Apple's iPhone Duo has foldable UI tricks Android should have had first

Foldables are suddenly watercooler talk. That’s because after almost a decade of trailing, Apple is finally catching on to the foldable race with the first-ever folding iPhone — the iPhone Duo. Naturally, people in camp Android are already staking claim to certain features that Android foldables have long offered, such as camera preview, including an option to keep your kids looking at the camera, and Flex Mode for splitting the screen into two halves with different utilities. And not to forget multitasking support, finally coming to the iPhone (but only for the Duo).

But there’s one thing Apple seems to be doing in nearly the entire class of Android foldables, and that is tweaking the iOS UI to make essential elements easier to access. Beyond the clever transition from one screen to another, Apple is moving UI elements such as lock screen controls, the home screen dock, and app navigation buttons closer to the right edge, rather than scattering them across the top and bottom of the screen. Apple says these design choices make the Duo easier to hold and use with one hand.

Status bar indicators, such as those for Wi-Fi, cellular strength, and battery, are now superimposed into a single multi-purpose indicator. Meanwhile, Dynamic Island on the outer screen expands vertically instead of horizontally and takes up far less space.

These changes are consistent across the iPhone Duo’s outer screen as well as the inner screen when it’s held in landscape mode. When the phone unfolds, the right side looks identical to the cover screen, while the left half shows Today View with a stack of customizable widgets.

In contrast, while Android manufacturers, including Samsung, let you have different home screen configurations on both the inner and outer displays, the interface has felt rigid and still quite comparable to regular Android devices or tablets. Apple, as always, shows the way on how to make it more convenient, and we hope Android companies can replicate their own versions to attract more buyers for their foldables, if not for any other reason.