Apple has finally entered the foldable smartphone market. This week, Apple unveiled its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo, with a starting price of $1,999. The device features a 7.6-inch inner display when unfolded and a 5.4-inch outer display when folded.
It is powered by the A20 Pro chip, supports split-screen multitasking and Apple Pencil, and offers up to 2TB of storage. Apple also highlighted a new precision hinge, a reduced-crease design, and an iOS experience optimized specifically for the foldable form factor.
Apple’s promotional video also reveals how the company wants consumers to think about the foldable form factor. Through a series of fast and highly stylized scene transitions, the iPhone Duo moves between different scenarios as it folds and unfolds, making the change in form feel almost seamless.
The focus is not simply on the mechanical act of folding the phone, but on how that change can alter the user’s interaction with the device. In that sense, Apple is presenting the foldable iPhone less as a new type of hardware and more as a phone that can adapt its form to different situations.
For Apple, the launch represents one of the biggest changes to the iPhone’s form factor in more than a decade. But in China, Apple is not entering an empty market.
