Apple announces the iPhone Duo, its first foldable, at $1,999

Two thousand dollars is the entry price for a folding iPhone. Apple has announced the iPhone Duo, which pairs a 5.4-inch outer screen with a 7.6-inch inner one and starts at $1,999 for 256GB. Preorders open on October 16th, and the phone goes on sale a week later, on October 23rd.

Storage runs up to 2TB. The body is grade 5 titanium, there are two cameras on the back, authentication is handled by Touch ID, and the whole thing carries an IP68 rating for splash, water and dust resistance. Colors are Night Sky and Star White.

Apple says the hinge is engineered from more than 100 components that control the opening and closing motion and support the center of the display, which is the part of a foldable that usually gives the design away, and CNN's hands-on found the crease barely visible and impossible to feel when running a finger across the screen. That is the claim worth testing. CNN also described the closed phone as about the size and shape of a passport, and reported that a Netflix show kept playing and expanded to the larger screen as the device was opened, without skipping a beat.

The main camera is a new 48MP Fusion sensor that shoots at full 48MP resolution with zero shutter lag.

On silicon, the reporting splits. Gizmodo reported the iPhone Duo runs an A20 chip, the same one as the iPhone 18 Pro models, while another outlet described the part as an A20 Pro. Apple's own figure is a performance comparison rather than a chip name: up to 35 percent better sustained performance than the iPhone 17 Pro.

Connectivity comes from the new C2 modem, which Apple said is up to 50% faster than the C1X, adds 5G mmWave support in the U.S. and uses up to 15% less battery. The Duo is eSIM only worldwide.

Battery claims are split by screen, as they have to be on a foldable: Apple rates the phone for up to 31 hours of video playback on the inner display and 44 hours on the outer one, with fast charging reaching 50% in around 20 minutes.

Apple Pencil support arrives later this year over USB-C, for notes, sketching and marking up documents on either display.

CEO John Ternus called the Duo "the most transformational change to iPhone since the original" and said it "redefines what it means to use a foldable phone." Not everyone who has held one agrees on the value. Verge senior reviewer Jennifer Tuohy, writing after her time with the device, said she won't be buying it, because it's just too expensive.