I took two iPhones on vacation. The Duo won me over. | TechCrunch

“I think I’m going to switch back to my other iPhone.”

I’ll admit, I said this multiple times during my five-day vacation with the new iPhone Duo, after encountering frustrations with broken apps, unfamiliar gestures (a return to Touch ID, argh!), and camera concerns that had me lugging around two phones.

By the time the trip was over, I didn’t want to go back.

When I first unboxed the Duo, a loaner from Apple, I was genuinely intrigued. I felt a flutter of anticipation as I peeled back the factory seal wrap and booted up the device. In retrospect, this was probably the first signal that Duo was going to ultimately win me over.

As a tech reporter, I’ve received a lot of test devices over the years, so unfortunately, opening a package with a new gadget inside is no longer the thrill it used to be. But sometime in the days leading up to the Duo’s ship date, I found myself actually wanting one – I had started doing the math and comparing upgrade options that would allow me to afford the $2K the phone would cost. I started scrolling TikTok reviews of Duo cases. I hesitated not only because of the price but because moving to the Duo is a major change – especially coming from an iPhone 17 Pro Max. The phones could not be more different.

As I was about to head out on vacation when the Duo arrived, I decided to tote my 17 Pro Max with me too, as something of a safety net. I ended up using the Duo more, and grew comfortable with it over the course of the trip, despite some frustrations.

There’s always a psychological switching cost in changing phones, but particularly going from a high-end phone to a more experimental device like the Duo. For someone used to the iPhone’s long-perfected tech and thin rectangular shape, the Duo’s short, squat, and decidedly novel nature was somewhat off-putting at first.

“Where is all that screen real estate I used to have?” I lamented. “Will this thing even fit comfortably in my pocket?”

As it turns out, it does. Front and back pockets, in fact. Even while wearing a case. You can sit down with it in your back pocket, effectively squashing it, and it does not break. (I meant to be more careful, but I forgot to be, repeatedly, as I tend to carry phones in my back pocket when walking around. I sat on the phone countless times. It’s clearly not that fragile.)

I also dropped the phone (by accident!) at least three times. Twice from about table height and once when it got pushed off the side of the bed. It did not fall on soft carpet, but rather on concrete, tile, and wood floors. It didn’t break then either, and the screen didn’t crack. I wouldn’t call these professional drop tests by any means, but it certainly was a relief for someone fairly clumsy with their phone.

Of course, I did encounter some frustrations. I had to scroll more to read back through text threads because of the Duo’s small outer screen; unoptimized apps with numerous controls sometimes had key features tucked away in a “more” (three-dot) menu, leading to a hunt to find the option you needed; and, on multiple occasions, the Google Search app just froze.

Though not Apple’s fault, the latter turned out to be my biggest annoyance software-wise, given that Search is one of my go-to apps especially when traveling. On vacation, I open the app repeatedly to look up points of interest, restaurant reviews, distances between towns, weather, and more. But Google’s app would just stop working, and tapping its back button did nothing.

This seemed to be a problem specific to the Search app’s AI Mode, which these days you’re often dropped into without actually requesting it. (Even more reason to be annoyed by AI Search!) The workaround has been to force-close the app, so the next time you open it, your returned to the home screen with the search box. (It amazes me that, in a time when Google is facing a search decline because of AI, it wouldn’t have prioritized making its Search app functional on Apple’s latest device!)

In addition, many of the early reviews pointed out how many apps were not updated or redesigned for Duo at launch, which meant they had a telltale black bar on the side, cramping the limited screen real estate when the phone is closed even further. This is true, but personally speaking, I didn’t think it was a dealbreaker for making a switch to the Duo.

For one thing, companies have been pushing out their Duo-optimized updates fairly quickly. Those that have not – and there are still more than a few! – continue to be usable. They’re just kind of … ugly.

Google Maps was not Duo-optimized during the trip, yet I had no problem using it for driving directions, local search and discovery, route planning, and the like. If anything, the black-barred apps felt more like an aesthetic issue than a functional problem, even though they’re smaller than usual when the Duo is folded.

I expect all the major apps will eventually update. As for the older apps that never do? Well, it’s probably time to move on from apps no longer being maintained, I’d say, particularly in an era when older software is being exploited left and right by AI-enabled hacking tools.

However, I will agree with the other reviewers who complained about the lack of Face ID.

This is the Duo’s biggest drawback – not the screen, not the camera, not the lack of an Action button for launching your preferred AI assistant. It’s Touch ID.

It is much easier to look at your phone than to fiddle around with finger presses. While I easily avoided the need to use Touch ID to unlock the device – I am almost always wearing an Apple Watch, which serves as an alternative authentication method – I often stumbled when it came to using apps and Apple Pay.

Tap-and-pay is one of the areas where it’s immediately obvious how much smoother Face ID has made everyday tasks. Returning to Touch ID at the time of payment was cumbersome, given that you’re often holding shopping bags, a purse, and, in my case, a dog leash, in addition to the phone you’re using to pay with.

There’s a certain amount of what I guess I’ll call “muscle memory” that you have to overcome when you switch back to Touch ID. I found the easiest grip was to cradle the phone in your hand and use your thumb to authenticate. But where I repeatedly messed up was remembering to keep my thumb or finger on the Touch ID sensor long enough to authenticate. At times, my finger wasn’t situated quite right (I blame the dog pulling on the leash!), and I had to readjust. “I miss Face ID!,” I complained multiple times at checkout.

Though returning to Touch ID was something I got used to, it’s far from ideal. I can see this as being a real stopping point for some early adopters who would otherwise want to move to the Duo. It’s not an insurmountable problem, but it’s among the top reasons not to get the Duo now, in my opinion. (A future version is said to support Face ID.)

Another reason to be wary of the Duo? The camera. Much has been said about the Duo’s lesser camera system. The Duo has two rear cameras to my iPhone 17 Pro Max’s three. It has no telephoto lens. It has a 10x digital zoom versus the Pro’s 40x. The Pro has more advanced hardware for low-light photography and supports ProRAW, ProRes, and other advanced features.

Very simply put: if you are an iPhone photographer or a content creator, you shouldn’t consider the Duo as your primary device.

For, you know, us normal folks, the Duo’s camera is okay. Not great, but fine. What were you going to do with those photos you’re snapping anyway? Post them to Instagram Stories or Facebook? Text them to a friend? Look back on them fondly when they reappear in your photo widget on your Home Screen? Turn them into a Lock Screen wallpaper? None of these things requires a Pro-level camera.

Below are a few photos shot with the Duo versus others shot with the 17 Pro Max. None of the photos are using any special settings or filters; they are intentionally just average, non-professional point-and-shoot shots. Among my complaints are that the Duo’s image processing can, at times, make fine details, like the leaves on trees, look overprocessed. Meanwhile, distant landscapes can appear flatter or smoothed over — though, to be fair, the Blue Ridge Mountains are naturally hazy, so it’s hard to say how much of that is the camera. (Shots from the mountaintop were in low-light conditions — it was getting dark out.)

DUO PHOTOS:

PRO MAX PHOTOS:

As for why to get the phone? This one’s easy; it’s a foldable. From Apple. First, foldables are whimsical in a way that slab phones will never be. They are toys for grown-ups! Developers are also clearly having fun building for the new format, so there are lots of new apps to play with. Plus, it’s a great way to watch movies, particularly with that Duo Folio case with a kickstand.

Second, it’s a foldable from Apple. The company has taken its time to get it right, which comes through in the details, from the barely visible crease to the consistent aspect ratio between screens, allowing content to scale proportionally. It’s also a foldable in Apple’s software ecosystem, which matters for those who move between Apple devices and services and who use and pay for apps that are designed for iOS specifically.

But here’s a small confession: in day-to-day life, I didn’t unfold the Duo as much as I thought I would. (To be clear: I absolutely did unfold it! I just thought I would do it more!)

There are two reasons for this. One: unfolding the device in public invites conversation, and it feels sort of like a flex; I’m not always in a place where I have time to chat. I expect this problem to diminish in time as the novelty wears off.

That said, I still had roughly half a dozen conversations with strangers while I was on vacation, from fellow shoppers to servers to business owners. I even handed them the device at times (when they couldn’t easily run off with it!) and let them fold and unfold it. One person wanted to see the Kid Cue feature in particular, which displays playful Snoopy animations on the phone’s outer display to get children to look toward the camera when you take their picture. They were genuinely delighted by this.

Anecdotally, the consensus was that the unfolded screen was something of a marvel to most: “You can’t see the hinge!” “Is that a screen protector or is it just like that?” (The inner screen has a matte, nano-texture finish, reducing glare. Once explained, it was also praised as “pretty cool.” )

“What if you get sand in it?,” a former Samsung Galaxy Fold owner asked. Their older Android foldable had been ruined after a trip to the beach where sand got into the hinge, causing damage to the screen. (This was notuncommon at the time.) The Duo is rated IP68, the “6” signifying higher dust resistance, making it dust-tight. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 was rated IP48, by comparison. I’m not expecting it will have the same issues, though I do hope a reviewer takes it to the beach soon! 

I am certain that at least one of the handful of strangers I spoke to had never actually seen a phone that folded before. The fact that Apple has now made one means this concept will no longer be niche; it will be known to the mainstream.

The other reason I didn’t unfold it as much as I thought is that doing so feels like the start of a more intentional screen time session. When I do unfold the phone now, it’s because I’m truly engaging with what I’m doing on the phone, like watching a show on Netflix or dragging two apps side-by-side in split-screen mode for multitasking. (I love reading news in Inoreader and having X open off to the side to see what people are saying about the news, but that’s a use case that won’t apply to everyone!)

The split-screen feature is easy to use, too – with the app open, you swipe up from the bottom, then drag it to the left or right edge. Target boxes on each side help you visualize where it can move to, which is helpful. (You can also long-press on an app icon to open a split view, but I don’t do this as much.) 

But as something of a “mini” phone in terms of screen size when closed, I’m somehow less drawn to what I think of as time-wasting apps like TikTok, Instagram, or casual games.

I’ve been thinking about this, and I don’t believe it’s just the lack of screen real estate when the phone is folded, or the fact that vertical apps haven’t been designed for the Duo’s unfolded landscape screen. Those concerns make sense from a practical, usability standpoint, of course, but there’s something more to this behavioral change, I believe.

For years, phones have been getting bigger, taller, thinner, and more comfortable to hold. Consequently, they easily sucked us into their digital worlds. With the Duo, the design seems to interrupt the way smartphones effortlessly pull us in, begging us to open apps and scroll endlessly.

Rather, the Duo feels like a device you open and use when you have reason to do so, not something you reflexively turn to when you’re bored or have a few minutes to spare. Because the best app use cases are when the phone is unfolded, and unfolding is something you do with careful consideration (and careful hands!), device use becomes more thoughtful.

This is not a bad thing. It also aligns with the embrace of retro tech already underway, where knobs and dials and buttons make engaging with technology feel more deliberate.

And for that reason, despite its faults, the Duo won me over. It’s a phone that’s compelling and fun — a phone I enjoyed picking up, but also found easier to put down.