Apple introduces the iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone, with pre-orders on October 16

Anyone who wanted a folding phone running iOS now has dates to work with. Apple has introduced the iPhone Duo, which it calls the first foldable iPhone, with pre-orders beginning Friday, October 16 and availability starting Friday, October 23.

Closed, the 5.4-inch outer display delivers 90 percent of the screen area of the iPhone 18 Pro, so the shut phone is not a compromise strip of glass. Opened, it becomes the thinnest iPhone ever made, with a 7.6-inch inner display and a nano-texture finish that Apple says minimizes glare. The same nano-texture material is credited with keeping the crease less visible.

The hinge is engineered from more than 100 components that precisely control opening and closing while supporting the center of the display, which Apple describes as delivering a smooth, satisfying feel rather than the wobble that has dogged the category. It is also IP68 rated against splashes, water and dust.

Inside is the A20 Pro, the same chip Apple is putting in the iPhone 18 Pro models, paired with a custom-designed vapor chamber and a dual-battery architecture. Apple puts the gain at up to 35 percent better sustained performance than the iPhone 17 Pro, which is a thermal claim as much as a silicon one.

The camera is a new 48MP Fusion Main that shoots at up to 48MP with zero shutter lag, defaults to 24MP for smaller files, and includes an integrated optical-quality 2x Telephoto.

Two colors, star white and night sky, both in grade 5 titanium polished to a mirror finish.

"iPhone Duo is the most transformational change to iPhone since the original," said Apple CEO John Ternus, who framed it as a case of hardware and software being engineered together.

The Duo is a long way from the first foldable on the market, after years of work by Samsung and Google, and it is not even the first product to carry the Duo name.

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 landed at the same event. Apple has built it around a new Health Sensing System and the S11 chip, and claims the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable, along with higher-frequency heart rate and HRV measurements. It introduces readiness, which analyzes recent activity, training load, vitals and sleep score to give a sense of your capacity for the day ahead. Battery life stretches to 45 hours of outdoor workout tracking and more than two days of general use, up to 50 hours, and Apple claims the most accurate on-device GPS in a sports watch. It comes in natural and black titanium.

Also announced: the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, active noise cancellation on the entry-level AirPods 5, and a Siri Recap feature for the Watch Series 12 and Watch Ultra 4. The AirPods Pro with cameras did not appear, and according to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg they have slipped to 2027.

Still unknown

- What the iPhone Duo costs - What the Apple Watch Ultra 4 costs - Storage options and battery capacity for the Duo