The foldable iPhone. But is it really necessary?

There is a scene in the presentation of the new iPhone Duo that seems designed to put an end to any debate. The phone opens like a passport, the screen doubles in size, and what was a smartphone just a second earlier becomes a small tablet. Applause, music, Apple’s usual promise: you’ve never seen anything like it.

It’s just that we’ve seen it.

Samsung has been selling foldable phones since 2019; Google and Motorola have long since entered the market, and a thriving industry has now developed around these foldable devices. The question, if anything, has remained the same ever since: how much do we really need them?

Apple, of course, does not portray the Duo as a race to market. It presents it as the product that arrives when the technology is finally ready. This is one of the company’s strategies: let others take the lead, wait until a category ceases to seem experimental, and then enter the market when there is an opportunity to turn it into a desirable product.

The bill, however, comes with the phone. In Italy, prices start at over 2,000 euros, making the Duo the most expensive Apple smartphone ever to hit the market. When closed, it has a 5.4-inch external display; when opened, it measures 7.6 inches. It can display two apps side by side, stand upright like a small tent, work with the Apple Pencil and even take on the appearance of a mini laptop. On paper, the proposition is compelling. Yet the fundamental question remains: why would consumers want one?

The question is no longer whether a phone can fold. It can. The issues that have held this technology back for years appear to have been resolved, at least to a large extent: the hinge is more discreet, the inner screen shows almost no crease, and the transition from one display to the other is seamless. Apple has waited seven years, probably partly to reach this level of maturity. But industrial caution fails to address a far less technical question: what are we going to do with it?

A figure reported by analysts at Counterpoint Research helps to put this enthusiasm into perspective: foldable phones account for around 2 per cent of global smartphone sales. This is a large enough share to establish a category and attract significant interest from manufacturers, but not enough to suggest that the market has chosen the form factor of the future.

In short, leaflets have become commonplace without becoming mainstream. That’s an important distinction. It’s a bit like sports cars: nobody is surprised to see one any more, but that doesn’t mean that tomorrow everyone will leave their saloon cars in the garage.

Apple can, however, rely on a quality that its competitors have never lacked and which continues to make all the difference: the ability to make a gesture feel natural that, until a moment before, seemed strange. The Independent, after testing the Duo, described precisely this sensation. Opening and closing it almost immediately gives the impression that it was always meant to be this way. The technology disappears and the gesture remains.

Then come the trickier questions: why do we need such a large screen? Why must a phone also become a tablet, rather than simply remaining a phone? These are questions that an Apple presentation naturally tends to leave unanswered. The first impression is always the moment when the product is admired. It is on the fourth day that one begins to realise whether it has truly become part of everyday life.

The Duo has practical uses. Those who work with side-by-side documents and windows can have a press release on one side and a draft on the other. Travellers can keep a map open whilst checking a booking. Writers or content creators can rely on a larger surface area for notes, messages and some light work. However, there is always the suspicion that some of these uses will only be discovered after buying the device. First you buy the phone that folds out, then you try to work out why it should fold out in the first place. And there is no shortage of compromises. The Duo forgoes Face ID in favour of Touch ID integrated into the side button. It has just two rear cameras and, according to initial tests, does not seem to offer the same photographic capabilities as the Pro models. No great loss. When closed, it is shorter and wider than a traditional iPhone, whilst when opened it offers much more space, but it also changes the way you carry and use it.

Herein lies the paradox. The Duo could be the best foldable phone ever made and yet, for that very reason, fail to become the phone everyone wants. It’s a situation Apple knows all too well. The iPhone didn’t invent the smartphone, and the iPad didn’t invent the tablet. The strength of the Cupertino-based company has been to transform existing technologies into products that seemed inevitable. This time, the task is more difficult, because the category already exists and the public has had seven years to decide whether they needed it.

The history of the iPhone shows that Apple doesn’t necessarily have to be first. It has to arrive at the moment when it can convince others that it has arrived at just the right time. The Duo, for now, seems to have the technology to pull this off, but it has yet to prove it has a reason to do so. Because the real business isn’t about convincing us that an iPhone can become a tablet. It’s about convincing us that we need both, in the same device, and that it’s worth paying sums never before seen in an Apple Store to have them.