Apple has launched the iPhone Duo, its first foldable phone and the first iPhone with two screens. John Ternus introduced it at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino tonight, in his first keynote since becoming chief executive on 1 September. It is a global launch that runs the same reimagined version of iOS everywhere, and it starts at $1,999 for 256GB with storage up to 2TB. The name and the price both leaked hours earlier, in a Bloomberg report we previewed alongside the rest of tonight’s line-up. Apple confirmed both on stage.
iPhone Reimagined
The Duo folds like a book into a 5.4-inch cover screen, and opens to a 7.6-inch inner display, which Apple calls the largest iPhone display it has made. Apple also calls it the thinnest iPhone ever. The frame is grade 5 titanium, the front is Ceramic Shield 2 and the back is Ceramic Shield.
The cover screen has asymmetrical bezels, thinner on one side than the other, the layout Xiaomi has used on its own foldables. The inner screen has an under-display FaceTime camera, so there is no cut-out on the panel you unfold to. The outer screen keeps a visible Center Stage front camera. The displays use a nano-texture finish, the matte anti-glare treatment Apple has so far kept to the Pro Display XDR and some iPads.
Biometrics are Touch ID, not Face ID, which is the trade we argued last week is a bad one at this price. The crease is barely visible in Apple’s demos, and the hinge got a lot of stage time.
Inside:
- the A20 Pro,
- a vapour chamber for cooling,
- and Apple’s C2 modem with mmWave 5G.
Apple quotes 31 hours of video playback on the inner display, and 24 hours with both screens in use.
The rear cameras are
- a 48-megapixel Dual Fusion: no variable aperture
- 12-megapixel 2x telephoto camera
Video goes to 4K at 120fps, and time-lapse records in 4K Dolby Vision. Photographic Styles adds texture control.
For this reimagined iOS experience, there’s a whole new navigation system that takes advantage of the sides of the screen. There’s also new Standby approach where you place the phone and it goes on standby mode. This isn’t iPadOS on a phone. It is iOS rebuilt for the shape, with proper side-by-side multitasking and even Apple Pencil support.
eSim only
The Duo is eSIM only in every market. There is no physical slot.
We have documented Safaricom eSIM problems on iPhones for over two years: the phantom “Your SIM sent a text message” pop-up, delayed USSD, M-PESA STK prompts that never appear at the till. Safaricom’s own official fix, when we asked, was to go back to a physical SIM. On the Duo you cannot.
At 129.45 shillings to the dollar, $1,999 is about KES 259,000 before shipping, duty and VAT. VAT at 16% alone puts it past KES 300,000. Apple does not sell officially in Kenya, so the shop figure depends on importers.
Preorders open on Friday, October 16th. The device will be available from Friday, October 23rd. U.S.
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