GQ spent hands-on time with the iPhone Duo and its design team this week, and the resulting piece traces the thinking behind the device back to something simpler than foldable engineering, ordinary paper notebooks. The feature includes input from CEO John Ternus, Vice President of Industrial Design Molly Anderson, and Vice President of Human Interface Design Steve Lemay.
According to the piece published by GQ, Anderson said the team looked at familiar notebooks as a reference point for building a device that offers more screen market while staying compact enough to carry comfortably every day.
Ordinary Notebooks Shaped the iPhone Duo’s Physical Design
GQ reports that the iPhone Duo’s proportions are derived from the international A-Series paper system specifically so they stay the same whether the phone is open or closed, a detail Apple says helps make it the thinnest iPhone yet.
Anderson said the team spent significant effort on how the device feels the moment someone opens it. The hinge uses a custom variable torque profile designed to make it easy to open while also holding the phone flat once it’s unfolded, rather than needing to be propped or held in place.
A few smaller refinements stood out during GQ’s hands-on time with the device. A matte nano-texture finish on the inner screen hides the crease running through its center without affecting how content looks on it, the selfie camera sits nearly invisible underneath that same inner display, and the hinge produces a distinct snap when the phone opens and closes.
The Software Borrows Its “Greatest Hits” From Mac, iPad, and iPhone
Lemay pointed to the Mac as a major influence on the iPhone Duo’s interface, alongside the iPad and Apple’s existing iPhones, describing the result as sort of the greatest hits of those products together.
The goal, he said, was to avoid making the software feel like a different operating system the moment someone unfolds the device, and to make sure a control someone is currently using doesn’t suddenly move somewhere unexpected.
That philosophy carries into smaller details GQ picked out during testing. Opening the Duo triggers an animation Lemay compared to peering through a window as the inner display grows into view, rather than two screens simply switching on. The software also layers new gestures on top of standard iPhone touch controls, including tapping the center of the screen to link two apps together so they reopen as a pair later, and a mode that turns the phone into a bedside alarm clock when it’s left half open.
That continuity matters because the first hands-on impressions from reviewers generally described the iPhone Duo’s open and closed states as feeling like the same phone rather than two different devices stitched together, and Apple’s own iOS 27 features built specifically for the iPhone Duo’s outer display reinforce that same idea. GQ also notes that apps including Netflix, Slack, and Zoom were already optimized for the larger inner display ahead of launch, rather than left to catch up afterward.
Apple Expects Developers to Find Uses It Hasn’t Anticipated
Lemay also addressed how the iPhone Duo might evolve after launch, saying developers will likely come up with uses for the dual-screen format that Apple’s own design team hasn’t thought of yet. He suggested some of those ideas could end up influencing the broader foldable phone industry beyond Apple’s own lineup.
Ternus framed the project in broader terms, tying it back to Steve Jobs’s old description of Apple sitting at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts, and calling the iPhone Duo one of the clearer examples of that idea in a current Apple product.
iPhone Duo pre-orders open October 16, with availability starting October 23.
GQ’s Take Isn’t Uncritical Either
The piece is a review as much as an interview, and it does not treat the iPhone Duo as flawless. It points to Touch ID instead of Face ID as a real compromise, and expects the Duo’s two-lens camera system to be outshone by the iPhone 18 Pro’s larger sensors and longer zoom. At a starting price around £2,000 in the UK, GQ argues the Duo asks buyers to accept tradeoffs that would be dealbreakers on an ordinary iPhone.
