With the Halfpage app, a half-folded iPhone Duo becomes a typewriter, with the page on the top half of the screen and a keyboard of round keys on the bottom half. Close the phone and the outer display shows a read-only view of your page, and open it fully and the page fills the screen with the system keyboard.
Halfpage is available on the App Store for $2.99, paid once. The same app runs on any iPhone or iPad with iOS 27, where the keyboard sits below the page.
The Halfpage app puts the keys on the bottom half
Halfpage is built for the tabletop pose, where you fold the iPhone Duo halfway. The keys are round and include shift, backspace, a space bar and a return lever. A type-head caret shows where you are typing, and paper grain sits under the page.
There is no rich text, no formatting bar, no feed and no ads. You get the page and the keys.
What each fold of the iPhone Duo does
- Half-folded, the page sits on the top half and the typewriter keyboard fills the bottom half
- Held half-open like a book, the page sits on the right leaf
- Closed, the outer display shows a read-only glance of your page
- Fully open, the page fills the screen and you type on the system keyboard
The keys, caret and paper grain all imitate a real typewriter, which fits the skeuomorphic design that iPhone Duo apps are bringing back. Brim also uses the outer display, filling it with Safari.
Each key sounds like a Hermes Precisa 305
Every key has its own sound, recorded from a Hermes Precisa 305, with natural variation from one press to the next. The return lever clunks, and a margin bell rings near the end of a line. You can mute the sound in the app, or let the silent switch do it, and haptics add a small tap to each key press.
Looks and hard mode
- Classic gives you a cream body with black keys
- Midnight gives you a charcoal body with ivory keys
- Hard mode, which you turn on in Settings, removes backspace and strikes a mistake through instead of erasing it, so you keep moving forward
Halfpage costs $2.99 and exports PDF
Your documents sit in one list, and every change autosaves as you type. iCloud sync keeps them up to date across your devices through your own iCloud account.
You can export any document as .txt, .md or PDF, and Halfpage works with VoiceOver. There is no subscription, no ads and no accounts, and Halfpage collects no data.
Download Halfpage from the App Store for $2.99, paid once.
