StandBy again, and this time the charger is optional. Every other iPhone needs power before the bedside clock appears, while the iPhone Duo starts StandBy whenever it sits still and folded. AppleInsider's walkthrough of the settings and faces counts it among its favorite Duo features so far.

Settings worth changing

  • Two positions, two switches. Tent mode, folded with the cover screen facing out, and book mode, half open on the inner screen, can each be turned off on their own.
  • Only While Charging. The behavior every other iPhone is stuck with. Leave it off and StandBy runs from the battery.
  • Display. Automatic turns the screen off once the room goes dark and nobody touches the phone. The alternatives are after 20 seconds or never.
  • Night Mode and Motion to Wake. Red text in the dark, and shifting in bed brings the clock back.
  • Notifications. Shown large, or hidden until tapped, with an Apple Watch handling the authentication.

Faces and widgets

  • Modular. New for the Duo: two small widget stacks on the left and a large one on the right, with Smart Rotate and third-party widgets such as New York Times Cooking and MLB.
  • Photos and Memories. Clock layouts over chosen photos or albums, or a shuffle of Memories.
  • Weather and Calendar. Weather animates live conditions, and Calendar ranges from a single date to a full month in several fonts and colors.
  • Book mode. The inner screen locks the layout to small widgets on the left and one tall widget on the right. Only the colors and the widget picks change.

Editing works by touch and hold: swipe a face up to remove it, or tap the plus button for the full catalog, which AppleInsider likens to picking an Apple Watch face. Book mode doesn't need Apple's folio case either: for iPhoners without one, the hinge holds the half-open phone upright on its own.

What to know

  • When an alarm goes off, the inner screen casts a soft glow onto the nightstand, which AppleInsider wishes were brighter.
  • StandBy starts whenever the phone sits still, so it can appear mid-task on a desk; a swipe up returns to the Home Screen.

A desk feed of Slack or email in tent mode is the use AppleInsider pitches, and it's the one I'd skip, since to me StandBy works as a clock plus one glanceable fact.