iPhone Duo Initial Review: A Reality Check

Quick summary: Ben Geskin, who has about 360,000 followers on X, shared first impressions from someone who’d used the iPhone Duo for a week. They called it “the best foldable by far,” but there’s some bad mixed in. Here’s my reality check.

Key takeaways

• Good: incredible speakers and a very comfortable portrait keyboard on the unfolded screen.
• Bad: Touch ID feels like a step back, and most apps look terrible until they’re updated.
• The tester uses the Duo 90% of the time and an iPhone 18 Pro Max for the rest.
• They expect many people to peel off the nano-texture layer on the inner display.

The good

“Best foldable by far.” Samsung has made eight generations of foldables, but okay, we’ll run with it. I’d want more detail before making a claim that big.

The speakers are incredible. That doesn’t surprise me. Apple’s speakers on its phones and MacBooks are amazing.

Typing in portrait on the unfolded screen is so comfortable they said they could write 5,000-word essays. That’s a little dramatic. Personally I talk-to-text most of the time.

The bad

Touch ID feels like a step backward. For iPhone users coming from Face ID, sure. Coming from Samsung’s fingerprint sensor, I don’t think it’ll feel that way to me.

Most apps look terrible and need updates. That’s the real kicker. Some apps still aren’t optimized on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 either, and my wife complains about it. Apple has far fewer devices than Android, so you’d hope it’s faster, but we’ll see.

Other details

They’re using the Duo 90% of the time and switching back to their 18 Pro Max for the other 10%. Apple’s support for two phones on one SIM makes that easier. They also think many people will remove the inner display’s nano-texture layer, which they described as a peelable screen protector.

My reality check

The positives are short: speakers and typing. The negatives, especially app compatibility, will be a culture shock for iPhone users. It could take a month, six months, a year or more before it feels fully polished. I expect Apple to fix a lot of this with software. Are you discouraged, or still gung-ho?