Apple Debuts the iPhone Duo, Its First Folding iPhone

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The iPhone Duo is Apple’s first folding smartphone. The company announced the device at its annual September event at Apple Park in Cupertino, California.

The iPhone Duo comes in Star White and Night Sky, and costs $1,999 for 256 GB of storage. While preorders kick off on October 16, the device won’t officially go on sale until October 23.

It arrives alongside the pro versions of Apple’s handsets, iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.

The Duo has a 5.4-inch screen on the outside, and when you open the Duo up, it reveals a second, 7.6-inch display—remarkably close to the iPad Mini’s screen size. Apple says it kept the aspect ratio consistent across both the front and inner screen for the highest quality when viewing content.

The Duo has a titanium frame with a mirror finish, Apple’s Ceramic Shield glass on the back, and Ceramic Shield 2 glass on the front. It even sports an IP68 dust- and water-resistance rating, beating Samsung to the punch. (Right now, Google's folding Pixels are the only phones with an IP68 rating.

Apple says the hinge has a “custom variable torque profile” that precisely opens and closes the phone in an “effortlessly smooth” way. When it’s open, Apple says it’s the thinnest iPhone ever. As Samsung does with its “Flex Titanium” technology, Apple uses a carbon fiber metal plate below the display to better control the stress caused by bending the display. That, alongside a nano-texture finish, helps keep the display flat and “minimizes crease visibility.” An Apple-designed scratch-resistance coating sits on top.

Surprisingly, there is no Face ID sensor, likely to save space inside the phone for the folding components. Instead, like some of Apple’s tablets, the iPhone Duo brings back the fingerprint-sensing Touch ID integrated into the side power button. This is also the first iPhone to support the USB-C Apple Pencil later this year, though there’s no way to naturally store the stylus on the edges of the device like the iPad’s magnetic Pencil dock.

Apple says the Duo has the biggest battery ever in an iPhone. Like most book-style folds, it’s a split system where a battery rests on both sides. That will net you up to 31 hours of video playback with the inner display and 44 hours with the outer display—or 24 hours of mixed overall use per charge. It also sports Apple’s new custom C2 modem (with mmWave 5G support in the US) and the A20 Pro, the same chip powering the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max.

There are only two cameras on the back—a 48-megapixel primary camera and a 48-megapixel ultrawide. The lack of a telephoto zoom option is a sacrifice even Samsung made on its latest Galaxy Z Fold8. Like most book-like folds, it has two selfie cameras—a 12-megapixel camera on the outer screen and a second “FaceTime camera" on the inner display, though this one is hidden under the display.

There are familiar folding phone features here with the camera, like distracting a kid with a fun cartoon character on the outer screen to get them to look at the camera. Or your subject can preview the photo before you hit capture. The iPhone Duo can stand upright by itself, so you can set it down and it will automatically capture group photos if everyone stands at the ready.

Hardware is just one part of the story, though. The software needs to adapt and take advantage of the larger screen. Apple has been improving how apps adapt to different screen sizes for some time, making it easy for developers to scale apps from the iPhone to the iPad to the Mac, and even visionOS on the Apple Vision Pro. That means you’ll be able to enjoy iPad-like apps when unfolding the iPhone Duo.

Apple says it has moved essential controls to the side, stacked vertically, to maximize screen space. Even the dock is oriented vertically. The software transitions gracefully as you open the phone; apps will show more information—like your inbox and messages—and you can split-screen apps. You can fold it in half and set it down, and the screen will react accordingly.

Folding Time

Apple is a late entrant to the foldable phone market, which has been around since Samsung debuted the first Galaxy Fold in 2019. Since then, phone makers like Honor, Google, Motorola, and Oppo have all made folding phones. In recent years, devices have rapidly gotten slimmer, lighter, and more durable.

The iPhone Duo has a book-like shape and is similar in size to Samsung’s recent Galaxy Z Fold8, reminiscent of Google’s original Pixel Fold. This “passport-style” fold—which stands shorter and unfolds wider than many of the first wave of foldable designs—is better suited for media consumption since it eliminates the severe letterboxing that places thick black bars around the TV show or movie you’re watching.

Apple is expected to help grow a category that has been declining for five straight quarters by 13 percent year over year—potentially capturing up to 30 percent of the foldable market share by the end of 2026, according to IDC’s Nabila Popal, a senior research director. But the folding phone market is still niche, “around 2 percent by the end of this year of the global smartphone market.”

Popal says a recent IDC survey asked consumers whether they were interested in buying a foldable smartphone when it was time to upgrade, and 60 percent said they are not likely to buy one. However, when asked if Apple released a folding smartphone, almost 33 percent said they “absolutely” would.

“Apple has such a strong market pull,” Popal tells WIRED. “The average consumer didn’t know about [memory price increases] until Apple made an announcement that they’re going to increase prices. “Coming into foldables, it's going to create overall excitement for the category. And it's good for the consumer, too. It's always good to have more competition and more choice.”

One area of concern is the device’s durability and repairability, as folding phones are notoriously more prone to damage and are tough to fix. Elizabeth Chamberlain, director of Sustainability at iFixit, tells WIRED her team has never taken apart a foldable they’d call truly repairable.

“Manufacturers have come a long way since the Galaxy Fold first dropped,” she says. “But the gains in durability haven’t come with gains in repairability.”

New Economics

While Apple announced three premium iPhone models today, it is not releasing the base iPhone 18 this year—marking the first time it’s breaking up the launch cycle of the core iPhone lineup. Instead, the iPhone 18 is expected to launch in the spring of 2027 alongside the iPhone 18e and second-generation iPhone Air.

Despite the eye-watering price and the current economic climate, Popal says the iPhone Duo is “guaranteed to be a blockbuster.”

“Apple defied all odds and broke the $1,000 barrier when they first launched the $1,000 smartphone,” Popal says. “Yes, there’s going to be sticker shock, but Apple caters to a very high-end consumer segment who can afford it.”

Over the summer, Apple introduced a new iPhone leasing program to help ease the price of its phones on consumers' wallets, and it’s likely to prove popular with the uber-expensive iPhone Duo. Chamberlain says that for people who replace their phone regularly, it gives them a path to do it where the device gets back into the reuse stream and boosts the refurbished market, which isn’t a bad thing for electronic waste. However, Apple’s leasing agreements mean the device needs to be returned in the condition it was received.

“iFixit is committed to the idea that you should own your shit,” she says. “You should be able to repair things, modify things, hack your own devices. It’s sad to see the tech world move away from that principle, and Apple encouraging people to lease devices instead of buying them.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.