CUPERTINO, September 12 — Apple unveiled its first foldable smartphone this week, the iPhone Duo, a device the company says delivers the largest and most immersive screen ever on an iPhone at 7.6 inches diagonally when unfolded. The launch came Wednesday, Sept. 9, according to a Variety report by Todd Spangler published that day. When opened, the Duo looks like a small iPad tablet, and Apple says it is also the thinnest iPhone ever made.
Closed, its 5.4-inch outer display still covers 90% of the screen area of the iPhone 18 Pro — a pocketable design, in Apple’s framing.
Two screens, one pocket
Here’s what it means in plain terms. Think of it like a paperback that folds into a phone: the outside screen handles the quick stuff, and the inside panel opens into something closer to a tablet. Apple has moved lock-screen controls and app navigation to the side of the device to maximize vertical space for content.
Open the phone and the display shows two home-screen pages. Pricing starts at $1,999 for a 256-gigabyte model and runs up to $3,199 for a version with 2 terabytes of storage.
Preorders begin Oct. 16, with shipping starting Oct. 23. Two colors are on offer, dubbed star white and night sky.
Developers get their kits
A few third-party apps, including Netflix, Zoom and Slack, are already taking advantage of the folding display and larger screen, according to Apple. The company is releasing software development kits so developers can design or redesign their apps for the Duo — the practical upshot being that the foldable’s usefulness will depend on how quickly that app ecosystem fills out. The launch landed seven years to the day after Samsung shipped its first foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Fold, in September 2019.
Apple also announced the single-screen iPhone 18 baseline model and Pro 18 and Pro Max 18 versions, along with AirPods 5 and updated Apple Watch models with enhanced health-sensing features. It was the first product launch presided over by newly installed CEO John Ternus, formerly Apple’s head of hardware engineering, who took over from Tim Cook at the helm as of Sept. 1.
Ternus said other foldable designs feel like two phones that have been stuck together. He called the iPhone Duo the most transformational change to iPhone since the original, adding that with an entirely new design and intuitive experiences, it shows what’s possible when hardware and software are engineered together and redefines what it means to use a foldable phone. What to watch next: whether developers embrace the SDKs before the Oct. 23 ship date, and whether a $1,999 starting price convinces buyers that a folding iPhone is worth the leap.
