Nearly 10 years in to foldables, and they still bring so many caveats. They are consistently worse for size, weight, shape, cameras, battery, robustness, and longevity. I don't think I'd ever recommend one.
On the other hand, the advantages are... an iPad like experience sometimes? Or a smaller phone for the flip form factor? The flip form factor certainly does not pay off. I'm honestly not sure who the trade-offs pay off for.
??? everyone I know who's gone fold hasn't gone back.
yes, battery & camera are a generation back and water/dustproof is even worse.
but productivity and fun are off the charts: slab phones feel pathetic once you've got a fold. Communication apps show you the list of conversations as well as the current one - or the current one and the details/multimedia. Google Maps shows the map and the listing details/reviews. Games and multimedia are delightful. Photos are full sized, and you can see what you're shooting in detail - if you shoot with a digital camera, remote shooting is amazing because there's enough space to show detailed focus.
Not to start an endless device debate but a good chunk of these use cases make more sense to do on an iPad or to just have a separate device in general.
I know, I know, that’s not as portable, that’s not a device you have with you all the time like a phone.
But how inconvenient is an iPad or iPad mini, really?
Then you just cut off all the downsides of the foldable devices, and you add the upside of a separate device, separate battery. Two people can’t use an iPhone Duo at the same time, but two people can use an iPad and an iPhone at the same time.
Like for gaming I’d just immediately say I’d rather have an Android handheld as a gaming device with dedicated gaming controls.
For digital camera shooting the obvious answer is an iPad for remote shooting. Why stop at the Duo’s smaller matte screen when an iPad Pro would be so much better for a hobbyist photographer? That screen blows the Duo out of the water and you can literally afford an iPad Pro and an iPhone for the same price.
And which is going to inconvenience me more: having to tap on Maps listings for reviews or my phone not having FaceID?
The bigger iPad has a much bigger screen, though, and if you already have a bag with you adding it is trivial. Not to mention the cost and durability issue.
Like the remote photography example, I have to imagine that an iPad Pro is way better for that purpose. Why settle for a 7” matte compromised screen when you could use the full 11” tandem OLED display in an iPad Pro?
For gaming I’d definitely rather have a handheld with proper control sticks on it, and I’d definitely rather have Android where I can run more types of emulators and install full blown PC games.
The annual AppleCare bill on an iPhone Duo is almost as expensive as an unlimited T-Mobile data plan for an iPad, $240/year vs. $200/year.
You are correct in saying that yes this is one device that roughly is equivalent to an iPad mini, but in terms of cost, durability, screen quality, etc, you have to really find the iPad mini to be unworkably difficult to carry around to make the cost and fragility of a foldable make sense.
There are benefits to having two devices in addition to the downsides. Two people can use them. Two batteries versus one, double the run time.
Why is an iPad mini a nonstarter for a commute? It could fit in a purse or small bag at most. You could get a cellular plan for an iPad for the same cost as the annual AppleCare bill on an iPhone Duo.
Why do I need a device for a restaurant or club again? Shouldn’t I be enjoying the restaurant or club?
Is it hard to learn an iPad compared to an iPhone? What learning or optimizing am I needing to do?
I can stand up my phone or tablet with a $20 case.
What problem is the Harry Potter moving newspaper solving? Is that worth $2,000 plus $200/year for AppleCare so you don’t get caught paying for a $1,000 screen replacement?
I had a flip phone and I got it for this reason, but it honestly just sucked. The outer screens are too small to be useful, or in the case of Samsung, just don't have the right feature set to be useful. That means the phone ends up just being a full size smartphone with more steps to be able to use it.
This is a samsung issue or so I've heard. I am yet to buy one. Waiting for costs to go down
Moto screen is good enough and has a full screen, not a dummy one
Also the point about the screen being too small - that's the point! I don't want to use Android and get sucked into 10 different apps. The small screen is perfect. Useless for anything beyond clock and phone and whatsapp maybe
Huge screen that's pocketable and also your primary device (not a 2nd device you need to choose to carry in addition to your phone, and have a bag for) and ability to have 2 apps at once on iOS is in fact highly valuable for many.
Well, besides the software, which is very much not laptop-like.
I think the main thing is that for this kind of money you have a lot of options. You could even buy a GPD device that is an actual full blown pouch sized laptop and buy a regular iPhone for the same price.
> I think the main thing is that for this kind of money you have a lot of options. You could even buy a GPD device that is an actual full blown pouch sized laptop and buy a regular iPhone for the same price.
I have done this! I currently carry a GPD Win Max 2 around, but let me be clear about some elements of this: the keyboard on a sub-device is just as important as any other, and the keyboard on GPD devices is not great. A sub-device has to be maintained and charged and given love and care just the same as any other device. The amount of times I have found my cute linux laptop dead when I wanted it, outdated, or randomly signed out of services is quite high (and this is with an onboard LTE modem). Carrying around a folding (or even non-folding, like a Magic Keyboard) is lighter than a sub-device, will last significantly longer in terms of charge/battery, and does not require any of the secondary device maintenance that is needed with one normally.
To me a folding phone is an absolute no-brainer in terms of why it is useful. You can get a very, very good keyboard for cheap, or try many, and completely eliminate the need to carry a second device.
Another huge use case I have is transit/travel video playback. I do not normally want to bring an iPad or even a secondary laptop during travel, so this effectively deletes one more device that I have to charge, update, bring adapters for, etc. It is effectively all of the benefit of having a tablet at all times, a sub-laptop at all times, and requires absolutely no additional charging or maintenance.
On the flip side of traveling with only one device versus just having a second device, like not needing to charge two devices, bring adapters, etc, you now have the downsides of one device: now you’re using one device for everything so you’re draining the battery of that one device and only one person can use that device.
When I travel I take my AYN Odin 2 Portal with me for gamine. That thing has a battery that’s twice the size of a typical smartphone and it can play games literally all day before the battery dies, while my phone is in my pocket fully charged ready to be useful at my destination.
Is this bulkier than an iPhone duo? Sure. It’s also a $230 device.
I would argue that if we are going this far to continue doing that sort of work on a mobile device you might as well have a second device.
We are going as far as packing a Bluetooth keyboard. With that kind of bulk we might as well toss in a tablet or a MacBook Air.
In my case, my travel setup is a normal iPhone and AYN Odin 2 Portal.
If I had a folding phone instead I’d still need to pack a controller grip device for gaming. If my games are 16:9 I’ve still compromised on screen size by using a folding phone.
I’m just not seeing where the folding screen is helpful for travel in particular. As soon as you want to use those devices for more advanced stuff it kinda just makes sense to use a second device.
As a bonus for the second device setup, I can drain the battery on the second device without guilt. When my plane lands I’ve still got a juiced up phone.
I own a GPD max 2 and a GPD win mini and both are really not suitable for my workflow: the battery life is not as good as an iPhone and the fan keep screaming. Maybe I should try installing linux on them. Now they are just gaming devices and a backup machine in case I really need to open office documents.
OTOH I have used my iPhone pro max for development for a long long time. The trick is to use a always-on linux VPS pairing with many excellent terminal emulators on iPhone (e.g. blink.sh).
Essentially I'm using iPhone as a thin client to visit a true linux development machine, and both of them play their roles perfectly. While other solutions while trying to be both roles with a single device failed miserably.
I love my Pixel 10 Fold and can't imagine ever going back to a non-foldable now. The larger screen is great for productivity. Reviewing PRs on the larger screen is way more comfortable than a normal phone size. The built-in terminal app also works nicely with herdr and Tailscale to let me connect to my work machine. I can interact with my agents and get real work done on the go. I also have saved split views so I can quickly launch two apps side-by-side. I do mobile app development, so being able to have the app I'm developing open side by side with Slack or Linear to create issues or discuss with people is very convenient.
I don't know if terminal access is as easy on iPhones, but the utility is there for many work related use-cases. I do think the more square-like form factor of the Pixel to be better for productivity than the rectangular form of the Duo, but the latter is nicer for videos.
Interesting, reviewers (Joanna Stern) said that it was not great for productivity, more for consumption. Perhaps it works for your kind of tasks, but not hers/others.
I was saying the Pixel Fold form-factor was great for productivity and that the iPhone Duo was better for video watching. But even the Duo could be nice for some productivity tasks if you hold it in a portrait orientation instead of landscape.
I can’t imagine doing any kind of that work on any kind of a mobile device. Laptops only for that kind of stuff, thanks.
In fact, probably not just laptops, but also large external monitors, too. So, maybe even the laptop itself wouldn’t be a requirement, but it is much more convenient to have only the one main computing device for work be something that is easily portable.
My iPad mini gets multiple times more use than my iPhone, there have even been times where I’ve left my iPhone by the bedside table for days.
It’s mainly a consumption device, I got it initially for reading ebooks while on the train. It’s also a surprisingly good workhorse by itself, or as a second screen for a MacBook. I even make phone calls with it (via the iPhone) simply because it’s always in or near my hands.
So the Duo certainly piqued my interest when it was announced, until I learnt it doesn’t do iPad-y stuff like universal control or sidecar. I’ll wait for the next gen.
It felt wrong to me when they split iOS in two to make the iPad OS, and now it feels super wrong.
The whole selling point of this is that it’s an iPad mini in your pocket, IMO. It’s really a shame they couldn’t give it all of the iPad’s best features.
I feel like the average tech enthusiast just assumes that most people have computers, but they do not. Most people have a phone as a primary computing device. Tablets have gone up in popularity, but for a significant portion of people, their only device is a phone. Those people are buying phones on carrier financing or other deals, so they don't even see the full cost of their device at all. So for people doing this type of upgrade cycle, a folding phone is quite compelling: an expanded screen size for watching video, consuming content, or heck, even maybe productivity, while being effectively a marginal upgrade in cost on a monthly payment.
Also, just for the record, some carriers in Japan are offering financing that gives you the option of paying over 48 months and Apple offers 36 months. Is that quite absurd to most people? Absolutely, but for the average person who wants a bigger screen sometimes, the cost is not even going up much on a monthly basis.
For the record, especially in Japan, folio cases where you open your phone like a book are already the default. Effectively most people on the train have their phone open in some "Duo-ish" form-factor already. So the jump from a folio case to a folding phone is already substantially lower.
Obviously the gimmick nature of folding is not the compelling reason why people want folding phones. The question is more about tradeoffs, and I think that especially in asia, the demand for folding phones is quite obvious: upgrade your primary PC to have a huge display when you want it that way, otherwise it stays compact enough to be with you all the time.
The problem with that argument is that it is stupidly expensive, no matter how you look at it. It's a $2000 phone, for the same money you can get an iPhone 18 Pro and a MacBook Neo. Or get an iPhone 17 / 17e and save yourself $300 / $500. Or swap the MacBook for an iPad and save up to an additional $350.
Carrier financing doesn't make this go away. It's still a $60/month plan vs a $100+/month one. You're paying significantly more to have a worse primary compute device. For most people, that's going to be a rather hard sell.
The only benefit is that you have it on you at all times. I would argue that this is an attractive selling point for tech enthusiasts, but most people aren't going to care.
Stupidly expensive from one perspective, but if you look at clothing and fashion it’s actually more surprising to me that the market effectively tops out where it does. Billionaires have more or less the exact same phone options as we do, and from base model to top model is only a bit more than 2x differential.
Nobody was buying other foldables so some carrier deals are crazy cheap. As in "trade in your old phone" and basically get a samsung foldable for free (last generation)
Apple's financing is 0%. While it may seem absurd for a phone, the smart money is on taking financing—so long as you're a responsible spender, which many are not.
Are you sure this phone-only segment will pay twice the price for a little more screen estate? Maybe… But why not recommend to these folks to get an ipad mini with an e-sim? You get the bigger screen at less than half the price, and it still fits into the pocket of a coat at least. You could even buy one of those Logitech BT keyboards and have a mini laptop.
The iPad mini has the problem that it won’t fit into the smaller pockets, like pants pockets, shirt pockets, smaller purses, etc….
Yes, the larger screen is nice, but portability is key. The foldable devices can do both.
For myself, I’m not even going to consider them until they are much more robust. When they get to the point where Zack on JerryRigEverything can’t easily break them, then I might consider the idea. Not until then.
I must say i find it hard to believe that a person, who can't afford to buy a laptop, would rather buy iphone duo on loan for PC needs.
maybe it is not the culture in India (where i live). but it looks financially irresponsible. if you need a laptop and can't afford it, buy a second hand laptop instead. iphone duo can't replace a laptop in first place.
I would say it's more a matter of not wanting a laptop, versus not being able to afford one.
I'm sure there are people who fall into the financially irresponsible category, but these days there are many people who find zero use for having a laptop and have no desire for one at all.
Also it's not just a cost or affordability matter. Some people who can easily afford a top of the line laptop and/or tablet simply do not want one. They want one device to do all their computing needs from.
Most of my friends who are not in tech are like this, as is my wife. None of them have personal laptops at home. Few even have tablets.
TBH I feel that whatever totemistic or workflow quirks you need to keep maintaining flow state is perfectly logical. Software Engineers keep rubber ducks for a reason.
I don’t have a good calculator app on my laptop. The “42” app on my iPad and iPhone is a much better calculator app than I’ve ever seen on any laptop.
I do sometimes break out the terminal and use `bc -l` to do some math, when I’m doing other things on the laptop. But if I could get a version of the “42” app for my laptop, I would be a much happier puppy.
This. It boggles my mind too. My wife has a laptop but 99% of the time she’ll use her phone unless there’s no other way. Its her primary device for books, YouTube, and any other kind of content consumption. I reach for a tablet or laptop far before her.
My wife has two laptops, one for work and one personal. For the personal one, that only gets used for banking things, where she doesn’t trust her iPad or iPhone for that purpose. Almost everything else is done on her iPad. She also has work and personal iPhones, but even when she’s out of the house, those rarely get used. She takes her iPad with her everywhere she possibly can, and will even place calls on her iPad all the time. The phones typically only get used when she can’t have her iPad with her, or as a reminder of something she needs to do on another device. Her mix of time spent is probably 99% iPad and 1% iPhone and no measurable amount of personal time spent on the laptop.
For me, I have two personal laptops, one of which I use more as a server in the house (MacBook Pro M3 Max). The other one is my actual primary laptop (MacBook Air M5), but I don’t use it that much, either. I only use my laptop(s) when I’m doing things involving creation of content, such as writing or deep research, etc…. The iPad gets used for all content consumption at home, but doesn’t typically go outside the house. The iPhone gets used for calls, inside or outside of the house. And the iPhone is what gets taken with me when I’m outside of the house, both for occasional content consumption while I’m waiting somewhere, as well as navigation and call purposes. I’m probably closer to 90% iPad, and 9% iPhone and 1% laptop.
I think the patterns for many people are similar. Content consumption doesn’t typically get done on computers anymore. That’s for tablets and phones. Many people don’t do much in the way of creation anymore, and if they do, then it’s probably on resources provided by work.
Or, it’s video content creation where the tools on phones and tablets are sufficient for the majority of amateur or social media videos. And social media sites are all about keeping you consuming content for as long as they can, where creating content is neither necessary nor really desired. They want your attention on all those ads they’re selling against you as their captive inventory of eyeballs.
If I’m not doing programming or 3D modeling, I generally don’t use my laptop. It doesn’t seem worth the trouble of getting it. I can do the vast, vast majority of what I want on my phone, faster, because it’s already right there.
If I’m reading more or researching more, I pull out my iPad for the bigger screen.
But over the last decade, I’ve realized those two take care of the vast majority of my needs.
I am like this too. Software engineer by trade, but I rarely pull out my personal laptop (I suppose this is an admission that I also rarely work on personal projects these days too...).
Most of my consumption happens on my iPad at home and while traveling, and my iPhone when on the move (such as commuting).
Being a software engineer is also probably part of it.
I spend all day on the computer. Unless I have some specific project I’m really interested in I’ve already had plenty of “computer time“ for the day and don’t feel that draw.
It still made sense before the smart phone, or when my phone it iPad couldn’t cover my needs well. These days that’s not a problem.
It boggles my mind. I only use my phone as a very last resort. It's such a terrible experience overall. Between modals, banners, and ads, it's downright impossible to even read the content you want.
It's not even a screen size issue. I couldn't imagine diving into anything remotely serious without being able to open a new tab and search a specific term/concept/fact in a quarter of a second, without having to fight the autocorrect at every step of the process.
For a long time, this was something you couldn't really do on an iPhone. You couldn't just install Firefox with uBlock. Even ignoring the ads, most websites seem to purposefully make the experience miserable to push you to their app.
On iPhone and iPad, there are good system-wide ad blocking tools you can get. They will work in any WebKit view, which covers almost every app that is likely to be displaying any ads. There’s 1Blocker, Adblock Plus, AdGuard Pro, and many more.
Your biggest problem in this space is trying to figure out which ones are good for you and which ones are not.
I have trouble believing that this is normal. Most (all?) people who need to write a thesis would have access to a computer with a keyboard and presumably would recognize that it’s significantly easier to write the thesis there.
I go to the websites for most applications that are plain webviews and don't even hide it, as do plenty of people that I know, while creating application like bookmarks.
A big iPhone is the wrong way to think about this, it is in fact a foldable iPad mini. An iPad Mini you can comfortably fit in your pocket and take on the go with an always on cellular connection that can take phone calls.
As someone who used to carry an iPad mini in his back jeans pocket (it barely fit), I am very much looking forward to my pre-order showing up.
I daily an iPad mini for work and personal use. The Duo is not comparable at all for the simple reason that it does not support universal control or sidecar. At its current state, it is nothing more than a very large iPhone.
I actually wanted the Duo so I wouldn’t have to carry both a smartphone and a tablet together all the time. Alas.
>Nearly 10 years in to foldables, and they still bring so many caveats. They are consistently worse for size,
And that is why Apple is only shipping theirs now, it is getter better and finally have a decent trajectory in the next 3-5 years to overcome most of those issues. I mean you can pretty much look at State of the Art from Chinese Android phones to see where we are heading in terms of hardware. They are now to the point USB-C port is the limit of how thin they could make their phone.
You've never held an Oppo Find N6 which I have in my hands right now then.
Oppo Find N6 thickness folded 8.93mm. iPhone 18 Pro Max 8.75mm.
Oppo Find N6 battery 6000mAh. iPhone 18 Pro Max 5567 (esim-only model)
Oppo Find N6 dual nano + eSIM. iPhone 18 Pro Max eSim only (or smaller battery)
Oppo Find N6 200+50+50 MP cameras. iPhone 18 Pro Max 48+48+48. iPhone PM has 1/1.3 vs 1/1.56" only on Oppo tho.
It’s 19 years since iPhone was introduced and android users are still pointing to paper specifications.
To pick the first Google result that isn’t the manufacturer’s pages, GSM Arena tested the Oppo at 15:45 hrs battery life and the iPhone at 19:20 hrs.
I strongly expect to find the usual camera result from the last twenty years of “marketing megapixels” not translating into image quality, but that’s more subjective.
Doubtless you’re going to say that the Oppo is a bigger screen but then why did you choose to crow about 430mAh more battery capacity and not compare with the iPhone Duo?
They didn’t actually say the Oppo gets better battery life, but if they had said it, I would certainly disbelieve them - because “some googled results” of a site which reviews phones and attempts to do standardised tests is stronger evidence, yes.
I feel like Apple had to eventually show something in this space (just like VR). With perhaps one or two more revisions I think they'll let the foldable space "go away" in a few years.
IIRC the take rate on the Samsung folds is about the same as the iPhone Mini take rate was. If that holds, Apple may ditch it as not being worthwhile, just like they did the Mini.
I just wish they could make a Mini once every three or four years. They'd sell a bunch each time.
ive been really enjoying my iPhone duo so far, its hard to imagine going back to a normal phone. it makes it so much more fun to schedule appointments, read blog posts, vibe code, update my calendar before a trip, watch movies, etc...
I felt this way since the first Pixel Fold. Now I have Pixel Fold 10 and a Duo. I need work-personal separation thus two devices, but it is a little much with two foldables.
I noticed a race among social media to teardown or literally tear down the iphone duo this time. Bendgate is always a classic one to do for views, scratchgate is another one content makers love as they can wear an expensive watch while they carve shapes into their expensive purchase while poor people from around the world clutch pearls. The folding design is a great opportunity for content makers to target for views, but my question is why the content makers never invent something, design it, market it, pay large amounts for iso safety testing certification, then make teardown content on what they created a la banksy love is in the bin
I'm sure the 5T multinational corporation is glad you're defending it against the small-time content creators bullying it, but you might notice that the people behind this teardown do in fact sell products they've designed. So do other popular creators in the teardown category like jerryrigeverything.
They can't do teardowns of their own products though. Anything interesting they'd find in a teardown should have been caught at the design stage, and they're hardly unbiased about their own products. At most they can do design decision videos, which many do. For opinionated testing they'll send their products to another creator instead.
Why does it matter if its 5 or 5T? The teardown or tear down is what is important. I invented something a few years in my backyard workshop while on welfare and it got tore down which made me realise something odd is going on
nah they're right, legit teardowns with microscopes & CTs & chip identification are interesting; most 'teardowns' are little more than destruction porn. jerryrig at least gives some info (scratch test) but even he quickly devolves into uninteresting destruction.
It's nothing new - is will it blend still a thing? - but man it seems like they're everywhere now
Has anyone considered that companies like Xiaomi/Samsung/Huawei/Lenovo/Honor/OPPO(rtunity?)/ZTE could easily pay a youtuber to buy and destroy a rival new release product? I mean nobody gasps when a ZTE nubia flip is snapped in half for views, does it?
Ifixit do? Their whole shtick is building repair guides, tools and selling spare parts...
There is definitely an incentive for content makers to discover the next Xgate and some are going to extreme lengths because drama is popular. That being said destructive testing is part of testing a product, it's not like the engineers at apple weren't doing the same sort of things internally.
Spending thousands of dollars on hardware I don't own is not for me, but foldable touchscreen phones are, objectively, pretty freaking cool pieces of engineering work. Very cool breakdown of the hardware.
I agree with the engineering, the thing is also I would like to consider a flip phone like a fold or similar, but the tradeoffs, the price, the lack of longevity AND the fact that even if the phone survives its whole life cycle, security updates would make it obsolete for certain applications, makes it difficult to even consider such a device...
Though looking at the practical engineering questions and their solutions is still entertaining.
So I don't. Fines are very low (almost not worth paying, entirely), so I don't sweat it (and know where lots of "free" parking is).
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Definitely this makes scheduling important – and then following through. I will typically arrive a bit early, and not leave until (they're) fifteen minutes late.
It is cumbersome but worthwhile; if I had family (or was "on call") this would obviously be impossible.
You know how on a computer screen you can just drag any corner of a window to resize it? I had a dream once where I had a phone that worked that way. Want a bigger screen? Just drag one of the corners of the phone. Shove all the corners together and drop it in your pocket.
I used the hell out of that phone all night. Then I woke up and spent about an hour trying to figure out how to build one. I think I could do it in one dimension (i.e. make the phone wider) by rolling the screen around a tiny roller in the edge of the case, and having the case telescope. But that won't work in two dimensions at once. I never figured out how to do it in two dimensions.
Could be 4 screens overlapping each other. Pull the corners and the lower screens pull out from below the upper ones. There would be a visible seam at the boundary, but maybe there's a trick you could use to disguise it.
This reminded me about phones from the TV show Upload. They are wristbands that project a holographic screen. Feels like a cool concept, and just as impossible to build with current tech, heh
The biggest caveat with folding phones is the inner display. I wonder how bad could it have been if the inner display was made out of two solid but robust glass halves with as little gab as the technology allow. I mean after all we still see the crease in every folding phone.
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[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 40.3 ms ] threadOn the other hand, the advantages are... an iPad like experience sometimes? Or a smaller phone for the flip form factor? The flip form factor certainly does not pay off. I'm honestly not sure who the trade-offs pay off for.
yes, battery & camera are a generation back and water/dustproof is even worse.
but productivity and fun are off the charts: slab phones feel pathetic once you've got a fold. Communication apps show you the list of conversations as well as the current one - or the current one and the details/multimedia. Google Maps shows the map and the listing details/reviews. Games and multimedia are delightful. Photos are full sized, and you can see what you're shooting in detail - if you shoot with a digital camera, remote shooting is amazing because there's enough space to show detailed focus.
I know, I know, that’s not as portable, that’s not a device you have with you all the time like a phone.
But how inconvenient is an iPad or iPad mini, really?
Then you just cut off all the downsides of the foldable devices, and you add the upside of a separate device, separate battery. Two people can’t use an iPhone Duo at the same time, but two people can use an iPad and an iPhone at the same time.
Like for gaming I’d just immediately say I’d rather have an Android handheld as a gaming device with dedicated gaming controls.
For digital camera shooting the obvious answer is an iPad for remote shooting. Why stop at the Duo’s smaller matte screen when an iPad Pro would be so much better for a hobbyist photographer? That screen blows the Duo out of the water and you can literally afford an iPad Pro and an iPhone for the same price.
And which is going to inconvenience me more: having to tap on Maps listings for reviews or my phone not having FaceID?
Then they make perfect sense to do on an iPhone Duo, because the inner screen size is basically the same as an iPad mini.
That's the point. It's a foldable iPad that carries the iPhone name.
Like the remote photography example, I have to imagine that an iPad Pro is way better for that purpose. Why settle for a 7” matte compromised screen when you could use the full 11” tandem OLED display in an iPad Pro?
For gaming I’d definitely rather have a handheld with proper control sticks on it, and I’d definitely rather have Android where I can run more types of emulators and install full blown PC games.
The annual AppleCare bill on an iPhone Duo is almost as expensive as an unlimited T-Mobile data plan for an iPad, $240/year vs. $200/year.
You are correct in saying that yes this is one device that roughly is equivalent to an iPad mini, but in terms of cost, durability, screen quality, etc, you have to really find the iPad mini to be unworkably difficult to carry around to make the cost and fragility of a foldable make sense.
There are benefits to having two devices in addition to the downsides. Two people can use them. Two batteries versus one, double the run time.
1. fold is godsend for commute/travel/restaurant/club/etc. tablet is nonstart. 2. one device = one device to learn/optimize.
also, there's something deeply elegant about starting with the outer screen for quick stuff, then unfolding when it's gonna be a minute...
I'm in nyc, and it's delightful to use slab-mode standing up, then sitting down and unfolding, like it's a Harry Potter moving newspaper...
Also, showing off my photos on the fold is a joy.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/wLoc3Baur7oVqLi68
Why do I need a device for a restaurant or club again? Shouldn’t I be enjoying the restaurant or club?
Is it hard to learn an iPad compared to an iPhone? What learning or optimizing am I needing to do?
I can stand up my phone or tablet with a $20 case.
What problem is the Harry Potter moving newspaper solving? Is that worth $2,000 plus $200/year for AppleCare so you don’t get caught paying for a $1,000 screen replacement?
We've been asking for a small phone for so long now
And then now we have one. But its too costly. I'm waiting for the cost to come down
For foldable phones the factor is that you have a phone and a small tab all in one.
It’s not about the steps to be able to use it, it’s about fitting in your pocket.
Everyone I have ever met with the new Motorola Razr product lineup owns that phone so it fits in women’s jeans pockets.
Moto screen is good enough and has a full screen, not a dummy one
Also the point about the screen being too small - that's the point! I don't want to use Android and get sucked into 10 different apps. The small screen is perfect. Useless for anything beyond clock and phone and whatsapp maybe
I think the main thing is that for this kind of money you have a lot of options. You could even buy a GPD device that is an actual full blown pouch sized laptop and buy a regular iPhone for the same price.
I have done this! I currently carry a GPD Win Max 2 around, but let me be clear about some elements of this: the keyboard on a sub-device is just as important as any other, and the keyboard on GPD devices is not great. A sub-device has to be maintained and charged and given love and care just the same as any other device. The amount of times I have found my cute linux laptop dead when I wanted it, outdated, or randomly signed out of services is quite high (and this is with an onboard LTE modem). Carrying around a folding (or even non-folding, like a Magic Keyboard) is lighter than a sub-device, will last significantly longer in terms of charge/battery, and does not require any of the secondary device maintenance that is needed with one normally.
To me a folding phone is an absolute no-brainer in terms of why it is useful. You can get a very, very good keyboard for cheap, or try many, and completely eliminate the need to carry a second device.
Another huge use case I have is transit/travel video playback. I do not normally want to bring an iPad or even a secondary laptop during travel, so this effectively deletes one more device that I have to charge, update, bring adapters for, etc. It is effectively all of the benefit of having a tablet at all times, a sub-laptop at all times, and requires absolutely no additional charging or maintenance.
When I travel I take my AYN Odin 2 Portal with me for gamine. That thing has a battery that’s twice the size of a typical smartphone and it can play games literally all day before the battery dies, while my phone is in my pocket fully charged ready to be useful at my destination.
Is this bulkier than an iPhone duo? Sure. It’s also a $230 device.
Why would I want the ergonomics of a small laptop when a folding phone and bluetooth keyboard is much better?
What software do you need that android cannot support? Surely ssh or tailscale can fill that gap.
We are going as far as packing a Bluetooth keyboard. With that kind of bulk we might as well toss in a tablet or a MacBook Air.
In my case, my travel setup is a normal iPhone and AYN Odin 2 Portal.
If I had a folding phone instead I’d still need to pack a controller grip device for gaming. If my games are 16:9 I’ve still compromised on screen size by using a folding phone.
I’m just not seeing where the folding screen is helpful for travel in particular. As soon as you want to use those devices for more advanced stuff it kinda just makes sense to use a second device.
As a bonus for the second device setup, I can drain the battery on the second device without guilt. When my plane lands I’ve still got a juiced up phone.
OTOH I have used my iPhone pro max for development for a long long time. The trick is to use a always-on linux VPS pairing with many excellent terminal emulators on iPhone (e.g. blink.sh).
Essentially I'm using iPhone as a thin client to visit a true linux development machine, and both of them play their roles perfectly. While other solutions while trying to be both roles with a single device failed miserably.
Eventually you will come to realize that the desktop/laptop app paradigm is wrong and that Android and iOS have it right.
If every device could be Linux-based with good touch screen and phone UI I would prefer that.
I don't know if terminal access is as easy on iPhones, but the utility is there for many work related use-cases. I do think the more square-like form factor of the Pixel to be better for productivity than the rectangular form of the Duo, but the latter is nicer for videos.
Interesting, reviewers (Joanna Stern) said that it was not great for productivity, more for consumption. Perhaps it works for your kind of tasks, but not hers/others.
well of course larger screen is fking great for productivity
try reading book on iphone SE vs ipad mini
and then try taking scribbing on pdf slides with ipad mini vs galaxytab ultra
you must have really good working memory to remember all the relevant context NOT shown in the screen with that iphone SE
(I noticed this because I read same stuff, but understood less stuff with that iphone se vs galtab ultra)
I also think they were not comparing it to an iPhone SE.
small screens actually encourages the worst attention-seeking media consumption
I believe you on that.
Yet I cannot think of a worse device to do code reviews on than a phone.
In fact, probably not just laptops, but also large external monitors, too. So, maybe even the laptop itself wouldn’t be a requirement, but it is much more convenient to have only the one main computing device for work be something that is easily portable.
The point was that there are so many tradeoffs it makes it a hard sell.
It's basically worse in every category *except* for the screen. Durability, price, battery, etc.
It’s mainly a consumption device, I got it initially for reading ebooks while on the train. It’s also a surprisingly good workhorse by itself, or as a second screen for a MacBook. I even make phone calls with it (via the iPhone) simply because it’s always in or near my hands.
So the Duo certainly piqued my interest when it was announced, until I learnt it doesn’t do iPad-y stuff like universal control or sidecar. I’ll wait for the next gen.
The whole selling point of this is that it’s an iPad mini in your pocket, IMO. It’s really a shame they couldn’t give it all of the iPad’s best features.
Also, just for the record, some carriers in Japan are offering financing that gives you the option of paying over 48 months and Apple offers 36 months. Is that quite absurd to most people? Absolutely, but for the average person who wants a bigger screen sometimes, the cost is not even going up much on a monthly basis.
For the record, especially in Japan, folio cases where you open your phone like a book are already the default. Effectively most people on the train have their phone open in some "Duo-ish" form-factor already. So the jump from a folio case to a folding phone is already substantially lower.
Obviously the gimmick nature of folding is not the compelling reason why people want folding phones. The question is more about tradeoffs, and I think that especially in asia, the demand for folding phones is quite obvious: upgrade your primary PC to have a huge display when you want it that way, otherwise it stays compact enough to be with you all the time.
Carrier financing doesn't make this go away. It's still a $60/month plan vs a $100+/month one. You're paying significantly more to have a worse primary compute device. For most people, that's going to be a rather hard sell.
The only benefit is that you have it on you at all times. I would argue that this is an attractive selling point for tech enthusiasts, but most people aren't going to care.
I would argue that this is an attractive selling point for tech enthusiasts, but most people aren't going to care.
But people camped out at my Aventura Apple Store in Miami at 8PM the previous day. Not a nerd hub really.
Yes, the larger screen is nice, but portability is key. The foldable devices can do both.
For myself, I’m not even going to consider them until they are much more robust. When they get to the point where Zack on JerryRigEverything can’t easily break them, then I might consider the idea. Not until then.
maybe it is not the culture in India (where i live). but it looks financially irresponsible. if you need a laptop and can't afford it, buy a second hand laptop instead. iphone duo can't replace a laptop in first place.
I'm sure there are people who fall into the financially irresponsible category, but these days there are many people who find zero use for having a laptop and have no desire for one at all.
Also it's not just a cost or affordability matter. Some people who can easily afford a top of the line laptop and/or tablet simply do not want one. They want one device to do all their computing needs from.
Most of my friends who are not in tech are like this, as is my wife. None of them have personal laptops at home. Few even have tablets.
I sometimes pull out my phone for the calculator rather than use the calculator app on my laptop. I can’t justify it as logical.
I do sometimes break out the terminal and use `bc -l` to do some math, when I’m doing other things on the laptop. But if I could get a version of the “42” app for my laptop, I would be a much happier puppy.
For me, I have two personal laptops, one of which I use more as a server in the house (MacBook Pro M3 Max). The other one is my actual primary laptop (MacBook Air M5), but I don’t use it that much, either. I only use my laptop(s) when I’m doing things involving creation of content, such as writing or deep research, etc…. The iPad gets used for all content consumption at home, but doesn’t typically go outside the house. The iPhone gets used for calls, inside or outside of the house. And the iPhone is what gets taken with me when I’m outside of the house, both for occasional content consumption while I’m waiting somewhere, as well as navigation and call purposes. I’m probably closer to 90% iPad, and 9% iPhone and 1% laptop.
I think the patterns for many people are similar. Content consumption doesn’t typically get done on computers anymore. That’s for tablets and phones. Many people don’t do much in the way of creation anymore, and if they do, then it’s probably on resources provided by work.
Or, it’s video content creation where the tools on phones and tablets are sufficient for the majority of amateur or social media videos. And social media sites are all about keeping you consuming content for as long as they can, where creating content is neither necessary nor really desired. They want your attention on all those ads they’re selling against you as their captive inventory of eyeballs.
If I’m not doing programming or 3D modeling, I generally don’t use my laptop. It doesn’t seem worth the trouble of getting it. I can do the vast, vast majority of what I want on my phone, faster, because it’s already right there.
If I’m reading more or researching more, I pull out my iPad for the bigger screen.
But over the last decade, I’ve realized those two take care of the vast majority of my needs.
Most of my consumption happens on my iPad at home and while traveling, and my iPhone when on the move (such as commuting).
I spend all day on the computer. Unless I have some specific project I’m really interested in I’ve already had plenty of “computer time“ for the day and don’t feel that draw.
It still made sense before the smart phone, or when my phone it iPad couldn’t cover my needs well. These days that’s not a problem.
It's not even a screen size issue. I couldn't imagine diving into anything remotely serious without being able to open a new tab and search a specific term/concept/fact in a quarter of a second, without having to fight the autocorrect at every step of the process.
Your biggest problem in this space is trying to figure out which ones are good for you and which ones are not.
HN just really hates mobiles and unironically goes to amazon.com rather than using the damn app.
As someone who used to carry an iPad mini in his back jeans pocket (it barely fit), I am very much looking forward to my pre-order showing up.
I actually wanted the Duo so I wouldn’t have to carry both a smartphone and a tablet together all the time. Alas.
And that is why Apple is only shipping theirs now, it is getter better and finally have a decent trajectory in the next 3-5 years to overcome most of those issues. I mean you can pretty much look at State of the Art from Chinese Android phones to see where we are heading in terms of hardware. They are now to the point USB-C port is the limit of how thin they could make their phone.
Oppo Find N6 thickness folded 8.93mm. iPhone 18 Pro Max 8.75mm. Oppo Find N6 battery 6000mAh. iPhone 18 Pro Max 5567 (esim-only model) Oppo Find N6 dual nano + eSIM. iPhone 18 Pro Max eSim only (or smaller battery) Oppo Find N6 200+50+50 MP cameras. iPhone 18 Pro Max 48+48+48. iPhone PM has 1/1.3 vs 1/1.56" only on Oppo tho.
To pick the first Google result that isn’t the manufacturer’s pages, GSM Arena tested the Oppo at 15:45 hrs battery life and the iPhone at 19:20 hrs.
I strongly expect to find the usual camera result from the last twenty years of “marketing megapixels” not translating into image quality, but that’s more subjective.
Doubtless you’re going to say that the Oppo is a bigger screen but then why did you choose to crow about 430mAh more battery capacity and not compare with the iPhone Duo?
https://m.gsmarena.com/oppo_find_n6-review-2947p3.php
https://m.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_18_pro_max-review-3002p3...
This is peak 2026
I believe it has a larger battery.
That larger battery gives it 25% less runtime.
They didn’t actually say the Oppo gets better battery life, but if they had said it, I would certainly disbelieve them - because “some googled results” of a site which reviews phones and attempts to do standardised tests is stronger evidence, yes.
I just wish they could make a Mini once every three or four years. They'd sell a bunch each time.
The first broken iPhone Duos are here
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223580
The iPhone Duo
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50189055
Good heavens, if your Duo breaks, it’s cheaper to get almost ANY other new phone.
must be shilling.
They can't do teardowns of their own products though. Anything interesting they'd find in a teardown should have been caught at the design stage, and they're hardly unbiased about their own products. At most they can do design decision videos, which many do. For opinionated testing they'll send their products to another creator instead.
It's nothing new - is will it blend still a thing? - but man it seems like they're everywhere now
There is definitely an incentive for content makers to discover the next Xgate and some are going to extreme lengths because drama is popular. That being said destructive testing is part of testing a product, it's not like the engineers at apple weren't doing the same sort of things internally.
Though looking at the practical engineering questions and their solutions is still entertaining.
Pretty much sums it up, for me.
But I don't even own a cell phone, anymore... so probably not the intended iPhoneDuo demographic.
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This "cool" mentality is pretty much the flaunt/sickness driving planned-obsolescence, in my very-jaded opinion.
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Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can..!
So I don't. Fines are very low (almost not worth paying, entirely), so I don't sweat it (and know where lots of "free" parking is).
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Definitely this makes scheduling important – and then following through. I will typically arrive a bit early, and not leave until (they're) fifteen minutes late.
It is cumbersome but worthwhile; if I had family (or was "on call") this would obviously be impossible.
I used the hell out of that phone all night. Then I woke up and spent about an hour trying to figure out how to build one. I think I could do it in one dimension (i.e. make the phone wider) by rolling the screen around a tiny roller in the edge of the case, and having the case telescope. But that won't work in two dimensions at once. I never figured out how to do it in two dimensions.
When somebody builds one of these, I'll buy one.
https://i.redd.it/tv8gify0w11c1.png
Your dream phone sounds cooler. Dreaming about phones is probably not "cool", mind ;-)
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is their worst selling phone in the years to come.