1878 by 2670 pixels. That's the iPhone Duo's inner display on Apple's spec sheet, and it works out to 1.42:1, within a percent of the 1.43:1 frame IMAX cut from 15-perforation 70mm film. IMAX noticed. Asked on X whether the Duo would mean more 1:1.4 content, the company's official account answered "Love this for them" and then "Still not watching movies on a phone...", as MacRumors relayed on September 11.
The joke is fair and the shape is still the story. By my arithmetic from Apple's numbers, a 1.43:1 frame on the inner panel leaves 11 pixels of letterbox in total, five or six at each edge, so an IMAX-ratio picture is the full 7.6 inches. A 16:9 show, the format the iPhone Duo launch film promises will fill the screen, covers about 80 percent of the panel's height, a 7.1-inch picture with black bars above and below. A 2.39:1 scope movie shrinks to 6.7 inches.
Against an iPhone 18 Pro Max the comparison flips by format. On the Pro Max's 6.9-inch, 2868-by-1320 display the same scope movie comes out at 6.8 inches, a wash, so for widescreen films the fold buys nothing. A 16:9 show is 5.9 inches there against 7.1 on the Duo. And the IMAX frame, boxed in by the tall phone's 1320-pixel short side, is a 5-inch picture on the Pro Max against the Duo's 7.6. The nearer a film sits to square, the more the Duo has over a slab, which is exactly the shape IMAX prints come in.
The 5.4-inch cover screen is 1398 by 2034, about 1.45:1, so the closed phone is nearly the same shape and shows every format at roughly 70 percent of the size.
The scope-movie crowd gains a screen the size of the one it already has. The Duo's case is 16:9 television and whatever gets released in IMAX's own ratio, which IMAX would rather iPhoners saw in one of its theaters. Pre-orders open October 16 and the phone ships October 23.
