Apple has finally announced its long-rumored foldable: the iPhone Duo.
The new phone has a 5.4-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch inner display, a “nano‑texture” finish on the inner screen, and barely any visible crease. Instead of Face ID, it uses Touch ID on the power button. It has two cameras, a main lens and a wide-angle lens. Apple completely revamped iOS 27’s controls and apps for the foldable, including putting the dock on the side of the phone. And it has a flashy opening animation when you unfold the phone.
The iPhone Duo a big new bet from Apple, though one that’s a little late to the game compared to competitors like Samsung and Google. The phone isn’t cheap: it starts at $1,999 for the base 256GB model, and the prices only go up from there. Still, Apple said that preorder demand was “extraordinary,” so it could have a hit on its hands.
Here’s everything unfolding about the iPhone Duo.
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It folds. Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeThe first foldable iPhone is finally here, and following its announcement, we got the chance to try the phone for ourselves. We’ve long been told that Apple would make a foldable iPhone once the tech was good enough — has it been worth the wait?
It definitely feels like something different. The inner screen has a decidedly matte finish that handled even some glare from the windows above the hands-on area well. The folding mechanism is smooth, and even IP68 rated, and the crease is almost impossible to find with my finger. The 5.4-inch outer screen looks petite by modern slab phone standards.
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Today,Apple says iPhone Duo preorder demand has been “extraordinary.”Delivery estimates are already delayed into 2027. Bloomberg reports that Apple said:
“The pre-order demand for iPhone Duo, our first foldable iPhone, has been nothing short of extraordinary. We are working hard to get this revolutionary new product into customers’ hands as quickly as possible, and we will continue accepting orders online,” the company said in a statement.
“Our teams look forward to welcoming customers at Apple Stores worldwide to experience the iPhone Duo and the incredible full iPhone line-up for themselves,” it added, without disclosing whether inventory would be available for customers who were unable to secure pre-orders when the device goes on sale Oct. 23.
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Today,
Screenshot: AppleDelivery estimates for the iPhone Duo slipped into next year in less than an hour after Apple opened preorders for it at 8AM ET on Friday.
At the time of writing we are seeing late January delivery dates for every configuration on Apple’s website. The foldable is slated to launch in stores on October 23rd, and Apple typically reserves some units for in-store availability. So while online orders are delayed, you might be able to get one sooner in-person at an Apple Store.
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Today,
The iPhone Duo is Apple’s first foldable phone. Photo by Antonio Di Benedetto / The VergeFew phones have been more anticipated than a foldable iPhone, but it’s finally here. The iPhone Duo was unveiled during Apple’s “Surprise and shine” event alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 models.
Apple’s first foldable has a 5.4-inch outer screen, and it unfolds to show off its 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR screen. Apple Pencil support is coming later this year. While it lacks Face ID for facial unlocking, there’s a Touch ID sensor along its edge to identify your fingerprint. The device has an IP68 rating, with Ceramic Shield 2 on its back, with Ceramic Shield covering the front display. It has the same A20 Pro chipset as the iPhone 18 Pro. Notably, the Duo has the same 48-megapixel fusion camera as the 18 Pro, though it doesn’t have variable aperture.
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Apple’s iPhone Duo foldable phone opens for preorder tomorrow, October 16th, at 8am ET / 5am PT, but you don’t have to wait until then to get your order mostly sorted. The company’s product page for the phone now lets you select the color you want, along with storage capacity, carrier preference, and whether you want to set up a trade to make the $1,999 foldable a little cheaper.
Once you enter all of the details, all you’ll need to do tomorrow morning, once preorders open, is to confirm your order. It’ll be sitting in your cart ready for checkout. This will save you some time, and you’ll jump ahead of people who are still customizing their iPhone Duo details.
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Photo by Antonio Di Benedetto / The Verge
If you don’t get AppleCare Plus for the iPhone Duo, any repairs are going to be pretty expensive. Apple published the estimated repair costs for the iPhone Duo without AppleCare Plus today, as reported by MacRumors, and they can be high: Battery service, for example, will cost $229, inner display damage will cost $999, and “other damage” costs $1,499.
Here’s Apple’s estimated costs for various repairs if you don’t have AppleCare Plus:
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TCL’s P80 Ultra is its first Nxtpaper phone with an OLED screen. Photo: Dominic Preston / The VergeI’ve spent most of the last couple weeks using an otherwise unexceptional midrange Android phone with one amazing feature: a matte OLED display. That screen is by far the best thing about the TCL P80 Ultra, and weirdly, it’s made me more excited for the iPhone Duo and its matte inner display.
2023’s TCL Nxtpaper 40 first brought matte displays to the company’s phones after they appeared on tablets in 2021. Nxtpaper is more than a simple matte finish on a panel; it also includes a paperlike feel and low-power, monochrome modes that create a reasonable facsimile of an E Ink screen. But the matte effect has always been the biggest draw for me.
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You only get one chance at a first impression, and getting to introduce Apple’s first folding phone is certainly a strong way to start things off as Apple’s CEO. On The Vergecast today, we’re talking all about Apple’s launch event: how John Ternus did in his first appearance as CEO, what we make of the new iPhones, and whether Apple is stepping into dangerous territory with its new AI features on the Apple Watch.
First up, Allison Johnson joins me to discuss the new iPhones, which she had a chance to test in Cupertino. Both of us have some questions about the new variable aperture camera on the iPhone 18 Pro — and whether the real upgrade simply lies in the wider aperture, not the ability to stop it down. Then we dig into the iPhone Duo and how Apple decided to pick and choose the best parts of Android foldables.
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John Ternus, Apple CEO, holds an iPhone Duo at the launch event. Bloomberg via Getty ImagesApple was far from the first company to announce a passport-shaped folding phone this year, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t copied. As my colleague Dom Preston already explained, it’s almost impossible to keep product development secret when Apple and its competitors all share the same global suppliers.
Apple’s new CEO John Ternus and head of marketing Greg ‘Joz’ Joswiak addressed the topic during an interview with TechRadar’s Lance Ulanoff and Mark Spoonauer of Tom’s Guide.
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Photo by Antonio Di Benedetto / The Verge
With the iPhone Duo, Apple has pulled off a familiar trick. It arrives into a mature Android foldable market with a handful of hardware features we’ve mostly already seen elsewhere, but paired with a level of software polish that makes a lot of them feel new again. It’s those software flourishes that have me excited to try the iPhone Duo when it launches next month, but I’m less convinced that its hardware will be anything special.
If Apple had gotten there first, the Duo’s biggest surprise would have been its squat, wide, passport-inspired shape. But its slow-moving supply chain meant that Huawei, Samsung, and Xiaomi all managed to beat Apple to market with similarly sized rivals, so the unusual design already feels fairly familiar — helped by Samsung’s aggressive efforts to market its new design.
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The Apple iPhone Duo features a passport-style folding hinge. Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeApple’s foldable phone is finally here — well, almost. The iPhone Duo, coming October 23rd, follows in the footsteps of past folding devices from Android phone makers like Samsung, OnePlus, and Google, with a $1,999 price tag that sits just above the Pixel 11 Pro Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 8.
While its hardware bears similarities to its competitors, the iPhone Duo is one of a few models that takes a passport-like approach. The aspect ratio is the same on the inside and outside screens, and it’s even usable with some apps while partially folded. The interior screen has a special outer layer, which along with its hinge design, makes the interior crease almost impossible to spot (something that many competitors struggle to do, though Samsung and Oppo are making fantastic progress).
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Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeApple has just announced its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo. The new phone has a 5.4-inch outer screen and a 7.6-inch inner screen, two back cameras, Touch ID for authentication, an IP68 rating, and all sorts of slick software tricks to make iOS feel more at home on the new device. Preorders start on October 16th ahead of availability on October 23rd, and it starts at $1,999 for 256GB of storage.
It’s a huge announcement for Apple, and we have many feelings about it. Here’s our gut reactions to the phone. And let us know in the comments what you think!
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Apple just wrapped up its first iPhone launch event with CEO John Ternus at the helm, and it did not disappoint. We got a look at Apple’s long-rumored foldable iPhone Duo, along with the next generation of AirPods and the Apple Watch.
Here’s a roundup of all the biggest announcements from the event.
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Screenshot: AppleObviously, part of the appeal of a foldable phone is all that additional screen real estate. That gives you plenty of room for some serious multitasking that just isn’t possible, or at the very least is clunky, on a smaller screen. Apple rarely does things without seriously considering all the implications, so it was never just going to shove iOS as-is into its new foldable.
The company didn’t have to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel, however. It already had a mobile OS capable of multitasking in iPadOS, which was built on iOS to begin with. The company even said that the iPhone Duo was designed to be “as natural and intuitive as iPad.”
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Screenshot: AppleApple has announced its long-anticipated foldable iPhone, which arrives more than seven years after the first Samsung Galaxy Fold phone hit the market. My colleague Allison Johnson has already had the chance to try out the device in person at Apple’s event, so read what she thinks of it so far.
The Duo will be available to preorder on October 16th, going on sale on October 23rd, a month later than the two 18 Pro models. It starts at $1,999 — $100 more than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, but $100 less than its Z Fold 8 Ultra — for 256GB of storage, with the option to go up to 2TB total. Like the iPhone Air, it’s eSIM-only worldwide.
