Apple Finally Launches the iPhone Duo - Its First Foldable iPhone Is Here

After years of rumors, Apple has finally done it. The iPhone Duo is official, bringing a foldable design to the iPhone for the first time. It opens into a huge 7.6-inch display, runs on the same A20 Pro chip as the iPhone 18 Pro and even supports the Apple Pencil.

The price? $1,999. That's painful, but not quite as crazy as some of the $2,500 rumors we heard before launch.

When closed, the iPhone Duo has a 5.4-inch Super Retina XDR display. Apple says it offers 90 percent of the screen area of the iPhone 18 Pro, but in a much smaller body.

Open it and you get a 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR display, which is 50 percent larger than the screen on the iPhone 18 Pro Max. Both displays support ProMotion, Always-On and up to 3,000 nits of outdoor brightness.

Apple is also using a nano-texture finish on the inner screen. It cuts reflections and, more importantly, is designed to make the crease much harder to see.

I need to see that one in person. Foldable displays have improved a lot, but the crease is still one of the first things I notice when I open one.

Here's something we've never had on an iPhone before. The iPhone Duo will support the USB-C Apple Pencil later this year.

You can use it on either screen for notes, sketches and marking up documents. This makes much more sense on a foldable than it ever did on a normal iPhone. Open the Duo and you basically have a small iPad in your pocket.

Apple has also brought back Touch ID, with the fingerprint reader built into the side button. There's no Face ID here, although you can also unlock the phone with an Apple Watch.

The frame is made from Grade 5 titanium, while the hinge has more than 100 parts. Apple has added Ceramic Shield to the back and Ceramic Shield 2 to the outer display. IP68 water and dust resistance is included too.

The bigger screen would be pointless without software made for it, so Apple has changed iOS 27 for the Duo.

For the first time on an iPhone, you can open two apps side by side. You can also run two windows from the same app, swap apps between each side and save pairs of apps to open again later.

Apple has changed several parts of the interface too. The Dock and other controls can move to the side to leave more room for content, while Dynamic Island has been redesigned for the folding display.

Apps including Netflix, Zoom and Slack have already been updated to use the new layout.

This is probably the part I like most about the Duo. A foldable shouldn't just give you a bigger version of the same phone interface. Apple waited a very long time to enter this market, but at least it seems to understand that the software has to change with the hardware.

The iPhone Duo uses the same A20 Pro found in the iPhone 18 Pro models. Apple says its 6-core CPU is up to 20 percent faster than the A19 Pro, while the new 7-core GPU is up to 40 percent faster and more efficient.

There's also a vapor chamber for cooling. Apple claims up to 35 percent better sustained performance than the iPhone 17 Pro, which should matter when gaming or running two apps at once.

Battery design is interesting too. There is one battery on each side of the phone, and iOS manages them as a single battery.

Apple promises up to 31 hours of video on the inner screen or 44 hours when using the outer display. Charging can reach 50 percent in around 20 minutes with a cable. MagSafe and Qi2 wireless charging are supported as well.

On the back are two cameras: a 48MP Fusion Main camera and a 48MP Fusion Ultra Wide. The main camera also provides an optical-quality 2x zoom, while the ultrawide supports macro shots.

There isn't a dedicated telephoto camera, which is disappointing on a $1,999 phone.

The folding design does add some useful camera tricks. You can use the main cameras for selfies while seeing yourself on the outer screen. Duo Preview lets the person you're photographing see the shot too.

There's even a feature called Kid Cue, which plays Peanuts animations on the outer display to make children look toward the camera. That's such a small feature, but anyone who has tried to photograph a child will understand exactly why it exists.

Video goes up to 4K at 120fps with Dolby Vision on the main camera.

The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999 with 256GB of storage. Apple will also sell 512GB, 1TB and 2TB versions.

There are only two colors: Star White and Night Sky.

Pre-orders start on October 16, with sales beginning October 23 in more than 70 countries. More markets will follow on October 30.

Two thousand dollars is still a huge amount of money for a phone. But after seeing what Apple has actually built, I understand the Duo much more than I did when it was just a rumor. The large display, real multitasking and Apple Pencil support give the foldable design a reason to exist.

Apple arrived very late to foldable phones. The good news is that the iPhone Duo doesn't feel like Apple simply folded an iPhone in half and called it a day.