Apple Announced the iPhone Duo, Its First Folding iPhone--7.6-Inch Inner Display, Touch ID, $1,999, Availability October 23

Apple announced the iPhone Duo, its first folding iPhone, on September 9 at its Surprise and Shine event, John Ternus's first keynote as CEO. It opens to a 7.6-inch inner display, closes to a 5.4-inch outer one, puts Touch ID in the side button in place of Face ID, and starts at $1,999 for 256GB, with availability on Friday, October 23. Ternus calls it "the most transformational change to iPhone since the original" in Apple's release, and at $1,999 it costs $800 more than the iPhone 18 Pro that shares its A20 Pro chip.

Two displays share one aspect ratio

Opened, the Duo is a 7.6-inch OLED at 1878 by 2670 pixels and 430 ppi; closed, you get a 5.4-inch OLED at 1398 by 2034 and 460 ppi, per Apple's tech specs page. Both share one aspect ratio, ProMotion, Always On and a 3000-nit outdoor peak. By Apple's arithmetic, the outer display gives you 90 percent of the screen area of an iPhone 18 Pro, and the inner one is 50 percent larger than an iPhone 18 Pro Max. The inner panel has a nano-texture finish that Apple says minimizes crease visibility; 9to5Mac's gallery from the event demo units found the crease hard to notice at most angles.

Open, the Duo is 5.2 mm thick, thinner than any iPhone Apple has made; closed, it is 11.3 mm and 254 grams. TidBITS puts that in context: the iPhone Air is 5.64 mm, the closed Duo is thicker than any iPhone since the 12.3 mm iPhone 3GS, and 254 grams is slightly heavier than the 249-gram iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Touch ID replaces Face ID in a titanium fold

The enclosure is grade 5 titanium polished to a mirror finish, with Ceramic Shield on the back and Ceramic Shield 2 on the front, rated at three times the scratch resistance of the last generation. The hinge is built from more than 100 components under a 3D-printed cover, and the phone carries an IP68 rating, good for six meters of water for 30 minutes. There is no Face ID; Touch ID lives in the side button, open or closed, and an Apple Watch can unlock it from your wrist. There is no Action button either, TidBITS notes, though Camera Control and MagSafe stay. The cameras are two 48MP Fusion sensors, Main and Ultra Wide, with an optical-quality 2x telephoto from the Main, a 12MP Center Stage camera on the outer display, and a 1080p FaceTime camera under the inner one. The iPhone 18 Pro's dedicated telephoto did not make the fold.

Two batteries feed a 2-nanometer A20 Pro

Inside is the 2-nanometer A20 Pro, whose 6-core CPU Apple says is up to 20 percent faster than the A19 Pro and whose 7-core GPU is up to 40 percent faster. Each half of the phone holds its own battery, and Apple quotes up to 31 hours of video playback on the inner display, 44 hours on the outer, and 24 hours if you split time between them; wired charging reaches 50 percent in around 20 minutes with a 60W adapter, MagSafe or Qi2 in around 30. The C2 modem adds mmWave 5G in the U.S., the N1 chip handles Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread, and the Duo is eSIM only in every country. It ships with iOS 27.1, reworked for the fold, with Split View borrowed from the iPad so two apps sit side by side on an iPhone for the first time. Apple says Apple Pencil support over USB-C will follow before the end of 2026.

It costs $1,999 and ships October 23

MacRumors has the U.S. prices at $1,999 for 256GB, $2,199 for 512GB, $2,599 for 1TB and $3,199 for 2TB, in star white or night sky. Apple's release adds $83.29 a month for 24 months, or from $57.99 a month on Apple Upgrade, a lease provided by Klarna, and Macworld has the UK at £1,999 to £3,199. Pre-orders start at 5 a.m. Pacific on Friday, October 16, in more than 70 countries and regions, including the U.S., and 28 more countries and regions follow on Friday, October 30.

Ternus said other foldables feel like "two phones awkwardly stuck together," per CNBC, which also notes that $1,999 landed below what much of Wall Street expected while the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max took a $100 increase, to $1,199 for the Pro. The original Ternus measures the Duo against is the phone in our 2007 report on the Macworld keynote. We will post a hands-on report when we have one on the desk; until then, this is the most interesting hardware Apple has shown in years, and the first iPhone we would wait a revision to buy.