Apple has finally joined the folding phone party, and while it might feel slightly strange seeing the company arrive so late to something that Samsung and others have been doing for years, there is something very Apple about the way the iPhone Duo has been handled. Rather than rushing out a folding iPhone just to tick a box, Apple has clearly taken its time, and the result is a device that feels impressively polished from the moment we pick it up.
Of course, the elephant in the room is that Apple is late. Very late. Foldable phones have been around for several generations now, and we've already seen plenty of clever designs, some of which have become genuinely good everyday phones. That makes the iPhone Duo feel less revolutionary than it perhaps would have been five years ago. We already know what a folding phone can do, and Apple isn't exactly reinventing the concept here.
What it does do, however, is make the whole experience feel very refined. The hardware is beautifully made, as we'd expect from Apple, with a solid, premium feel that makes the Duo feel considerably less like an experimental gadget and more like a proper flagship iPhone. The hinge feels reassuringly sturdy, the displays are excellent and everything fits together with the sort of precision we've come to expect from Apple's hardware.
The folding design itself is also genuinely useful. We get the convenience of a more conventional phone when we need it, while opening the Duo gives us a much larger display for watching video, browsing, working with documents or simply doing two things at once. It's one of those features that can initially feel like a novelty but quickly becomes something we find ourselves using naturally.
There are compromises, though. The Duo is still thicker and heavier than a standard iPhone, and although Apple has done a good job of making it manageable, we never quite forget that we're carrying a folding phone. The crease is also there, even if it is less distracting than we might have expected. After a while, we mostly stop noticing it, but it's difficult to ignore completely when the light catches it at certain angles.
Performance is predictably excellent, with everything feeling fast and responsive, although this is another area where we don't necessarily see a huge leap over Apple's existing high-end iPhones. That's arguably one of the bigger problems with the Duo. It's an impressive piece of hardware, but much of what it offers feels like an evolution of things we've already seen rather than a completely new experience.
One area where Apple has pleasantly surprised us is the price. We went into the iPhone Duo expecting a genuinely eye-watering price tag, particularly given Apple's reputation and the complexity involved in producing a folding phone. It's still an expensive device, obviously, but it isn't quite the financial shock we feared it might be. That makes it considerably easier to recommend, particularly for people who have been waiting specifically for a folding iPhone.
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Ultimately, the iPhone Duo feels like Apple arriving late but arriving properly. We can't ignore the fact that the competition has been experimenting with folding phones for years, and some rivals have arguably moved the technology further. But Apple has produced a pleasing, well-made and remarkably polished device that doesn't feel like a first attempt.
Is it essential? Probably not. Is it the most exciting folding phone we've ever used? Again, probably not. But as an iPhone that happens to fold, the Duo is an extremely convincing effort. We might have expected Apple to be late to the party, but at least it has turned up looking smart, confident and considerably less expensive than we feared. Well, almost!
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