The iPhone Duo shows Apple at its best

I have a lot more to go through in collecting my thoughts on Apple's new products announced today, but I wanted to dedicate one quick post to the fact that I think the new iPhone Duo is Apple leaning in to what makes them special and what makes people like me really love so much of what they do.

I've been using Samsung's latest folding phone that has a very similar form factor to what Apple just announced, and it's gotten me accustomed to what the folding phone experience is. I personally very much like it, and it's the most joy an Android phone has brought me in close to a decade. That said, I just watched Apple's iPhone Duo unveiling, and it immediately made my Samsung phone feel behind the curve.

Technically, the iPhone Duo looks very good, but candidly, I don't think it looks meaningfully more impressive than the hardware in the Galaxy Fold8. It's Apple's software where I feel a large gap has been created.

One of the key things I have complained about with the short and squat outer display on the Fold Eight is that software feels kind of cramped on it. Most apps have headers and footers that take up vertical screen real estate that I don't have to spare on a display like this.

Apple has addressed this inherent compromise by reshuffling the entire iOS app layout to move controls to the side of the screen to not only be more reachable, which by the way is a bit of a challenge on a wide screen like this, but also to give you maximum vertical real estate for whatever it is you're looking at. I don't go "holy shit" that often when watching Apple events at this age, but they got one out of me this time.

There's other stuff, like the seemingly incredibly elegant animation as you finish unfolding the display, where the left half of the screen looks like it's out of focus until you get it all the way open. It looks cool and it looks like it will feel very natural. When I open up my Fold8, it's fine, but the inner screen just pops from off to on at a certain point when I'm doing the opening process. It's an extra flourish that's not necessary by any means, and I can understand why someone would wonder why I think this is any better than what Samsung is doing, but it's the sort of extra flourish that elevates the experience. Now that I've seen it, it makes what I was used to feel old.

Apple's not the first company to make a folding smartphone. In fact, they're one of the last to the game. But what I saw today is exactly the sort of thing I want to feel when Apple enters a new category. Yes, the hardware looks excellent, but the software is where it looks like they're truly differentiating, and I am excited to try it out next month.