Pressed by MKBHD, Craig Federighi agrees the iPhone Duo can fill the space an iPad mini held, a notable concession from the executive who once gave a flat no onstage to merging macOS and iPadOS. MKBHD frames the Duo, an iPhone closed and nearly an iPad open, as Apple's first product built to crowd a sibling.
Federighi's broader answer leans on habit, the way people already split tasks between iPad and Mac, and on his own months with the Duo, often open in portrait for long reads. Asked what people missed, he points at software designed for the fold from the start.
"Yeah, it is. But it's not an iPad," Federighi says of the open screen, and MKBHD's pass through the apps bears him out halfway. Settings and Photos open into the iPad's two-column layouts, but the Home Screen keeps its paged grid so closed and open stay continuous, and Camera is its own design. Developers can build a Duo-specific version, though MKBHD expects many will ship the iPhone or iPad layout as is.
Most of the video's buying advice is about who should pass. iPhoners already happy with an iPhone and an iPad mini own the Duo's two halves, and the video points camera-first buyers elsewhere. What's left is the longtime foldable-curious iPhone owner, in a category MKBHD puts at about 1 percent of smartphone sales.
That's how I treat any first-generation Apple hardware: early adopters now, everyone else at version two. Pre-orders for the foldable iPhone Duo open October 16; Apple Pencil support, USB-C Pencil only, comes later in the year.
