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Apple Unveils the Duo, Its First Foldable iPhone
But like foldables from Samsung, Google and others, the $2K passport-sized smartphone won’t come cheap
The iPhone Duo packs an iPad-style experience into a device that folds neatly into your pocket.
Courtesy of Apple
Key takeaways
- Apple introduced its first foldable iPhone, the Duo, which unfolds from a phone into a tablet-sized device.
- The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999.99, matching the premium pricing seen across rival foldable phones.
- Analysts say Apple’s arrival could boost interest in foldables, which remain a small share of the U.S. smartphone market.
Tech enthusiasts have long marked their calendars for the second week of September, when Apple, like clockwork, unveils a new iPhone. But this time around, Apple did something it has resisted all these years: It launched its first-ever foldable iPhone, the passport-sized iPhone Duo. As with rival foldables from Samsung, Google and others, it unfolds in half and transitions between smartphone and tablet modes. Like those other devices, it will also cost an arm and a leg.
During a presentation at its headquarters in Cupertino, California, Apple showed off the Duo, which will start at $1999.99 for a model with 256 GB of storage. Preorders begin October 16, with availability starting October 23.
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When folded, the Duo’s 5.4-inch outer screen provides nearly as much usable screen space as the new iPhone 18 Pro, meaning you won’t need to open it for routine tasks or for most of the ways you’d use any iPhone. And it can also be easily slipped into your pocket like any other smartphone. Unfold it, and the device becomes more like an iPad with a 7.6-inch screen. In that open position, Apple says it is the thinnest iPhone it has ever designed.
Also a boon for those who want a portable smartphone that’s easier on the eyes: The Duo when opened as a tablet, features the largest screen ever on an iPhone. And later this year, you’ll be able to use the Apple Pencil USB-C stylus — an accessory tool for the iPad — with the Duo to sketch or jot down notes. “Others have created foldables that just feel like two phones awkwardly stuck together,” said John Ternus, Apple’s new chief executive. It was his first product event before succeeding Tim Cook as chief executive. Apple also claims about 24 hours of battery life when you’re using both displays equally, and up to 44 hours of video playback on the outer display or 31 hours on the inner display.
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And one promising touch on the Duo worth mentioning for parents and grandparents who can’t get their kids to pose for the camera: You can display Peanuts animations that will hopefully hold their attention while you preview, frame and snap the image.
If you’re on a FaceTime call, you can share the front and rear cameras simultaneously, so your friend can see you and what you are looking at.
But while Duo has the same 48 megapixel Ultra Wide camera as on the new iPhone 18 Pros, it lacks the telephoto lens that is on those other iPhones.
I got to briefly try it out and can report that the transition between open and closed screens felt polished and fluid, and not marred by a crease that has been a blemish on some earlier tablets. You see it briefly but then it mostly disappears.
There’s a consistent aspect ratio between the two screens, so opening and closing Duo feels like a natural continuation of what you’ve been doing.
Apple has hidden the FaceTime camera and moved certain controls to the side of the screen, with the Dock on the home screen now oriented vertically, for example. While its new placement strikes me as intuitive, I suspect long-time iPhone users may have to retrain their muscle memory at first.
One other thing to note is that there’s no Face ID for facial recognition to unlock the phone; instead, you’re meant to use Touch ID fingerprint unlocking, which Apple says will feel natural regardless of how the phone is positioned.
Working to win over consumers
Foldables stand out from other smartphones because you are essentially getting two devices in one. Even if you still end up paying more, there’s no need to purchase a separate tablet for a larger screen or to schlep more than a single device when you travel. And with a smartphone “footprint,” you can shove this in your pocket or purse like any regular handset.
What’s more, you can adjust the angle and prop them up in different ways. You might use them as an alarm clock or to watch videos with playback controls on a different screen. But the category has not yet made inroads with consumers. And while Apple comes late to the foldable party, it’s gotten to watch what rivals have done right and wrong for years.
As a pioneer in the space, Samsung has had foldable phones since 2019, and Motorola, Google, and several brands out of China have long released their own models, with some variation in design. Foldables to date represent what has been a niche segment — less than 2 percent of the U.S. market, according to data from Recon Analytics in Dedham, Massachusetts — but Apple’s entry could shake things up and provide a boost to the entire category.
“Apple has entered mature categories late before and still won them, as it did with tablets, watches and wireless earbuds,” blogged Hanish Bhatia, Recon Analytics vice president of device intelligence.
Industry analyst Bob O’Donnell, the president of TECHnalysis Research, walked away impressed. He has been using foldable phones since Samsung’s original and likes them.
“They take a little bit of getting used to,” he says of foldables. “But once you get used to that experience … it’s really hard to go back. For older people, the ability to have a larger screen where you can zoom the text in and see more on the screen really makes a big difference.”
Pricing hurdles
O’Donnell acknowledges that foldables are “high-end, status symbol” tech items. “For a lot of people, it’s not going to be the right choice,” he says. “But for the folks who can afford it … it’s kind of like being able to put an iPad in your pocket, and that really is pretty compelling.”
Affording the Duo becomes even harder if you max out with the 2-terabyte storage option. It costs a whopping $3,199. Samsung’s priciest ZFold Ultra 8 costs around $2,700 with 1 terabyte.
Not that the other new iPhones come cheap: Six months after introducing the “budget” $599 iPhone 17e, Apple didn’t even introduce an updated iPhone 18 series, though that is likely to come later. Instead, the “other” iPhones Apple announced were the Pro series devices, specifically the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max.
They’ll get a more robust chip, souped-up camera system, redesigned “Dynamic Island” at the top of the screen to display notifications, and a promised battery bump. Apple says the phones will also be better able to exploit Apple Intelligence AI and a newer, smarter Siri. But with starting prices of $1,199 and $1,299, they each cost $100 more than last year’s comparable models.
To help with sticker shock, this past July, Apple announced a leasing program for many of its devices to lower the monthly cost and help offset the soaring costs of memory and storage chips for consumers, rather than absorbing them itself. Chips are in short supply because of the explosion of artificial intelligence. Unless you update those devices once the leasing terms expire, you may end up paying more, though. Apple also announced leasing options for the iPhone Duo starting at $57.99 for 24 months.
Of course, none of Apple’s competitors have been immune to recent price hikes either. Android rivals introduce new phones on slightly different time frames. Google’s Pixel 11 debuted in August, and Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S26 Ultra came out last March, and the early betting is we won’t see a successor until early 2027. But some lower-priced Galaxys have been unveiled in the interim. In large part because of those skyrocketing component costs and shifting market economics, “I think the era of prices always going down that we got so used to and spoiled by is going to go away for a while,” O’Donnell says.
Some analysts were surprised that Apple was able to come in with a Duo at a shade under two grand. “Apple is expected to have premium pricing. But this is not meaningfully more expensive than other large widescreen format foldables,” says Avi Greengart, president of Techsponential. “Obviously, $2,000 is a lot of money for people to spend, and I’m not minimizing that, but if you can afford it, it doesn’t seem unreasonable relative to the rest of the market.”
With any phone, look for generous trade-in offers from either the manufacturer or your mobile provider.
What else Apple announced
Besides the iPhones, Apple launched new AirPods with improved noise cancellation and updated the Apple Watch. Its new Apple Watch Series 4 and Ultra 4 devices come with higher-frequency heart-rate and -sensing capabilities, Apple says. And a new “readiness” feature is meant to analyze a person’s recent activity, vitals and sleep scores to help them decide, for example, how to tackle a workout and the day ahead.
The new watches also include a Sound Recognition feature that can detect sirens, alarms and doorbells and alert users who are deaf or hard of hearing. An AI-driven Siri Recap feature can listen in and create summaries of your conversations. And when you double-press the digital crown on the watch, a Live Rewind feature can capture a 15-second text snippet of a conversation, so you can catch what you may have missed, such as when a waiter rattles off all the specials too quickly, or a friend gives you a book recommendation. You can save a transcript to the new Siri app and revisit it later.
IDC group vice president Tom Mainelli says with these Audio Intelligence features, as Apple calls them, the company is “attempting to walk a fine line between always-listening ambient AI computing and its desire to respect users’ privacy.”
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