It’s been a week since Apple announced the iPhone Duo, something I had been waiting for since my move into the Apple ecosystem.
For a long time, I wanted to experience owning a foldable phone. The crease, durability, and app support were among the key reasons I held myself back from getting one. I also resisted jumping back into Android because, in general, I don’t think the Android experience and app support compare well with Apple’s.
Maybe that’s an unfair comparison, given the sheer number of devices running Android. Perhaps, after eight years of foldable phones, it’s unreasonable for me to still expect apps not to be optimized well enough for foldable screens.
With the iPhone Duo, though, I believe app support will be much better. It’s Apple, after all. And, at least for now, there’s just one foldable iPhone to design for. Add Apple’s App Store review process into the mix, and I’m expecting developers to take the form factor seriously.
Apple did what it always does best — marketing
The screen-opening experience stole the show.
Even if you aren’t particularly interested in foldable phones, watching the outer display transition into the larger inner display would have piqued your curiosity. And perhaps that’s all Apple really needed: one head-turning experience that makes people walk into an Apple Store just to see it for themselves.
Worth the wait?
Apple has always taken a polish-first approach to technology. It watches what the industry is doing, learns from it, and eventually delivers a product that feels genuinely considered.
The near-creaseless design won me over.
It’s pretty much what I was hoping Apple would deliver. Of course, I’m basing that entirely on what I’ve seen in videos. I haven’t had the chance to use one in person yet.
It’s already a winner in my view
I got back to using Instagram after a four-month hiatus. I initially returned for a completely different reason, but ended up staying for the Duo memes.
When you start seeing countless memes about the different ways people could spend the money that would otherwise go toward buying an iPhone Duo, you know the phone has captured people’s attention.
And it isn’t just the memes.
There are already countless incarnations of the Duo’s screen-opening animation, including versions recreated on the Samsung Fold 8 and other Android foldables. The experience has even been recreated on MacBooks.
That, to me, is a pretty interesting sign of the impact the product has had in just a week.
Why are we talking about the price?
I’m genuinely surprised that the price of the Duo has become such a major talking point.
It’s only $100 more than the competition. In the context of the Apple tax, that doesn’t feel like a particularly significant premium to pay for what Apple is offering.
The dilemma
And yet, in just one week, I’ve gone from “I want to pre-order this” to “Maybe I should wait for the second generation.”
Not because I’ve changed my mind about the product.
If anything, the opposite.
I’m now wondering whether the first-generation Duo is good enough to justify jumping in immediately, or whether it makes more sense to wait another year and let Apple iron out the quirks that inevitably come with a first-generation product.
That’s probably the funniest part of this whole thing.
I’ve spent years waiting for Apple to make a foldable.
Now that it’s finally here, I’m thinking about waiting for the next one.