The iPhone Duo isn't ready, at least according to every reviewer out there.

I've been reading and watching the iPhone Duo reviews this week, and I'm still looking for one reviewer who calls it a great deal and a finished product. The verdict is remarkably consistent: a nice concept, stellar hardware, and software that isn't ready yet. I recorded a short on it, with a small request to Apple at the end:

The hardware isn't the problem

Apple's foldable starts at around $2,000, with pre-orders that opened on 16 October and deliveries from 23 October, according to 9to5Mac. Nobody seems to be arguing about the build. The complaints are about what happens when you open your apps on the big inner screen: black bars, layouts that weren't designed for it, and a lot of "wait for the update".

That isn't a small detail on a device like this. The whole point of the Duo is the second screen. If the apps don't use it, you've paid for a very expensive concept.

Why the software isn't there

The part I find strange is how the developer side was handled. Apps need to be recompiled for iOS 27 to use the larger display, and the Duo's new interface components need iOS 27.1, as 9to5Mac laid out in its piece on Apple's software gamble. Developers got a simulated Duo in a beta a few weeks before launch, but most of them won't hold a real device until it ships. One app developer I came across on Threads said his redesigned app had been waiting six weeks in Apple's review.

I understand the secrecy around new products. It's part of how Apple works, and it's part of the fun. But for a product that depends this much on apps adapting to it, not getting the software into developers' hands properly before launch is a strange call for a company of Apple's size. My guess is we'll all be waiting another year before the Duo is genuinely useful.

It's the mirror image of something I wrote about Meta's Muse: the model wasn't the best, and the integrations made up for it. With the Duo, the hardware is the best part and the ecosystem around it is lagging. In both cases the experience is decided by the layer people talk about less.

What I'd actually like Apple to build

So here's my small request. I don't need a foldable. I'd like two things.

The first is an iPad Mini Pro, and that might actually be on its way. The second is an iPhone Mini Pro, built the way the iPhone Air is: thin, light, with battery life that's stellar for its size. I don't need a great camera on it. I need a phone that fits in my pocket when I go running and can hold everything I do, without being my main device.

Because it isn't my main device. Nine times out of ten I'm at a desk on a computer, or on my iPad when I'm out. The phone is the thing I carry. It should be small and it should last.

Just get these two things done and do them well. That's all I want.

And if Apple can't, then fix the software on the Duo first, and we can talk again.

There's a broader point in here that I keep coming back to, whether it's Microsoft redesigning Copilot to look like Claude or a phone that folds: what impresses in a launch video and what makes a product worth using are rarely the same thing. Doing fewer things well usually beats doing a new thing first.

Sources & further reading

External
9to5Mac: Apple's iPhone Duo software gamble
9to5Mac: The race to build great iPhone Duo apps is about to begin
Tom's Guide: Apple's $1,999 gamble, analysts react to the new iPhone Duo foldable

Related posts
Meta's Muse, one week in: the model isn't the best, and the integrations make up for it
Microsoft's new Copilot looks just like Claude. That's not the part that matters.