YHK - yet another hacker news clone

I tend to agree with you.

It'll be a nice device for some, but I think we're at the stage where device upgrades are no longer going to be a yearly or even biennial thing with all things considered.

The problems besides price (which are still insane) until now where:

- Materials not catching up, things like the older creases, dust ingress, etc.

- Software in Android being hit or miss, specially on with third parties. Apple has the muscle to make apps compatible with the form factor.

- The "standard" foldable aspect ratio sucking ass, the only major exceptions being the Surface Duo, the original Pixel Fold and the recent Galaxy Fold. Passport format is simply better.

>Imagine if Apple dedicated this huge engineering effort onto existing products.

For what? Slab phones are practically solved, the only things that might make a normal iPhone better besides incrementally better camera, battery and processors are not Apple approved. No expandable storage or cheap battery replacements for you. The only place for real advancemnt will be foldables for a while.

$2000 for an iphone, just insane.

It's good to see Apple is taking the fold transition seriously. I have a Z Fold, and Samsung elegantly handles the app transition from fold to unfold by force closing and restarting the app for you, even if you fold it just a little. :D

I doubt you did see any from the last few years.

Plenty of people on HN earn that much money in a single day after tax.

Matching their top competitor in price is a good look.

They could’ve absolutely floored everyone if it had been $1500, but there’s no way that’s possible, at least having margins anywhere near what Apple likes.

Obviously Apple knew where other foldable phones fell short; they clearly planned to overcome those shortcomings.

Maybe the answer lies in only wearing an Ultra watch if it becomes powerful enough and can function independently of a phone.

no

I think this will be a hit, but the $2k is a bit much for me to even consider getting one. Obviously they'll likely drop that price over time.

Samsung has already worked out the major kinks for folding displays, over dozens of products used by multiple phone manufacturers including themselves, and Android has worked out how to handle the various use cases between the outer screen and inner screen, when closed, open, or partially open, so Apple can pull from the current state of the art and launch with a more fully developed product, as they usually did before the Apple Vision Pro.

I have to hand it to them, they added some really nice touches to the OS for the new form factor. Seems almost like the best of an iPhone and a iPad Mini.

Still not sure I want something that bulky, and maybe I'll wait a few months to see the reviews and how the hinge and screen fold hold up. But tempted for sure...

Do I want it? Ehhhh. I hate heavy objects. I stopped buying the Pro line because the weight just kept increasing. So I will probably not particularly enjoy that mass of batteries dragging on the purse strap. But I enjoy reading glasses less and I just don't want an unwieldy bigscreen that I can't hold easily like the iPhone Air.

This is especially true in the younger generation where many of them don’t own a computer. They do everything on their phones or iPads.

I don't know who this is for and can't figure out what problem this solves. It's cool, but it's not $2800 cool (yes, it's $800 more expensive in some markets). For that price is has to do more than fold in half, maybe fold into a swan of something.

The main reason I'd want a bigger display is for more immersive content like videos, which are typically 16:9. On a Pixel Fold, you have all the added complexity of the fold to make the videos you watch on the train 1cm taller.

The iPhone Duo unfolds to be the same height as the iPhone Pro Max. Sounds like it has the exact same problem - a bunch of added complexity without a practical use for it.

-----

> Touch ID is integrated into the side button

Another major flaw with the foldable form factor - it's hard to distinguish holding the device e.g. to pocket it and holding the device to use it. My foldable does the smartphone equivalent of butt-dialing way more often than any phone I've had before because it likes to unlock itself when I'm putting it in my pocket

from the Duo page:

- Up to 31 hours video playback when using the inner display

- Up to 44 hours video playback when using the outer display

Even mainstream operators in my country have those these days, so you can sign up online without getting to a shop.

I sincerely hope one day we can free these hardware devices from the shakles of their software and run anything that's possible.

Until such a time iOS devices are strictly off limits until at least a grapheneOS can run iOS at a minimum.

With terminal emulators, tailscale, local and remote agents, there's never been so much computing capability accessible from your pocket before.

They could certainly add features to make them more like general purpose computers, but there's a bit of product development and engineering "tax" they'd have to pay over time to maintain that aspect. Much easier from a product development standpoint to create products that provide a walled-garden experience, especially if that's what most customers want.

This lead them to use a garbage CPU and support it for something like 2 years.

Apple has the balls to keep updating the vision pro even after it flopped and it will probably get 7 years.

I will say it was a pain in the ass to open and answer calls though when you were busy doing things.

The problem is I want to have small phone that can be expanded to have large screen when needed, glad I’ve solved this decade long conundrum!

My biggest worry is the lack of Face ID. I love Face ID so much. I know I can do the Apple Watch unlock, but I don’t want to. I just want my phone to immediately look unlocked to me. and Face ID did that the vast majority of the time.

So I’m very curious to hear what the hands-on impressions from people are. Is the screen good? Can you notice or feel the crease? Is there anything else wrong? Is not having Face ID as annoying as I suspect?

At least there’s something really interesting this year. It’s more than just faster and better cameras, which is nice. And having actual aperture blades on the pro is great.

But this is more interesting.

The Fold8 is $1,899.99 (street price significantly lower as usual), the Duo is $1999.

It makes sense to have one screen for an as-large-as-possible uninterrupted display, and another for maximum utility.

I like that Samsung doesn't cut as much corner off as Apple, but ideally I'd like to find a manufacturer that doesn't cut corners at all. Even though I'm not likely to buy another iPhone product, I am excited that Apple doesn't cut holes in their interior display, because that'll probably get other manufacturers to do the same.

Not around here it isn't. The iPhone Duo starts at $2999 for the base storage. The Fold 8 is $2399 and even the Fold 8 Ultra is $2699. This only confirms that Apple has been steadily pricing themselves outside what I'm willing to spend. Can I afford it? Yes. Will I get $3k of value from it? No. This one is not for me at this price.

Isn't that basically in line with the competition? Cheaper, even, than some of the competition?

There's enough buyers in the market.

> I assume the people who would buy something like this have enough money not to care, and also would not care about the second part of my comment, because they want New Thing or use their phones enough for it to be useful.

But what's the monthly price with Apple's upgrade program? I'd bet that's how most people will be buying it (me included, if I decide to get one).

If I'm going to have to two-hand it, this is perhaps not the worst. Also, it might be more one-handable when closed than regular iPhones.

Is it very expensive? Yes, especially if you don't opt for the base storage (256 is not enough in the age of LLMs). But I've not upgraded in 5 years, so I've got budget to spare.

None of those people have ever messaged me about any other phone event ever

And those who want to boast, can of course buy for the full price. This is a non-zero share of the target market.

The phone carriers then upsells their more expensive plans.

yeah, insane.

1: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/07/apple-upgrade-launche...

Pretty sure that developer interest is not to be a problem. The Duo will sell more units in a month (or less) than every AVP ever sold.

Apple told developers in June at WWDC to not assume fixed screen sizes. Well-written apps will work on any screen size thanks to Apple's APIs.

Some apps will need to be tweaked to take advantage of some Duo features no doubt, but I suspect that's not going to be a deal breaker.

Apple can force iOS devs to do whatever they want. It may be basic support, but Apple devs will do whatever Apple tells them to do.

When I was 12-13 I started taking a steroidal inhaler which inhibited my growth, so my hands are literally the same size as when I was 13. (maybe slightly wider).

As such I have about the same finger length as the average woman, and when I used the iPhone 4S and 5S I had no problems, I was not able to comfortably use the 6 with one hand, and it came with that ugly camera bump, so I returned it and tried to go Samsung. (it was big, but the rounded edges helped a fair bit) - the software sucked.

I bit the bullet and went back to my 5S, and when the SE (2nd gen - shaped like the iPhone 5 but with beefed internals) rolled out it was a day 1 purchase for me.

Ever since then I've been looking for a phone -- the iPhone "Mini" was as large as the 6 which was too large (I did buy one though) -- I eventually bought an iPhone 15 pro, but honestly, I hate it. It is the heaviest thing I carry daily and it doesn't do anything more than my 5 did that i care about, and I can't comfortably operate it. I start really disliking mobile devices because of it- and the software is getting worse year on year too.

I'm getting serious fatigue from this, but the world has not only caught up to a mobile world, now many things actively expect/require you to have a modern smart phone, especially in Sweden.

I believe Samsung has a new one with a similar form factor too, though I haven't looked into it.

I spent a few hours researching the other night on what replacement phone I'd buy, and.... the answer was a refurbished 13 mini.

[1]: https://www.thelightphone.com/shop/products/light-flip

[2]: https://developers.thelightphone.com

Here's a live stream of the popular obnoxious streamer, he held it a few minutes ago (also talked with MKBHD).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CPAtEmHAio

It kinda sounds like it's a new model of the Apple Pencil coming soon (rather than support coming soon), and older Pencil and Pencil Pros will not work at all. Which, if true, boo.

If another company could release something like the Duo that seamlessly switches between phone, tablet, and desktop experience and make it Apple quality then Apple are in trouble. The technology is all there since the days of Ubuntu Touch.

Sadly I don't think there is a company in a position to build such a device that could compete.

There's been a proven market for years already, but it's been less obvious in Western markets. In East Asian markets, foldables have had a very sizable market presence, especially in China.

There's other trends that are less obvious to US and western markets, such as phone crossbody straps (which are also very big in East Asia).

https://makerworld.com/en/models/1022751-watch-phone#profile...

The whole advantage of having any screen at all when folded is something quick to access and *one handable*. Just looking at the Duo, it appears too wide for that by a large amount.

If I’m forced to two hand the thing I’ll just get a phablet: no folding mechanism, no unfolding step before using properly, no gigantic price hike (guessing).

Because the common user for some strange reason has come to prefer phablets to mobile phones.

> But I have big hands, and I can't use my iphone 17 now without two hands.

I've never been able to use a smart phone with one hand, even an original iphone. So this is probably a really niche complaint that you and Shaq have.

Until then, off to eBay we go. There are more than enough sitting around completely unused. You aren't missing out on much with 5 iPhone generations these days.

That is it. Nothing else.

It's a new thing.

Not a phone. Not a laptop. Not an iPad.

It's an agent terminal.

Because every time, they want it to be the next big thing.

If we go by history, consumers. And when Apple last offered a smaller phone, consumers did not go for it.

Even Samsung offers their 'smaller than a normal phone unfolds to a normal phone' as secondary to the flagship fold. The Flip, to me, is almost marketed as a kid's phone for your teenager.

Wait until you get old enough to have to put readers on to use your devices like most older people do. And while I am yelling at the kids on my lawn, let me add every UI/UX person at apple - the idiotic and unnecessary choices they make for the sake of "cool design" infuriate me on a daily basis.

Who wants smaller phones: Tens of thousands in lower end market.

I'd love a tiny phone. I just can't see it anymore.

Others wrote complicated or bs jokes, here is my SIMPLE tip:

It has to change otherwise people would not buy new. Size can not change randomly so it has 2 ways: decreasing and later it becomes an iwatch, and tablet becomes a phone: this is stupid because harder to increase price.

So increase it is. If you do not like it, use a watch+earpiece as a phone.

But instead we got the largest screen before unfolding…

Are you a woman by any chance? I am currently typing this one handed on an iPhone 17 pro (not the pro max) and don’t consider my hands to be particularly large, for a man, but my wife has to two hand her android which is roughly the same size

The Duo’s folded size has the same screen size as the iPhone mini, so they did go on the smaller size, rather than trying to unfold a Pro Max. It remains to be seen how the aspect ratio impacts one-handed use.

I’d take a small foldable over a large slab.

I was an iPhone 13 mini user for the last few years. I would buy a refurbished one off Amazon whenever my current one broke. I really prefer the smaller screen size.

Recently, I broke my phone again and my wife happened to have a larger iPhone laying around unused (through some accident of e-commerce). I felt weird buying a new phone when we had a perfectly good one laying around, so I decided to give it a shot.

I don't watch any video on my phone and most of my screentime is Kindle and Safari. My screentime is only like 2-3hrs per day. And yet, I still found myself chronically running out of batteries on the 13 mini. I actually now would prefer to keep my new annoyingly large 16e just to not have the battery anxiety.

(A hidden assumption in the above is that larger screens make more room for battery.)

I have an S24 ultra and I had an even bigger Sony xperia a while back. I have an old iPhone SE ( the one in the form factor of the iPhone 4) and find it absolutely unusable. Typing is a joke.

I’m leaning towards getting an old iPhone mini - but maybe someone knows a better alternative?

I went out of my way to make sure I found a "new" iPhone 13 mini for my corporate BYOD (needed for on-call, and I hate the cert they push so there's no way I'd use my personal phone...)

The only corporate phones they offered were HUGE, being required to carry 2 phones is enough of an annoyance already, but two full-sized phones is a nightmare!

it is kinda annoying, but apparently the consensus of modern design includes both lots of useless horizontal margins (lots of them just for the sake of visible rounded corners) and lots of vertical space taken by ads (iPhone 17 is actually 19.5:9, not 16:9, so ads take less vertical space on such a screen)...

and after a few months of using a larger screen I learned how to use it with one hand so it is possible - I rest my phone on 4 fingers and use thumb to interact, I only use two hands when typing (well two thumbs, but whatever)... but I still agree that the bigger the phone the more I'm worried it will fall down from my hand when operating it with one hand... the Max versions of iPhone do seem too large for me...

For your first point, the iPhone duo is rated IP 68 Dust and Water protection. Literally none of Samsung's book foldables so far have achieved this IP rating.

Maybe they only sell to 5% of users but they sell and at top prices, meaning more possible profit.

And you can’t grow the iPhone at the current sizes. Everyone who once wants at one of those sizes already has one. You either have to convince them to upgrade or switch, and those are both hard.

However, if you give them a choice of something they haven’t had before, it’s way easier. Get the people who wanted to fold and went to android and would like to come back. Get the people who have a max and want something bigger. Get the people with an iPhone 13 who are simply curious enough to do the upgrade, but otherwise would’ve stood still.

Gotta sell.

If you look at phone sales Pro Max out-sells the regular Pro

Regular people like big phones

It's not a 2000 buck problem though.

Me. I get why people like small phones. But, I've have the iPhone Jumbo Huge edition for a long time now. I use my phone as a pocket tablet 10X more than as a phone.

Looking at the Duo specs https://www.apple.com/iphone-duo/specs/ vs my current 12 Max Pro specs https://support.apple.com/en-us/111874 it looks like the differences I care about are

1) 1878 pixels over 4.64" vs. 1284 over 3.07" 2) Default camera mode is 48 MP vs 12. Other modes are surprisingly similar. 3) A much faster CPU

I'm sure there are 1,000 more small differences. But, my 12 Jumbo Huge from late 2020 still runs great. If I were to upgrade, I'd get the Duo. We'll see how much longer I keep waiting, I guess.

Apple produces a "small" phone (S or Mini series) only every few years because that's enough to saturate that market.

When I go for walks I only bring my smart watch. If I break an ankle or someone has an emergency we can talk. But I can't pull up a bench and doomscroll for an hour.

The reason it doesn't actively crease is because it's not like a piece of paper you press on to fold: the screen "rounds" itself, and as long as it doesn't go past a breakpoint (which is what the body of the phone prevents), it'll restore.

For foldable phones, this might be a good pick to get caught up (5 months old, but minimal crease): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFUB_jL_XcM

Edit: I don’t know of anyone 75 still coding outside of retired professors here and there. I am not trying to be an ageist. I just don’t think I will be physically capable when I am 75.

If people would at least use the power they buy... :|

A device that fits in his pocket and that he can still hold in one hand when he's using it as a phone, but that has enough screen real estate to run apps in large-print mode without constantly breaking UI designs, would meaningfully improve his life.

Most people I see out and about are either using face time, or inexplicably speaking in speakerphone and holding the flat, face up, with the bottom of the phone towards to their mouth in a weird awkward way, or they are using headphones, wired or wireless.

This has not been true for a while. Google "apple watch family setup". You just need to know someone with an iphone, once, to set it up. You can even set up cellular and use that for all watch internet needs, incl imessage, calls, facetim (audio), and weather & apps

apple is always "late to the party" and regularly takes existing tech, polishes it to a high standard of UX, and introduces a new paradigm for consumer tech products. if xiaomi has ever done that please let me know.

not to mention that chinese consumer goods companies are largely siloed to the east anyways

Do you expect hn being an uncritical apple fanclub?

This is a gorgeous design.

5s/SE1 is still peak iPhone for me. I pull that thing out of the drawer every now and then and just marvel and the size and weight and how it is barely noticeable in my pocket even compared to my (ginormous in comparison) SE2.

I even forgot about this. God damn it, I enjoyed the SE so much because of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmFM9l5RJSg

This feature is also standard in existing folding phones. It's a pretty obvious feature tbh.

In a completely clean room environment where a designer had never seen a folding phone, but had all the context of the iPhone and everything Apple had done, they would develop almost exactly the same design and features.

Designers have also been exploring the concept of foldable devices for literal decades, well before any reached the market. I have an industrial design and technology degree, we did a project in 2005 where we explored the designs around this, looking at the UI, the physical interaction, everything. My design had a similar aspect ratio and size, as I am sure half the student did my year and every other year they ran the project. (the iPhone Duo is about thousand times better than my design though!)

Thats not to say the Microsoft designers didn't do an incredible job, they did, but they were building on decades of design ideation from those that had experimented before them.

Remember... the Duo was supposed to be a cursed Windows 10-esque device. They brought on Movial to do a pivot to Android, then bought out the porting team in early 2024 to keep working on what they should have released in preparation for the Duo 2 (which is what they actually NEEDED to sell as an Android device at the time, but flopped in doing so).

I returned mine in late 2023. It wasn't the best experience and I was missing out on things like NFC dearly.

While the Duo is more subtle for some changes, it might show us the "new" Apple where the innovation comes from fine-tuning and getting a mature product to the market.

At least from their presentation, it looks like they sat on the fence and looked at pretty much any good or bad thing that happened during the past years.

Seeing some reviews on the Samsung Fold for example, mentioned the speakers feeling weird as the audio orientation is fixed to the speakers location. Those little details make a difference.

I really hope modern Apple would go back to the details and nuances.

[1] https://betawiki.net/wiki/Windows_XP_Tablet_PC_Edition

The curse of doing anything interesting with Android.

Addition for anyone scrolling: Link to a case on Apple's website for this.

Another addition: Another case without the kickstand

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/mkr94zm/a/iphone-duo-case...

If I wouldn't at the moment focus on developing iOS apps, the Z Fold 8 would be very tempting.

Look at the low end iPhone’s slowing getting better screens, TouchID, and then FaceID.

It would have made an even larger splotch of the screen look odd.

I'm not sure the unfolded version will be big enough to truly replace my iPad Pro, though.

So spending $1800 extra on a nice experience is still better than $30k extra.

Sidenote, I've not had a single one of my smartphones crack a screen since 2008 when I got my first smartphone, take that for what it's worth.

many people have a phone as their only device though, so great screens and cameras and everything else are easily rationalized behind the managable cost of carrier plan's indirect loan.

It sucks. I wish that would change, but that is what made me switch from Android to iPhone after 12 years on Android. At the time, even flagship androids were lucky to get 2 years of OS updates and security fixes. Apparently Google and Samsung are going to support their devices longer, but I'll wait till they have a track record. But ultimately, an iPhone for me does come out cheaper over the lifetime of a device than cycling through cheap androids every 2 years.

I haven't looked, but am guessing the probably exists on other Apple specs pages.

Like first reply he literally says

> There is sorta one at some slight angles but basically no crease

And someone replied with a picture of it showing the crease.

It's probably fine and you don't notice it during use, but it's not some magic creaseless breakthrough.

I can’t see it being comfortable to hold and type on at all.

I predict the form factor will be gone within two years.

No way I prioritize that kind of cash on something that only runs mobile-tier software.

It still looks quite decent though.

not entirely sure why, but i’d guess there were durability concerns with the screen wrapping around the edge. might have also felt weird to hold. potentially the crease would be worse in unfolded mode as well.

From an experience perspective, I imagine it's just more satisfying to open it like a book. A screen on the outside would mean the inside is almost empty, just utilities like camera lenses.