It’s chic. It’s trendy. And if the foldable iPhone were available today, you’d buy it in a heartbeat. But every month Apple delays the iPhone Fold, you get more time to realize you’re better off without it.
Hardware lapses
Despite its $2,000 starting price, the iPhone Duo falls short of the $1,199 iPhone 18 Pro: a smaller battery, a weaker camera system, and no Face ID. That gap isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker — foldable phones typically sacrifice top-tier specs to accommodate their complex folding design. But the iPhone Duo’s shortcomings don’t stop at comparisons to the 18 Pro.
It’s also heavier and bulkier than Samsung’s foldables, making one-handed use noticeably more awkward. And with Apple still holding off on silicon-carbon battery technology, expect more frequent charging.
Software limits
The iPhone Duo limits you to two side-by-side apps, while competing foldable phones support up to three, plus extra floating windows. That restriction feels intentional. Despite its iPad-like shape, the iPhone Duo is still very much a phone — and Apple likely doesn’t want it cannibalizing iPad sales.
Someone has ported the iPhone Duo headline-making unfolding animations to the Galaxy Z Fold 8 — and for many people, that animation was easily one of the top three reasons to want the Duo in the first place.
Do you really need it?
As if a constant stream of notifications wasn’t already hollowing out our attention spans, ChatGPT and other AI chatbots are now frying our brains too. Add in twice the screen to scroll through, and mental fatigue starts settling in fast.
Samsung and other brands have sold foldable phones for years, but their market share remains a drop in the bucket. The iPhone Duo is expected to make a dent in that trend and finally normalize the foldable form factor.
Will it hold up?
Apple isn’t really an innovator anymore. It lets others take risks and work out the kinks before swooping in with a few refinements and software polish to steal the spotlight.
Still, waiting nearly a decade to enter the foldable market doesn’t inspire much confidence in the iPhone Duo. Durability was reportedly a priority, and while the device looks sturdy and carries IP68 protection, that says nothing about how it’ll hold up after years of daily use. What if Apple rushed the Duo to launch simply because it felt like it was falling behind?
And if the device isn’t as durable as promised, you could end up paying for two broken screens instead of one after a single accidental drop.
Then there’s the more cynical read: maybe Apple intentionally held back on the cameras just to sell you next year’s “upgrade.” And who knows how the crease will look after a thousand folds? There’s nothing worse than a $2,000 phone with a screen that ends up looking like smushed plastic.
For a phone that’s been years in the making, Apple’s staggered rollout only erodes confidence further.
The bottom line
With its clever software tricks and just-good-enough hardware, the iPhone Duo is unmistakably an Apple device. Die-hards will pull the trigger on launch day, but for everyone else, the charm will fade long before the first batch even ships.
This could’ve been an impulse buy — if only Apple hadn’t dragged its feet for so long.
