a month and get a phone and service for a few years. Maybe they’ll push the plan out from 2 years standard to 3 so it’s just as affordable for people?
TouchID only is an interesting choice, very interested in the 2nd iteration after we see the crease and hinge wear after a few thousand actuations.
If I had a choice of only Touch ID or Face ID, but not both, I would take Touch ID every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Are the on screen controls fixed to the right ?
The curved right side makes me think so, but it sound like a pain for people using their phone left hand dominantly.
The completely non-optional case situation for this is going to be a nightmare
how do i put the inevitable military-grade case on it so when I bounces it off the ground it wont smash?
Oh gosh, Phone costs $2K to $3K now!
So excited to see if the "apple adoption delay" holds true here. Like more durability and actual long term software support.
Not sure if this new reimagining of the Apple Vision Pro is going to make it a hit.
These scroll down websites are so bad on desktop.
Can’t wait until my colleague who DMed me mid presentation to get one and break it like he did with his two Samsung ones.
only 5 years or so late? How is this different then Samsungs foldable?
Price is just pure insanity.
50% more than the Z Fold 8, and still several hundred dollars more than the Z Fold 8 Ultra.
Who is this actually for? It's not for the average consumer that's for sure.
A first gen product like this is for early adopters and wealthy individuals who status seek
I am left-handed (as is 1 in 10?), new UI really makes it unusable: dock and buttons are at the right side instead of being at the bottom.
And given the selfie camera position, I really doubt there is an accessibility setting to mirror the UI.
It looks neat but I’m confused by the layout. It has a smaller screen on the “outside” and then a big foldable double screen on the “inside.” Why? Why not wrap around the outside? You’d get to use all of the screen real estate at once, and the fold would be around a larger radius.
I’m sure there’s a good reason but what is it?
From a mechanical perspective, a screen around the outside would create a wrinkle rather than a crease when opened, and that wrinkle would be substantial. The phone would need some sliding/rolling mechanism to pull the screen flat. Possibly doable, but finicky and fragile. Especially considering elements like cameras, touch ID, etc.
From an experience perspective, I imagine it's just more satisfying to open it like a book. A screen on the outside would mean the inside is almost empty, just utilities like camera lenses.
That design was explored years ago with earlier foldables. The market consolidated on the two screen design pretty early.
not entirely sure why, but i’d guess there were durability concerns with the screen wrapping around the edge. might have also felt weird to hold. potentially the crease would be worse in unfolded mode as well.
My guess is the reason is, "how much screen would a user be willing to lose to the rear cameras?"
I think I'm just getting old because I no longer see the appeal nor do I understand the hype of new phones. It bends? Wow a useless gimmick for 3000$, just what I need.
I'm sure someone will love it, but it won't be me.
Huh, I kinda like the form factor of the folded Duo...don't even need to unfold it...
Huh, I kinda like the form factor of the folded Duo...don't even need to unfold it...
I wonder if the side bar controls can be moved to the left side. I always hold my phone using my left hand.
A stand-alone e-ink e-book reader in this form factor would be amazing.
I feel like they should have started with a folding iPad.
I’d like a comeback of the live events at some point. Especially now that there is a new CEO.
They are addicted to teleprompters. Steve Jobs didn't use them.
Google and Samsung have been at this for years. Nothing here is actual innovation, is it?
It's a shame there isn't the kind of competition in the US when it comes to mobile phones as there is in China. Many HN users would likely never buy a Chinese OEM device, but if you look at the variety of devices offered by Chinese brands, they're trying all sorts of approaches. Kind of like their EV market. Meanwhile, your choices in the US are Apple, Samsung, Motorola, Google, and that's pretty much it. I wouldn't say there's a ton of innovation between them...kind of like the large US automakers.
Depends on if it starts to get a crease after using it a while. I tend to assume that this is why Apple chose not to adopt folding screens as quickly as Android phones did.
I mean that is the business. These companies are in the business of ordering parts from components vendors and leasing floor space to assemble them after all. Folding screen is probably something you can order from many companies in shenzen at scale right now (or whichever chinese city is the "cell phone screen" hub, might not be shenzen).
Just like the first iPod and iPhone.
What iPods could make a phone call and browse the Web in 2007 that weren't made by Apple?
This looks like an IPAD in your hands. looks great <3
Absolutely none of the announcements today, make me want to go out and get something. I am giving the Duo a year or two, to work out the bugs, and get more capability. The extra screen space isn't really interesting to me.
The only ones I might consider, are the new base AirPods. I have never really warmed to the Pros (I have two pairs, but like the regular ones better).
I am looking forward to iOS27. I'm interested in seeing how the simulator presents the Duo.
Folded phones are the essence of “just because you can doesn’t mean you should”
Sandy ant video intro is good. Love the whimsical fun music, whatever it is.
isgood
Steve Jobs would have hated it
It makes the worst part of the iphone: text entry, even worse. I love the idea of a more capable PDA, but typing is more important than ever and it must be improved. Keyboards need to be a focus. Use eye tracking, use finger tracking, add physical buttons, just try something. Also, please fix the swiped keyboard software. It's unbearable. Admit it, fix it, quickly please.
Was there a reference to using AI to decide where to place the hinges?
It's about finding best matching hinges and phone frames.
Yes I thought that was weird and forced.
Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave at this atrocious design. Apple is lost without his vision.
The hard corners when its folded is a huge design breaker. The whole thing is THICK when folded. Jobs only added the bezel because it competed with the cases wrapped on phones. I don't see how any case will work on this behemoth.
I've seen what happens to the fold crease after a year, its a bit noticeable. It will degrade the prestigious quality of the brand.
Lastly, this copies all other fold phones. I'm surprised is all.
What is still missing is non foldable passport format. It is just great fit one hand operation
Looks very similar to Samsung z fold
I'm interested to see what cases for this will look like.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/mkr94zm/a/iphone-duo-case...
https://www.spigen.com/collections/iphone-duo-cases
I am buying this.
Been using a galaxy fold for years now. This is the future.
What's your take on the aspect ratio question?
It looks very wide in the unfolded configuration.
Honestly don't see the appeal of foldable phones. I don't use my phone a lot, but the form factor even as a small tablet is not something useful for my phone use-cases.
When I'm at home, I can just use my iPad. When I'm on the road, I don't need to be watching content on a slightly larger screen.
I get that I'm not the target audience, but it's still confusing to me why people like foldable phones.
I know right. I don’t get it either. How could other people have different preferences?
First iPhone I've actually wanted in a long time.
I'm so happy I stopped caring about new phones about five years ago, since then I've spent about $200 on phones – for a used pixel 8 that I installed GrapheneOS on.
Consumerism is mad.
Only 5 years ago? I feel like they stopped getting interesting and started getting increasingly worse like 5 years in. I'm still pissed off about the headphone jack.
5s/SE1 is still peak iPhone for me. I pull that thing out of the drawer every now and then and just marvel and the size and weight and how it is barely noticeable in my pocket even compared to my (ginormous in comparison) SE2.
Is it thicker than iPhone pro when folded?
I want it more thinner!!
SPOILER WARNING: There is huge spoiler for Silo in this ad if anyone is watching the show. Don't view if you don't want to learn the ending to Season 1.
A bigger screen is nice and all, but it doesn't solve the input problem. Touch inputs are just terrible compared to a keyboard with a pointing device that isn't a finger or stylus. I always thought I had a problem with the size of the screen until I tried a foldable, and that taught me that I simply hate touch inputs on any screen size.
$2000-3,200 for a phone?
My next phone is an e-ink Mudita Kompact with a hardware kill switch. I can run a service to bridge iMessage if I decide I care.
With every year since they arrived in 2005 or so and especially accelerating since 2010, smartphone capability has grown with their creepiness. The expectation that you own one has almost turned into a demand. It's a total turn off. You don't need these capabilities, life goes on without it just fine. The drawbacks for your mental health and privacy are material.
Ladies and gentlemen, unfold your planned obsolescence! Be right at the crease of the progress!
Tim Cook you sly dog!
Surprised it was not named iPhone 18 Duo.
Naming it like that would subjectively tie them to the release schedule of the main Iphone line, while I imagine such a niche device will have a much slower schedule between new versions. If that is the case, they would want to continue selling this device alongside the Iphone 19 (and maybe 20, or even 21) without the name implying it is an old model.
Only duo thousand dollars
Great branding by the new CEO
f*ck you if you’re left-handed like me
Who even wants this?
It's particularly funny that you posted this after literally 1000+ comments on this thread, many of whom are responding to this positively.
This will sell great.
John Ternus as CEO seems to be good.
Has anyone lived with a foldable phone for a while? I just can't believe that the actuated element isnt going to end up a bundle of dead pixels.
I'm curious how large the market for this will be. I am a big guy and the Pro Max models are already huge in my pocket. How many people are really going to want a phone that is this big and bulky in their pockets? Will we see a rise in cargo pants?
This defeats the purpose. Even when folded it is too large! Fail.
Think different :-D
will buy it for the kid cue feature alone; what a neat idea. i mainly use my iphone for reading books and taking pictures of my kids so the format will be perfect for me.
Reading might be the one use-case for a foldable phone when you're on the go. Even so, a basic Kindle fits in a purse / fanny-pack just fine and is much more comfortable on the eyes.
agreed about the kindle being more comfortable, but, the best reading device (+ camera) is one you always have on you.
$1999
For comparison, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold is ~$1700.
It's good to see Apple is taking the fold transition seriously. I have a Z Fold, and Samsung elegantly handles the app transition from fold to unfold by force closing and restarting the app for you, even if you fold it just a little. :D
I would like to buy just the back half please. I’m not even joking. I couldn’t find the exact dimensions but at 5.4” diagonal, that would make it even easier to use one handed than the mini
I was thinking it would be priced cheaper than an 18 pro and an ipad mini
$2K is quite a lot.
A $2000 phone. Read the room, Apple. Fuck off.
Hey Siri, what is "jumping the shark"?
wo,good
9oz
You're going to look very silly taking a call on that.
Total e-waste product.
Everyone knows how badly these things break with moderate use. You’re basically buying with the expectation you’ll have to replace it.
Boring company, lost vision.
Boooring. Apple stopped innovating. They just copy and integrate new things into their phones. Steve Jobs is turning in his grave.
Does this hand look normal?
https://store.storeimages.cdn-apple.com/1/as-images.apple.co...
Whats the point of big screen when we can't even install the app we want. Sideloading works for 7 days and there is artificial limitation of 7-8 App Ids which sucks.
In practice, it'll just be for TikTok (or other shorts) permanently on one side, right?
I guess people spend more money than even this on other addictions
What I am most interested in is what the fold line looks like and I guess we won’t know until we start getting YouTube reviews.
If there was an iPhone like a pen in form factor (like nokia 7280) I would buy it in a heartbeat.
I don't think the price is that crazy considering how often you use your phone
What other item do you own that you spend so many hours using
Not available in US: https://consumer.huawei.com/my/phones/mate-xt-ultimate-desig...
Seems like a big engineering feat by Apple, but for real, who asked for this?
Edit: Is there that many demand for a foldable iPhone that justifies Apple making such engineering investment?
I think you're right. We're at the point where Apple is sort of out of steam in terms of hardware and software and their products are mature and the company has become more risk averse. They need gimmicks to get people to upgrade and I'm sure we will see more attempts like this in the future. These sorts of devices have limited use cases, like people who are on the road a lot for work or leisure, and of course this appeals to tech enthusiasts or the vanity tech crowd.
It'll be a nice device for some, but I think we're at the stage where device upgrades are no longer going to be a yearly or even biennial thing with all things considered.
Everyone in my family wants one... assuming it works well. We spend a lot of time on our phones, and a lot watching video. This seems like the ideal device for that.
I have no doubts this device will be in demand and sell a ton of units
But what are we even doing? $2000 for a device to watch videos on, to replace the $1200 device you watched videos on last year.
I guess I’m lamenting the fact that none of this amazing technology is actually doing much for us any more. It wasn’t that long ago that every year we would get new devices that actually changed how we did our day-to-day
I think there's plenty of interest, Samsung, Pixel and Motorola are just some of the companies with multiple generations of foldables. Besides enthusiasts, the type of person that might want an iPhone duo is someone that doesn't really use a laptop. The utility of a tablet for media consumption and light productivity with a small footprint is real thing.
The problems besides price (which are still insane) until now where:
- Materials not catching up, things like the older creases, dust ingress, etc.
- Software in Android being hit or miss, specially on with third parties. Apple has the muscle to make apps compatible with the form factor.
- The "standard" foldable aspect ratio sucking ass, the only major exceptions being the Surface Duo, the original Pixel Fold and the recent Galaxy Fold. Passport format is simply better.
>Imagine if Apple dedicated this huge engineering effort onto existing products.
For what? Slab phones are practically solved, the only things that might make a normal iPhone better besides incrementally better camera, battery and processors are not Apple approved. No expandable storage or cheap battery replacements for you. The only place for real advancemnt will be foldables for a while.
Everybody since the Galaxy Fold?
meet more people man
I don't see the appeal of this or the Phone 18 for the matter. I have an (old) iPhone 15 Pro that just works so the upgrade just doesnt seem worth it.
Also I think it would be quite bulky to carry the Duo in a pocket all day long.
I'm looking forward to doing code review on the go on a phone like this! Once a GrapheneOS-compatible brand copies it, that is.
Watching my iOS colleagues tear their hair out with SwiftUI's lack of proper support of foldables for the next... Two years about will be highly entertaining.
bow howdy imma get one for me and the wife. I'm sold.
gonna be expensive but this is a first gen product I could see a ton of use cases for me with.
I want it, but for $2,000, I want to be able to do so much more.
App developers gonna have extra work
No SIM slot. Seems like Apple is only thinking of the US market. Will not be getting the Duo as I will not be able to browse the web outside my home.
Edit: Rate limited so can't reply to the comments. I live in Spain, can't switch to eSIM. I know that the US has 100% integration of eSIM across all providers but outside the US it's not that great. I use eSIM and SIM a lot, have lots of cards and subscriptions. For my main subscription I can't switch to eSIM (yet).
Where do you live that eSIM isn't an option?
Don't your country telcos have esims?
Even mainstream operators in my country have those these days, so you can sign up online without getting to a shop.
Why do you think eSIM is a US only thing? Common in Western Europe and Japan and South Korea and Mexico and Canada and Australia and Thailand as well. China and India are the big outliers, but that can change.
Steve Jobs would roll in his grave due to lack of symmetry in this.
Actually I think he would appreciate the beauty in using 1:1.4, the same as metric paper, to maintain the ratio.
Yeah. It's more Jony Ive who will be rolling in his Bentley.
Having watched the original iPhone event live, bringing the pencil to the iphone would make him roll over in his grave.
The original admonition was against requiring a stylus, not enabling one.
Would probably push the engineers to deliver three-way foldables like the Huawei Mate XT from two years ago. The two-way folding phones are wasting a screen and will go down in history as an abomination. The weird 1:1.4 width:height ratio wouldn't be necessary if you could 3x the screen size instead of only 2x. At 3x, the ratio could be 1:1.73 folded, giving you 3:1.73 unfolded (which equals 1.73:1). 1.73 is much closer to 16:9 (1.77) than 1.4 is.
This is the kind of product the make all out lives better. I mean the pure entertainment value it will bring being able to watch eager Apple fan bois new iPhone Duo screen crack, or the hinges start grinding, or ...
Looking forward to reviews after a few months of use. So far all the foldables I've seen get destroyed quite fast.
They went over their multi-layer design to give it strength and flexibility, and noted over 100 components in the hinge alone. I'll be looking out for JerryRigEverything on YouTube to see how tough it really is!
JerryRigEverything won't tell you how easily the hinge gunks up or cruft gets stuck in places it's not supposed to be or how quickly crease marks show up and how bad they are.
While Apple certainly looked at the competitors to see what problems they had, it's far from a given that Apple has managed to actually solve the durability issues, either, much less on their first attempt.
The presentation went into extra detail about durability w/ a titanium construction, and the iPhone Air was indeed super durable with it. The hinge at-the-least looks like it could survive the dust test.
It's a claim in a marketing presentation though.
Apple also touts ultra durable screens in their presentation and people still shatter them regularly.
"ultra durable" does not mean "indestructible."
Apple has most likely stress tested its engineers to stress test this phone
> So far all the foldables I've seen get destroyed quite fast.
I doubt you did see any from the last few years.
No SIM slot. So I have to carry a mobile hotspot if I want to browse the internet outside my home.
It’s like Apple forgets there is a world outside the US where eSIM is not a thing.
No, they just don’t care. The TAM in countries that don’t support eSIM for $2500+ phones is probably a rounding error.
C2 doesn't support physical SIMs. eSIM only. Honestly, I can go either way. Physical SIMs are nice but I love the convenience of eSIM and can see people being frustrated over its removal.
I use both around six SIM and eSIM cards but my main phone subscription needs a physical SIM card so I will not be getting the Duo.
Edit: Reply to nomel as I am rate limited
Cheaper than roaming cost. I have eSIMs for countries I frequently visit.
This is Europe. I can do a short walk and cross multiple countries borders. It's nice to have coverage everywhere. I just toggle my eSIMs for that. When I'm out on a boat trip and I pick up a Moroccan signal from across the Strait of Gibraltar I turn on my Moroccan eSIM so I'm not paying €2 per megabyte in roaming cost. When I get cheap gas in Gibraltar I switch on my Gibraltar eSIM and turn off roaming on my main line. When I cross into Portugal I switch to a Spanish provider since they give 15 gigabytes of roaming for free.
As someone who has only ever had one, what's the use of six?
Apple has been doing eSIM for something like 4 years now.
On the international market iPhones have had SIM slots.
Ah. about 30 seconds ago they mentioned in the (still ongoing) keynote they said it was removed to recoup space for internals. I recall the 3.5mm jack removal being motivated along similar lines. I wonder, assuming the space where the SIM slot would've gone was filled with increased battery size, what that delta would in duration. I'm from the US, cursory reading about global eSIM adoption surprised me (only 30% and most of that 30% is in the US vs. my assumption of >50%). What prevents adoption elsewhere? Consumer demand for swapping? Curious to hear your POV on it.
eSIMs give a lot of control back to the carrier. My carrier does not allow transferring eSIMs between phones, but I can trivially move their physical SIM card.
Where is eSIM not a thing?
Currently living in Spain and I’m not able to switch to eSIM on my current plan.
That sounds like typical ISP bullshit where they try to move you on a new plan that’s worse for you by annoying you with minor inconveniences.
unleashes unparallel, unrivaled, totally new, amazing, exciting new ways of interacting with the MOST POW3RFUL!!!!!
then all the photos either what's on the inside it's repeated whats on the outside,
or... and hold your breath... you can show on one side the calendar and on the other side the clock... now you can breath...
Meh, another 2 or 3$k gadget that does the same as the previous one?
$2,000 for a fucking phone. We really have collectively lost the plot.
Am I the only one not interested in a folding phone?
cool. now can we please get a 32 inch iMac next?
“The largest iPhone display ever”
Gosh I hate that idiotic marketing.
Honestly not even touching on what the thing actually costs on its own, I don’t like the idea of signaling to people so clearly that I had 2k +tax to spend on a cell phone
I’m not always in the best areas so this def comes up for me personally
Outside of that I think I’d give this a shot
See also: Microsoft Surface Duo https://news.microsoft.com/surfaceduo/?msockid=23b070bbb5b76...
Can Apple do anything original?
$2000 and they can’t give you the full display? What stupid design document from 1985 says people want the corners of their screen cut off?
I'm at a loss why anyone thought this asymmetrical design looks good.
2300Euros in Germany. That’s a hard pass.
$2000 are they serious?
Lol $2K. Fuck that.
shit, I'd take this form factor but with a physical keyboard.
I'm still waiting for Apple to rediscover the Psion 3a or 5 format and Applefi it. when they do, I'm in.
I'm really happy about this new form factor. Things were becoming too conformist where everyone needed to adopt the lowest common denominator in order to fit in. It seemed like anything different was met with significantly more skepticism than curiosity. I embrace informed skepticism but most of it is ignorant. I think people will still be skeptical about the foldable iPhone but mainly out of ignorance of this form factor.
This phone will suck for the concern trolls who are best described as deeply conservative but will try their best pointing out concerns while masquerading as whatever will convince people.
Another status symbol has been created.
But once again as I said before [0][1], don't buy the first version of an Apple product.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23638202
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26361985
Wait a sec, you're quoting yourself for proof but you were pretty much objectively wrong in that case? HN unanimously agrees that the M1 was the biggest jump in capabilities and has had many many years of usability since launch.
Except what they didn't tell you was that the software was not optimized and did not work correctly for the M1 and you had to wait it to be ready; especially in the case for developers.
That means, users (especially pro users / developers) lost months of productivity and had to wait for a year for the software to catch up with the hardware.
In that time-frame, you might as well have waited and bought an M2 or above. Nice try though.
As an early adopter there was zero software I used previously that I couldn't run, and I believe most were in a similar boat
So brave of Apple to make the world's first foldable phone
I suspect I would get greater value by simply duct-taping two iPhones together into a fold.
The two batteries inside the Duo will allow longer usage.
from the Duo page:
- Up to 31 hours video playback when using the inner display
- Up to 44 hours video playback when using the outer display
You can run one iphone at a time and lap the duo. 64gb iphone SE is going for $140 at best buy right now. I could tape up 10 of them into a jacobs ladder then I'd have 640gb of storage and maybe 10x the battery life of the duo, and money to spare for future expansion iphones.
I was a bit disappointed in these numbers because, despite having two batteries and the outer display being smaller, the Duo still has 1 less hour of video playback on the outer display than the iPhone 18 Pro Max.
I’ll not buy a new iPhone until they release a new mini. No, this duo is not worth it.
Ugh; folding screens are so failure prone these things just exacerbate e-waste problems
Would rather ditch my phone size thing and be able to pair a cellular Watch to iPad Mini size thing that also has "50% more screen" than iPhone Max
Gen AI could take telemetry like GPS from Watch and recreate most adventures without need of all the pictures; I don't care if every little thing like a day hike is captured "for real"
Would still hire a photographer for actual meaningful moments like weddings and graduations
What an amazingly soulless way to think
Oh noes; from the other side of an obvious Gulf of Information Assymetry an internet random unaware I am fluent on 3 musical instruments, have won awards for poetry, charcoal drawings and grow 1/4-1/3 of my vegetables each year... believes I have no soul
If you're only capable of reducing the entire comment to a single piece of it you would be wise to sit and meditate on comments first rather than vomit copy pasta opinions; the whole knee jerk copy pasta approach to social media discourse is soulless in its own way
Worse in most ways than every other iPhone, more expensive, gets permanently (sometimes deathly) damaged by fingernails, keys, sand, plastic and literally anything that's harder than about a fingernail. All the supposedly unique usecases can be resolved by a $1 kickstand, a $50 speaker, or a $500 iPad plus a non-foldable phone. You can get a whole MacBook too. So, no thanks.
This is neat but feels like an uninspired shot in the dark. Apple’s been turning from industry leading to people pleasing in recent years. Not that its a bad thing entirely, but something is lost.