Fired it up to check my own app (RunnerCast) and it looks fine. The Liquid Glass menu moves from the bottom to the right side automatically both on the inner and outer screens. If you already had a layout that worked for iOS and iPadOS, things adapt fine to the inside screen and when you go split screen with two apps, the layout adapts nicely. I don't think I'll need to do a thing.
I've also noticed a flurry of recent app updates from some of the bigger apps (MLB, NYTimes, etc.) to switch to the Liquid Glass menu which I assume Apple strongly suggested they do prior to the Duo launch.
Tongue half in cheek, my point is that agents may be unreliable with fresh libraries.
It looks like there are some fun edge cases too:
> A reserved region can be active or inactive. For example, a reserved region that represents the fold is active when iPhone Duo is partially open, but inactive when it is fully open.
Fun fact, I’ve now worked on the surface duo (technically the windows version not the android version) and the iPhone duo.
I thought the ideas of the surface duo were great and I’m super excited to see them evolved and shipped in a product that I think a lot of people are going to love.
Note: I'm scrubbing it against the final 27.1 beta SDK as I type this, so it's likely that its Duo knowledge will get an update within the next few hours.
They finally released the full experience a few months back. I think their original excuse (years ago) was that 'people take photos on iPhone so iPad is unnecessary for Instagram'.
Most apps people actually use will look fine because there's a team of mobile devs in all big companies who get paid to keep up with Apple breaking their apps every year with their 'updates' (among other things).
I mean, don't expect advanced features like consistent smooth scrolling, non-broken UI, absence of animation flickers, cloud sync that works consistently even for paid apps developed by Apple or anybody else but other than that :)
I think this is my main hesitation with picking up the Duo on the first release. I have no doubt the build quality is exceptional, but the chance that the apps I use are not well optimized for this new form factor is pretty high in the first year of its release.
I don't think they won't work, but I anticipate oddities to appear for a while, especially for older applications.
I’m not sure about this, we already support resizing on our app for a while now because of our iPad/mac catalyst version, so I fail to see how different it would be on the Duo.
I assume other apps will have have the same, since our team is super small compared to everyone else.
Waiting for my coding agent to have zero idea what I mean when I say build for iPhone duo (due to knowledge cutoffs in pre-training; happened when Liquid Glass came out previously).
I coincidentally asked Gemini a question about the iPhone Duo a few hours ago and, while it seemed to understand that it's a folding phone, it confidently hallucinated that in "tent" pose, there would be a display visible from both sides. In reality, only one side in this pose is the display, the other side is just back glass with the large cameras.
It really feels quite irrelevant. Also, the amount of work to support this with zero support from Apple since WWDC is just absurd. And even if one does the work, Apple will just sherlock the cool features into their apps.
And when did Apple decide to grace us with tools to support the Duo? Yeah, 3 hours ago. This should've been out in June so they can also get the feedback about all the silly design choices the Duo brings (and the bugs in that simulator). Too bad I can't just send them an invoice for all the wasted time.
But will you gain anything by building for it? Will you see noticeably more users or people choosing another alternative because you didn't specifically building the app for Duo? At least if it doesn't outright break.
You could say this about every QoL feature though. That’s not a reason to not do it though, it adds up and at some point other apps that do bother to make their apps as good as possible will become more popular than yours.
I would get a little bit of joy if a duo user noticed the effort I put into making my app work well on their device. Why put effort into anything? Your take is bordering dangerously on cynicism. :)
Duo users also likely have disposable income to spend on in app purchases, maybe click on ads to purchase things, and other monetization. So I do think it's worth building for it.
Will you see noticeably more users or people choosing another alternative because you didn't specifically building the app for Duo?
I haven't done iOS development in a long time, but my understanding is that if your iPhone app is designed well and uses all of Apple's recommended methods, adjusting for different screen sizes and orientations is fairly easy.
If you decided to go cheap/easy/dumb from the outset, then you made your bed, and now you get to lie in it.
It is indeed a niche product. Its price reflects the sales expectations of Apple.
But its form factor has been validated for almost a decade now from other manufacturers. So iPhone Duo will do fine. It will not surpass a slab iPhone but fine.
Vision Pro was a completely new beast, the hardware was not there, the market was not there.
It's worth noting that "niche" in this case means ~10M in its first year, comparted to an estimated 250M Apple smartphone shipments in 2027. So far, Apple has sold ~600K Vision Pro in total.
Also, supporting Duo is not an enormous lift if you're already supporting resizable windows, as developers are required to do for OS 27.
My only concern is that they'll sell out so quickly for so long that I'll have to wait for the iPhone Duo Two-o because they won't be easy to get until like May 2027.
I really wanted to use it as my primary computing display, but as is almost always the case with Apple, the amazing hardware was hamstrung by the crippled OS.
Even just being able to use it as a generic display i.e. with a Nintendo Switch would have been amazing.
Developer here. Apple often rejects app submissions if the app doesn't look optimized for some iPhone device or iPad device. So won't be surprised if they reject new apps and updates for not being optimized for the Duo. This could be their way of getting developers to comply.
That seems like a tough road. They've never been able to enforce that iPhone app makers build an iPad-compatible version or vice versa, and this looks exactly like that scenario.
It's mostly enforced, the only exception being apps with a legitimate iPhone-only hardware dependency.
iPhone apps must function on iPad in iPhone-compatibility mode, apps must support window resizability as of OS 27, and apps can't detect iPad and refuse to run. And I don't think this is new, but setting the target to iPhone-only doesn't prevent iPhone apps from running on iPad.
Finally! So we have a little over a month between getting the simulator and first customers running our apps in Duo.
I expect that most apps will look rather broken on release, but it will be smoothed out eventually.
Fired it up to check my own app (RunnerCast) and it looks fine. The Liquid Glass menu moves from the bottom to the right side automatically both on the inner and outer screens. If you already had a layout that worked for iOS and iPadOS, things adapt fine to the inside screen and when you go split screen with two apps, the layout adapts nicely. I don't think I'll need to do a thing.
I've also noticed a flurry of recent app updates from some of the bigger apps (MLB, NYTimes, etc.) to switch to the Liquid Glass menu which I assume Apple strongly suggested they do prior to the Duo launch.
"You are a experienced iOS Software Engineer, your task is to migrate this application to the iPhone Duo layout...
“Here is your iOS app migrated to Surface Duo…”
Tongue half in cheek, my point is that agents may be unreliable with fresh libraries.
It looks like there are some fun edge cases too:
> A reserved region can be active or inactive. For example, a reserved region that represents the fold is active when iPhone Duo is partially open, but inactive when it is fully open.
source: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/technologyoverview...
Fun fact, I’ve now worked on the surface duo (technically the windows version not the android version) and the iPhone duo.
I thought the ideas of the surface duo were great and I’m super excited to see them evolved and shipped in a product that I think a lot of people are going to love.
> Tongue half in cheek, my point is that agents may be unreliable with fresh libraries.
You may find Axiom (my FOSS project, updated for iPhone Duo) helpful. https://charleswiltgen.github.io/Axiom/
Note: I'm scrubbing it against the final 27.1 beta SDK as I type this, so it's likely that its Duo knowledge will get an update within the next few hours.
Yeah, good luck with that.
I expect that most apps will look rather broken on release, but it will be smoothed out eventually.
Sadly, many apps will continue to look rather broken.
There are still thousands of apps that still look wrong on iPad 16 years after its release, even with the 2x button pushed, for no good reason.
I think I heard that Instygram only recently figured it out.
Instagram released a Reels-first iPad app that is much, much worse than the old iPhone-on-iPad app.
They finally released the full experience a few months back. I think their original excuse (years ago) was that 'people take photos on iPhone so iPad is unnecessary for Instagram'.
To me that's said more about Instagram than the feasibility of building an app for a tablet.
Most apps people actually use will look fine because there's a team of mobile devs in all big companies who get paid to keep up with Apple breaking their apps every year with their 'updates' (among other things).
I mean, don't expect advanced features like consistent smooth scrolling, non-broken UI, absence of animation flickers, cloud sync that works consistently even for paid apps developed by Apple or anybody else but other than that :)
Apple also bundles a /uikit-app-modernization skill which should help with adopting layouts to iPhone Duo.
I think this is my main hesitation with picking up the Duo on the first release. I have no doubt the build quality is exceptional, but the chance that the apps I use are not well optimized for this new form factor is pretty high in the first year of its release.
I don't think they won't work, but I anticipate oddities to appear for a while, especially for older applications.
I’m not sure about this, we already support resizing on our app for a while now because of our iPad/mac catalyst version, so I fail to see how different it would be on the Duo.
I assume other apps will have have the same, since our team is super small compared to everyone else.
The small screen is so small they had to move controls to the right, I would expect glitches because of that, especially for custom controls.
Apps not rebuilt with the latest SDK will display in pillar-boxes mode, centred on the screen.
I presume this Xcode 27.1 beta will not want to launch on our Mavericks Forever, the last Mac OS we actually like and use.
Correct.
Thanks for Axiom, looks useful. Does it already cover the new 27.1 beta APIs?
Now available for testing apps on the iPhone Duo!
Here are some screenshots from getting my own app compiled, if anyone is interested:
https://bsky.app/profile/cameronbanga.com/post/3mvsrxk5q7b2j
https://bsky.app/profile/cameronbanga.com/post/3mvss5wmxej2l
Waiting for my coding agent to have zero idea what I mean when I say build for iPhone duo (due to knowledge cutoffs in pre-training; happened when Liquid Glass came out previously).
I coincidentally asked Gemini a question about the iPhone Duo a few hours ago and, while it seemed to understand that it's a folding phone, it confidently hallucinated that in "tent" pose, there would be a display visible from both sides. In reality, only one side in this pose is the display, the other side is just back glass with the large cameras.
It really feels quite irrelevant. Also, the amount of work to support this with zero support from Apple since WWDC is just absurd. And even if one does the work, Apple will just sherlock the cool features into their apps.
> Also, the amount of work to support this with zero support from Apple since WWDC is just absurd.
Resources:
https://developer.apple.com/search/?q=iphone%20duo
Axiom: https://charleswiltgen.github.io/Axiom/ (my FOSS project, updated for iPhone Duo)
What is your point? That they eventually released something? The simulator came out today... on Friday afternoon lol
I don't understand what you mean by "eventually" when you can't even pre-order it yet.
Why does it feel irrelevant? And what kind of support should Apple be providing beyond releasing Xcode and an iPhone Duo simulator?
And when did Apple decide to grace us with tools to support the Duo? Yeah, 3 hours ago. This should've been out in June so they can also get the feedback about all the silly design choices the Duo brings (and the bugs in that simulator). Too bad I can't just send them an invoice for all the wasted time.
Honestly if they were really serious about this they would have released this back in December. Shame. Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave!!
I'm just gonna ignore this thing and continue as if it never existed. Worked with Vision Pro that no body uses and will work with this.
I'm not fangirling over it, but comparing it to Vision Pro is ridiculous.
But will you gain anything by building for it? Will you see noticeably more users or people choosing another alternative because you didn't specifically building the app for Duo? At least if it doesn't outright break.
You could say this about every QoL feature though. That’s not a reason to not do it though, it adds up and at some point other apps that do bother to make their apps as good as possible will become more popular than yours.
I would get a little bit of joy if a duo user noticed the effort I put into making my app work well on their device. Why put effort into anything? Your take is bordering dangerously on cynicism. :)
As a user, this attitude makes me sad.
As a professional programmer, it at least gratifies me to know this is the attitude I'm competing against.
Duo users also likely have disposable income to spend on in app purchases, maybe click on ads to purchase things, and other monetization. So I do think it's worth building for it.
But will you gain anything by building for it?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Will you see noticeably more users or people choosing another alternative because you didn't specifically building the app for Duo?
I haven't done iOS development in a long time, but my understanding is that if your iPhone app is designed well and uses all of Apple's recommended methods, adjusting for different screen sizes and orientations is fairly easy.
If you decided to go cheap/easy/dumb from the outset, then you made your bed, and now you get to lie in it.
It is exotic, and bring only a little to the table for a stiff price increase.
It is indeed a niche product. Its price reflects the sales expectations of Apple.
But its form factor has been validated for almost a decade now from other manufacturers. So iPhone Duo will do fine. It will not surpass a slab iPhone but fine.
Vision Pro was a completely new beast, the hardware was not there, the market was not there.
The form factor of Vision Pro has also been validated for a decade from other manufacturers.
And that means nothing. Because other manufacturers are not doing well either.
I know exactly one person who has a foldable phone and I live in sf. I’ve never even considered getting one and I like new tech.
I’m not doubting that there’s demand for it but I wonder who/where?
All over China/Asia, anecdotal statistic
I’m not doubting that there’s demand for it but I wonder who/where?
I spend a lot of time in hospitals, and I see doctors with them.
That may also explain why Apple isn't too worried about the price.
> It is indeed a niche product.
It's worth noting that "niche" in this case means ~10M in its first year, comparted to an estimated 250M Apple smartphone shipments in 2027. So far, Apple has sold ~600K Vision Pro in total.
Also, supporting Duo is not an enormous lift if you're already supporting resizable windows, as developers are required to do for OS 27.
The price, hardware, and market was not there for the Vision Pro. There was no reason to buy a VR headset that couldn’t play games.
> Its price reflects the sales expectations of Apple.
People famously said that of the first iPhone, expensive at the time.
Then about the $1k iPhone X.
Apple have made phones a fashion accessory and status symbol. I won’t be surprised if the Duo sells extreme well, even by iPhone standards.
My only concern is that they'll sell out so quickly for so long that I'll have to wait for the iPhone Duo Two-o because they won't be easy to get until like May 2027.
I had the 1st-gen Vision Pro, and then sold it.
I really wanted to use it as my primary computing display, but as is almost always the case with Apple, the amazing hardware was hamstrung by the crippled OS.
Even just being able to use it as a generic display i.e. with a Nintendo Switch would have been amazing.
taking the Apple strategy with the Apple ecosystem, genius
Developer here. Apple often rejects app submissions if the app doesn't look optimized for some iPhone device or iPad device. So won't be surprised if they reject new apps and updates for not being optimized for the Duo. This could be their way of getting developers to comply.
That seems like a tough road. They've never been able to enforce that iPhone app makers build an iPad-compatible version or vice versa, and this looks exactly like that scenario.
It's mostly enforced, the only exception being apps with a legitimate iPhone-only hardware dependency.
iPhone apps must function on iPad in iPhone-compatibility mode, apps must support window resizability as of OS 27, and apps can't detect iPad and refuse to run. And I don't think this is new, but setting the target to iPhone-only doesn't prevent iPhone apps from running on iPad.