Apple Announces Foldable 'iPhone Duo'

[lifeinhd]

About 4% of the global population have “faint fingerprints”…yay for body diversity!!!

Setting my fingerprint in previous versions of iPhone would typically only last a few hours tops, before the phone would no longer recognize my touch. Anytime I wash my hands or shower, the phone also can’t recognize my touch anymore.

In short TouchID is unusable for some 350 million people…

Interesting. Meanwhile I can't use Face ID half the time because when I'm lying down, or have my glasses off (causing my eyes to cross to focus), or even having it lie flat on a table, it doesn't register. The other half of the time I pull my phone out of my pocket to check the notification screen, but my finger has already tapped a notification while pulling it out of my pocket, and before I know it the phone is already unlocked and sending me into an app I did NOT want to go into, and wanted to keep the notification unread for. Honestly I hate Face ID with a passion, and am VERY glad to see the return of Touch ID. It offers so much more control.

Different strokes, I suppose.

 

[now i see it]

If this folding design was what the very first iPhone looked like way back when - everyone would be in awe and clamoring for the new single screen iPhone design if it was finally released today Look! It fits in your pocket!

 

[gadget123]

I projected 3.14% by year-end in the “iFold will fail” thread. 😉

Happy to be proved otherwise. I don’t see foldable becoming the main phone people use

 

[jjudson]

For a lot of us, TouchID doesn’t work 😣

Perhaps it's time to reconsider your career as a jewel thief and you won't need to sand off your fingerprints any longer...

 

[SactoGuy18]

Fantastic Apple, now think about iPhone Solo. Half the Duo. Sign me up.

It's not such a crazy idea. I wouldn't be surprised the replacement for the current iPhone Air switches to a 16:9 aspect ratio display that looks like a Huawei Pura X View phone.

 

[lifeinhd]

Would put the TouchID in a rather hard to reach place.

Under-screen fingerprint sensors exist. This would have been a great use case for one.

 

[Sinfonist]

Saving this for when it sells out next week.

There are people for whom price is not a concern. As usual, the question is whether there are enough of them who like the specific design. Selling out just depends on whether Apple has predicted the demand correctly, of course - they're usually quite good at that, so you're on fairly safe ground 🙂

 

[skiguy45]

Not really a big fan of this but I'll stick to my 17 pro max.

I’ll stick to my iPhone mini

 

[obviouslogic]

Cool! And that moves the TouchID button too?

Why would you need to move the Touch ID button? I can control the volume buttons with my right hand, even though they are on the left side of my iPhone. Use a different finger for Touch ID… Perhaps a middle finger?

 

[gpatrick15]

People are INSANELY hyping these foldable phones. I don’t see the value proposition in them and it showed in the demo. Sorry I would rather use an iPad to do these things.

And guess what? You can! Freedom of choice and what not

 

[tivoboy]

Honestly, looks better than I expected. They clearly spent their time on a Gen1 product (granted, they got to see Gen 1-7 from Sammy and others, and I’m sure SAMMY provides the screen?

The screen looks great, but it MIGHT have been a bit of sleight of hand slideware images, so we couldn’t SEE the CREASE that must be there somewhere.

but design, OS, changes to the USE CASES, all look pretty darn good and as I said, better than I at least expected.

Yes, I will probably buy one at least the test it out. And with Phone # transfer (device to device) it will make this a great tool for various situations.

I give it a solid A, anything in the B range wouldn’t give credit for the overall completed effort - as it appears at least from the show.

One thing is for certain.. they are going to SELL A S..T TON of these.. especially just before the hoildays

 

[Cuesca]

The crease looks just as visible as on the Z Fold 8. Pretty good, I kinda wish it was closer to OPPO's offering though.

 

[conmee]

Happy to be proved otherwise. I don’t see foldable becoming the main phone people use

It was more tongue-in-cheek since a lot of folks were arguing about percents of a percent, so I figured pi was a good number to go with. lol

 

[Sinfonist]

Closed, most people would use it like a phone. Open, most people would use it like a tablet.

No screen protector when open presumably?

 

[jdclifford]

I was expecting $2199 usd for the 512 which converts to $3200 Canadian using their current 1.45 exchange rate. Guess they raised the exchange rate to 1.5 lmao.

$3,299 for the 512gb version is wild.

I already switched to a fold 8 last week assuming this pricing. I'll keep the $800 savings in my pocket.

$1,999 256gb, $2,199 512gb

 

[ThomasJL]

Touch ID is built into the side button, and the device can also be unlocked using an Apple Watch.

While I have absolutely no interest in the iPhone Duo, I hope Apple can bring Touch ID back to regular iPhones. I know this is too hard for someone as clueless and mediocre as Tim Cook to understand, but it's possible to have both Touch ID and Face ID on regular iPhones. That would give users a choice.

 

[mlayer]

I guess the wager is all these people who wanted an iPad Mini but didn't buy one, as they only want it if it can unfold into one on the go?

I'm sure there are many who may want that ...

But it makes for a very heavy brick in your pocket, for the price of a full blown really nice MacBook Air 15".

Nothing is really for "free" here, even on foldables.

You get the smallest iPad when you unfold, and a heavy brick of an iPhone, missing some key things, the rest of the time.

For reference, the iPad mini 5th-7th generations ran between 10.3 and 10.6 oz. So if, like me, you carried both the iPad mini and an iPhone, you were carrying a pound of devices on a regular basis. As much I pooh-poohed the foldable concepts a few years ago, a device that does both iPhone and basic iPad duties while weighing <9 oz. is much more desirable than I expected. Is it worth the price? Well, the trade-in for my iPhone Air is $585, making the cost of the Duo $1414. That's a little more palatable especially if I don't have to invest in a new iPad.

FWIW, I use Apple Watch unlock on two Macs that don't support FaceID, so it should be fine as a FaceID substitute.

 

[tobybrut]

So, did they got rid of the crease by making the display matte?

No, with strengthening the hinge mechanism, plus dual glass layers. The problem with repeated folding is that the crease gets deeper over time because the backing behind the screen is not uniform. Apple does two things. It uses Liquid Metal (according to rumor) to fill in gaps a standard hinge would leave, giving the screen a very uniform backing. Second they use multiple glass layers around the screen and a titanium back to further reinforce the screen. It’s unknown if the Apple crease will get worse over time, obviously since it hasn’t been sold yet. But Apple seems to think so.

The matte display is their use of their nano-texture display technology they use on various Apple displays to prevent glare. Plus it changes the feeling of plastic all other foldables have. They’re addressing a yuck factor people have when touching a foldable screen because the screen feels fragile. It also probably makes it a lot tougher to scratch or leave grooves. As JerryRigEverything would say about a foldable screen. “It scratches at a level 2 with deeper scratches at level finger nail.” He’s referring to the Mohs scale of hardness. Most smart phones scratch at level 6 with deeper scratches at 7. Apple’s Ceramic Shield 2 is better than most, scratching at level 7 with deeper scratches at level 8. Level 10 is basically diamond hardness. But that’s only on the front screen.

Apple really has been paying attention to the foldables other companies make. They have addressed almost every issue other foldables have, with the exception of inferior cameras to their candy bar flagship phones and Face ID. Androids sort of have facial recognition, but it’s inconsistent and insecure, unlocking to photographs. Apple won’t put Face ID into a foldable until the cameras needed shrink in depth.

 

[Scarpad]

Inwas
Thinking of buying the new mini so I could see replacing my iPhone with this problem for
Me no unlocked version and I don’t want to be locked into T-Mobile att or verizon

 

[Quixotic3]

Too big and expensive for me, waiting on the iPhone Duo Mini, something wallet size would be great!

 

[vi2867]

I heard they wanted to go with $1,799, but after price increases it went up to $1,999. I'm good with this price. I am planning to get the iPhone Duo Dark Blue with 512GB. It will be $2,199. I will trade in my iPhone Air after paying it off, and get $585 for trade to reduce price. I will use Apple Credit Card Monthly installments for 24 months at $67.25.

 

[Rogifan]

I’m seeing so many comments about how the Duo is the best ever and best software implementation…all from people who haven’t really used it yet…have spent maybe 5 minutes with it in a hands on area. They almost sound like they’re being paid to post these takes or they really want an exclusive with Apple execs.

 

[stuartea]

Lots to like ... fingerprint ID is a no-go.

exactly, it's a complete step back. It was hilarious to see how they tried to sell it as 'the perfect thing for this phone' when the reality is they couldn't fit it in. If touchid was so good, it would be in all the high end phone. This is more like an iPhone SE with a big screen.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I heard they wanted to go with $1,799, but after price increases it went up to $1,999. I'm good with this price. I am planning to get the iPhone Duo Dark Blue with 512GB. It will be $2,199. I will trade in my iPhone Air after paying it off, and get $585 for trade to reduce price. I will use Apple Credit Card Monthly installments for 24 months at $67.25.

People are really “good” with a $2000 starting price for an iPhone?

 

[Glideslope]

This was nothing but another Vision Pro Event.