Early impressions of the iPhone Duo
I have had the iPhone Duo for just under a week. I successfully ordered it through Best Buy and picked it up at the store when they opened.
I have had Apple devices since the late 1980s, and I haven't looked forward to one of their products like I did the Duo since the iPod was released. I did not get the original iPhone. I don’t remember exactly why, but I waited until the 3Gs to get one.
I decided to transfer my information from my iPhone 16 Pro. There was nothing wrong with that phone. I have written about why I wanted the Duo before, so I won't go over it again here. This is not a review but a story of my experience, or more simply, my early impressions.
This phone is the phone I have always wanted. I use it closed way more than I thought. The keyboard on the front is wider than the one on my 16 Pro, and I make far fewer typing mistakes than I used to. I don't know why, but on almost every iPhone I have owned, I hit the n when I want to hit space. I don't do it anymore on the Duo.
I read in John Gruber's review that he would rather not look at his phone at all than have to look at the front screen. I don't have that experience. I scroll my RSS feeds, read articles, read in the Kindle app, check my email—all normal phone stuff. Believe it or not, I can even use my left hand. I haven’t checked, but I feel it’s like reading on a thick Xteink device.
I don’t have a problem with not having FaceID. All I can say is that I’m glad I don’t have such delicate sensibilities that using my finger to unlock my phone would cause me such distress, as it seems to cause most in the tech press. After a day or so, I got used to the positioning of the buttons. I know people don’t like change, but I really can’t understand the strong feelings people have about it.
Others have said this, but I think it’s odd that the default for the volume buttons is that they are locked. I did think it was an odd choice given the buttons change depending on the rotation of the device. Luckily, it has a setting to make it act like it should.
At first, the cool open/close animation didn’t work. I thought it might have been because everything was downloading and the Spotlight database was loading. I couldn’t figure it out. It turns out it goes back to the early days of Liquid Glass in iOS 26. I had turned on Reduce Transparancy. That was the culprit. Once I turned that off, it worked fine.
The killer feature for me is being able to use two apps at once when the screen is open. I show it to everyone who asks how I like the phone. Boy, do people ask me about the phone. I haven’t had this many questions about an Apple device since I had an original iPod in an airport.
I can’t imagine going back to a phone that doesn’t fold. I’m going to post an update in a few months as the novelty wears off.