iPhone Duo Reviews
John Gruber (Mastodon, tweet, Bluesky):
The Duo name is perfect. It truly is like having two devices in one. The outer device is, by far, the worst iPhone Apple has ever made. It’s a miserable fat little thing. The inner device is a splendid, joyful, beautiful tablet, with a UI that out-iPads the iPad. For me, by far, it’s my favorite tablet experience ever. I prefer it to any iPad or Kindle-like reader I’ve ever used.
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It does not go into or out of my jeans pocket smoothly. Sometimes, in my pocket, it rotates 90 degrees, which is uncomfortable. Folded up it never stops feeling heavy.
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No, the problem with holding the Duo in your left hand alone is that the bottom left corner of its D-shaped frame digs into your palm. When you hold it in your right hand, it’s a nice round corner in the meat of your thumb’s base. In your left, it’s a crisp sharp corner, and it doesn’t feel good.
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I’d love a display that looks and feels like this on my non-foldable iPhone 18 Pro. No glare, even in sunlight. It’s amazing.
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Held horizontally, the iPhone Duo supports side-by-side multitasking with two apps. The user interface for this feature is brilliant. It puts every idea Apple has tried on iPadOS for multitasking to shame.
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Every time you pick up the Duo to use it you face The Decision. Open it? Or be lazy and suffer with the outside display? Every time.
This is such a good review; you should just read the whole thing. Marques Brownlee has a great video review. Like Gruber, he really misses FaceID. They seem to disagree about the camera and screen aspect ratios. I also really liked Joanna Stern’s video review. She and Gruber both say it’s too hard to open the Duo with one hand.
MacRumors and MacStories have review roundups.
A week with the iPhone Duo at home, camping and in Iceland. A capable camera with new tricks, and a creative powerhouse for planning, editing and sharing.
Previously:
