Apple's first folding phone, the iPhone Duo, goes on sale Friday for $1,999, and Wired wanted to know if its 7.6-inch inner screen could stand in for a laptop and an iPad at the same time. A reporter for the outlet wrote an entire review of the device using only the Duo itself, leaning on a note-taking app called Bear that the reporter said was one of the few apps actually built for the bigger screen.
The math behind the question is straightforward. An iPhone 18 Pro costs $1,199 and an iPad costs $449, a combination that lands close to the Duo's $1,999 asking price. Whether one folding device can replace both is the pitch Apple is making, and it's the one Wired tried to test.
The cursor problem
IOS doesn't recognize a Bluetooth mouse or trackpad out of the box. To get a usable cursor on the Duo, Wired had to dig into the phone's accessibility settings and turn on AssistiveTouch, which produces an iPad-style pointer for selecting text and navigating around the interface. Even with that cursor running, Wired found small jobs like pasting links or quick searches were slow enough that the reporter saved them for the end of the day.
Split screen, but only 50-50
Apple's multitasking on the Duo is rigid, according to Wired. Two apps in split-screen mode are locked to an even half-and-half view, with no way to drag the divider and give one app more room, something other platforms allow. In portrait orientation, the only split available pins a video app to the top half with something else below it. Wired did credit Apple for one feature: app pairs, which let two apps be pinned together and saved to the Recents screen so they open side by side on demand.
App support is a mixed bag
Slack updated its iOS app the day before Wired's test specifically to support the Duo's screen and two-pane layout, and the reporter said that made bouncing between channels easy. Zoom hadn't been optimized, and video got stuck in portrait orientation during a call, forcing the reporter to lay the phone flat and use the 5.4-inch outer screen instead, an arrangement the reporter's editor on that call described as producing
MDFiled by The Mobile Desk
Phones from leak to launch to price cut: what was announced, what it costs where, and when it goes on sale. Indian launches and prices included, not appended.
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