Apple has finally launched the iPhone Duo, which it describes as an iPhone unlike any it has made before. But that is more true than even it initially appears.
There’s the obvious difference: the iPhone Duo folds in half, unlike any other Apple device before it. There’s the less obvious things that implies: it is the first Apple device with two main screens, one of which is bendy.
But there’s plenty of things besides those that are different in Apple’s iPhone Duo, which represents the biggest redesign of an iPhone since the original was released almost 20 years ago. Beyond that foldable screen – and the complex hinge, innovative display and other changes required to allow it – the iPhone Duo is a device unlike the rest of Apple’s line-up, in a whole host of other ways.
Here are 11 main ways that Apple’s new phone is different from the rest of its products, beyond the obvious.
Inside display
Yes – to get it out of the way – the display bends. But that screen is unusual in a host of other ways, too.
The first is that it's the largest iPhone display ever made by some distance. The iPhone 18 Pro Max's screen is 6.9 inches, compared with 7.6 inches on the internal display.
The second is that that it features a nano-texture finish that gives it a matte look, and helps keep reflections away. (It also, helpfully, obscures any crease or bend left by the hinge.) That wouldn’t be possible on a normal iPhone, since the display would be likely to get scratched, but the bigger display is protected inside its fold.
Outside display
The display on the outside looks the same as that on other iPhones such as the Pro models. And, largely, it is: just as bright, with the same display technology.
But it is an odd shape, like a D, with two curved corners on one side and sharp ones on the other. That means that it is actually both an unusual shape and size compared with any other iPhone – something that needs to be dealt with by software, such as moving the status indicators and buttons that are usually in the corners onto the sides.
Software design
That new kind of iPhone requires a new kind of software experience. And what is perhaps most notable about the iPhone Duo when compared with other foldable Android phones that have come before it.
It’s immediately obvious when you fold open the phone – what’s shown on the outside is mirrored on the inside, bigger display, in a way that feels entirely seamless. It creates an illusion that means you almost forget that the two displays are actually separate.
And it continues as you start to use apps between the two displays. You can shut the iPhone Duo again and have whatever you were doing appear on the smaller display, or even half-shut it and use it like a tiny laptop, or stand it up like a tent, and use just the visible half of the bigger display.
Apple has also made a range of software changes to take advantage of that new, big display. You can use two apps alongside each other, for instance, and apps have been redesigned to fill the full screen.
Some of this looked a bit complicated in Apple’s introduction video, and the various information that it has shared since. But it is all very simple and intuitive when you actually use the phone.
Hardware design
Obviously, the iPhone Duo looks unlike any other iPhone ever made. Every other one of its devices has focused on a relatively simple idea: one screen, wrapped in metal. The exact ways that design is realised has been realised have changed over time, but they are all the same basic idea, pointing in the same basic direction.
But the iPhone Duo is notable for some other design changes, too. First and most notably, it is made out of a shiny, mirrored titanium unlike the matte look on the rest of the iPhone line-up.
That look is reminiscent of the iPhone Air, first released last year, which rumours suggest was a kind of first-run of some of the technology used in the Duo. The two are similar not only in their shiny, glassy look but also their thinness, and the way they curve around the edges.
It’s unclear whether this represents a new look for Apple’s phones that might eventually come to the rest of its devices. But for now, for instance, the Pro models are very different: they are matte, with very squared edges not shiny or soft at all.
The price
There’s another spectacular way that the iPhone Duo differs from its siblings: the cost. Rumours ahead of launch suggested that it would be the most expensive iPhone ever made – and it is.
The Duo starts at $1,999, or the same in pounds. It is theoretically possible to buy an iPhone for more than that – the iPhone 18 Pro Max at its maximum two terabyte configuration costs $2,499 – but then the equivalent iPhone Duo costs $3,199.
It is far from the most expensive of Apple’s products, and if you wanted to you can customise a Mac Studio that costs almost ten times the price. But it marks a big step-up from the rest of the iPhone line-up, even as they have been hit by their own price rises and new premium models.
Apple would no doubt argue that it also marks a big step-up in terms of costs: it has double the displays of any other iPhone, after all, and plenty of other expensive additions such as the complex hinge that allows it to reliably fold. But an iPhone unlike any other, as Apple has called it, also means a price unlike any other.
The batteries
The iPhone Duo doesn’t have one battery, but two. Each side of the phone features a separate battery, but Apple says they will work intelligently together.
For the most part, that should make the fact that the Duo has two batteries invisible: you will just see the one charging indicator, and the phone will make sure that it is using them equally to ensure that they discharge and age together. You will be able to see information on each of the batteries in the Settings app – and they can be replaced separately, for example if one broke – but it is a major change that should be largely invisible.
Battery life on the Duo is actually largely comparable to other iPhone models: Apple says that its battery will last for 31 hours of video playback on the inner display, and 44 hours on the outer one, compared with 36 hours for the iPhone 18 Pro and 30 hours for the iPhone 17. That marks a difference from the Duo’s closest sibling, the iPhone Air, which did seem to trade its thinness for some battery life, and would only last for 27 hours of video playback on the same measure.
No Face ID
Apple introduced its Face ID facial recognition technology with the iPhone X, in 2017, and since then it has come to all of its iPhones and some iPads. It has seen off a number of controversies – from early concerns that it wouldn’t actually be secure, to complaints that it didn’t work properly when people had to wear masks during the pandemic – and is now a simple and trusted way of unlocking your iPhone.
But the iPhone Duo marks a step back in that respect, and will use the Touch ID fingerprint sensor that has otherwise largely gone extinct. It will not be in a home button, like it was on the older iPhones – there isn’t a home button on the Duo for it go in, of course – but instead hidden in the lock button on the side, a design that was first introduced on the iPad.
(The company noted that you can store a number of fingerprints, so that you can unlock the phone while you hold it in different ways. And you can also unlock it with your Apple Watch, if it is nearby.)
Apple says that ensures that users get a uniform experience, however they are using the Duo. But it’s also probably mostly because it would have been difficult to fit in the technology required for facial ID while also making the phone so thin and able to fold in half.
The hidden camera
There’s something hiding in the big display: a camera. Apple hasn’t done that before – many Android phones have done it, though some manufacturers have dropped it because it degrades both the performance of the camera and the display it is hidden in.
In practice, the front-facing camera built into the big screen is a little worse than the ones found in the flat iPhones. And you can see a little circle in the display, though only really when you look for it.
The missing camera
But the more important camera change is that the iPhone Duo only has two lenses in the back, unlike the three in the less expensive iPhone Pro. It misses out on the telephoto lens from the Pro, and the main camera found in the Duo is also less good even than the one found in the base iPhone 17.
Apple Pencil
Steve Jobs was infamously dismissive of the idea of using a stylus on a phone – if you see one, he once said, you know the company making it “blew it”. That remark haunted Apple for a long time, and was thrown back at them when they launched the Apple Pencil for the iPad.
Until now, the Pencil hasn’t worked on any iPhone. But now – perhaps because of the larger display, and the fact that it is a little more like an iPad – the iPhone Duo will be the first iPhone to support the Apple Pencil, and it will work on both displays.
That won’t be available at launch, and Apple said it will come later in the year.
No action button
On the iPhone 15 Pro, Apple swapped out the ringer switch on the side for an action button that can be programmed to do pretty much anything on the phone (including switching it to mute, like the old button did). It has since made its way across Apple’s devices, and now every iPhone on sale has one.
Apart from the iPhone Duo. It has all of the other buttons – including the volume ones that sit alongside the action button on the phones that have it – but no programmable action button itself.
The iPhone Duo does include the Camera Control button that was introduced with the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro. That works as a button that opens the camera app, and can be used to take photos within it, but also lets users swipe across its surface to change settings in the camera.
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