Apple’s iPhone lineup is taking a different shape this year.
At today’s Surprise and Shine event, the company introduced the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max alongside the iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone. The Pro models build on the familiar design introduced last year, while the Duo marks the debut of an iPhone with a brand new form factor that combines a smaller, outer display with a larger, almost iPad mini-like internal display.
As a longtime iPad user who’s long been fascinated by foldables (and I’ve tried some over the years, too), I’ve been eagerly anticipating Apple’s debut in this space. Based on what we’ve seen today, it looks like Apple was able to deliver on the promise of a new iPhone category that combines the best of iOS with concepts borrowed from iPadOS, turning the iPhone into a versatile pocket computer that epitomizes Apple CEO John Ternus’ concept of the “personal hub”.
As we’ll see in this article, while the iPhone 18 Pro’s story largely revolves around the camera (unsurprisingly) and improved performance (some of the A20 Pro’s numbers are, in fact, a surprise merely a year after the A19 Pro), the iPhone Duo marks a new beginning for iOS, which now supports features that never existed on the platform before, as well as a series of interactions that Apple is exploring for the first time.
Let’s dive in.