Apple designed iPhone Duo around the feel of a paper notebook, and its proportions come from the A-series paper system, so the phone keeps the same shape whether it is open or closed. That is the core of what Apple CEO John Ternus, industrial design VP Molly Anderson and human interface design VP Steve Lemay told British GQ in an interview published September 18.
The interview gives the reasoning behind the $1,999 foldable’s shape and software from the people who made it, four weeks before pre-orders open on October 16.
A notebook, not a tall slab
Most foldables are tall and thin, built around the biggest inner screen possible. According to GQ, Anderson went the other way and started from an object people already carry.
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“Everyone knows what a notebook feels like in the pocket and what it feels like to carry around,” Anderson told GQ. “So that was a big part of the inspiration: ‘How do you get to something that gives you space but also feels compact?'”
The result, according to GQ, is a phone whose proportions derive from the international A-series paper system, the standard behind A4 and A5 sheets. Fold an A-series page in half and the smaller page keeps the same proportions. GQ says the Duo applies that idea so its shape stays the same opened and closed, which it credits with helping make the Duo the thinnest iPhone yet.
Our earlier look at Apple’s design rules for the outer display and its five named poses covers how Apple wants apps to handle both shapes.
One phone, not two
Lemay’s team had the harder job of making the jump between two screens feel natural. His brief, as he described it to GQ, was about growth rather than switching.
“There was this concept the whole time, ‘How do you feel like you’re expanding the device?'” Lemay said. “We didn’t want it to feel like you’re starting a different operating system when you unfold it. And you’re never searching for the button you were just looking at.”
He added: “It was really important to us from the beginning that iPhone Duo feels like one cohesive experience, not two different products awkwardly fused together.” GQ describes the opening animation as feeling like peering through a window, and Lemay put it this way: “You basically feel like you’re peeking through to the inner display, and it just grows underneath you.”
For the software itself, Lemay pointed to Apple’s other devices. “You’ll see a lot of learnings from iPad in here, learnings from even Macintosh, and learnings from the existing phones,” he said. “It’s sort of the greatest hits of those products together.”
That has a practical upside for buyers. GQ notes that apps that work on iPhone will run on the Duo from launch, and that Netflix, Slack and Zoom have already been optimised for it.
What comes next is up to developers
Lemay also set expectations for the first generation. “There are so many things the developers will come up with that we’ve never anticipated,” he told GQ. “Some of those will become big ideas that take over the industry and change the product in interesting ways.”
GQ frames the Duo the same way, comparing it with the first Apple Watch, which could not go swimming, and AirPods, which went three years before getting ear tips. On that view, the first-generation software is a starting point, and apps will do much of the work of deciding what a foldable iPhone is for.
Ternus on why it matters
Ternus, who took over from Tim Cook as CEO, framed the Duo with an idea from Steve Jobs. “Steve talked about the intersection of technology and liberal arts, and I think iPhone Duo is a perfect example of that,” he told GQ.
“This is why we do what we do,” Ternus said. “It’s really special because it provided an opportunity to just think all-new.”
GQ’s own verdict is not uncritical. The magazine lists Touch ID in place of Face ID and a two-lens camera among the compromises buyers accept. iPhone Duo costs $1,999 in the US and £1,999 in the UK, and it ships on October 23.
