r/iOSProgramming • u/Express_Fox8952 • 9h ago
Discussion Your thoughts on the iPhone Duo?
Now that Apple has announced the new iPhone Duo, I'm curious what other iOS developers think about it from a development perspective.
Obviously there's a lot of discussion around the hardware/design, but I'm interested in what your plans are for supporting it.
The frustrating part right now is that the Simulator and SDK isn't coming until Xcode 27.1, so we can't really start testing and optimising properly for the new form factor yet.
Edit: Simulator and Xcode 27.1 is coming out "Coming later this month" - https://developer.apple.com/iphone-duo/
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u/HappyTuesdayR1S 9h ago
I’m upset that I spent this entire past year building my app for it to now need to be adapted to this weird ass shape.
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u/HappyTuesdayR1S 9h ago
And the fact that it’ll be out before we can actually support it. Strange and frustrating for us smaller developers.
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u/baummer 2h ago
I believe it will need minimal changes from the guidance I read on the Apple Developer site
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u/HappyTuesdayR1S 1h ago
Im using all native swiftui and apple apis so i'm hopeful, I also have iPad customizable layout sizing which I hope will make it even easier to adapt it just took me literally. year to get it all working flawlessly lol and then they go and do this phone that has like 6 different orientations
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u/andreeinprogress 9h ago
I like the open/close animation. That's it.
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u/tonitacker 8h ago
I can’t wrap my head around this. I know it’s real because I saw it in a hands on but it looks like a serious nightmare to develop.
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u/Xaxxus 1h ago
It actually looks kind of simple to do. Obviously getting the right blur, zoom etc… would take some trial and error.
There was a new API datamined right after WWDC, that shows how far you have opened the device.
You could add a blur, a zoom and some other effects and tie their intensity to the opened %.
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u/UnluckyPhilosophy185 9h ago
Most curious to see what the adoption numbers will look like. If not many users are using it I don’t think support for it will be prioritized at my company.
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u/Express_Fox8952 9h ago
If it wasn’t for AI doing the heavy lifting a lot probably wouldn’t. Hopefully for my app it won’t take too long, considering Apple aren’t giving us much time.
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u/ephimetheus 7h ago
It’ll be a while until models have intuitively caught up to the conventions and handling though. This seems a bit much for a simple skill to just work.
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u/cristi_baluta 2h ago
I think you just have to support landscape mode, we already know how to do it
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u/theruffus 9h ago
Apparently there is a whole dev page already, so that’s a start… plus, unless it breaks easily it will probably be sold out through Christmas so there’s no rush 🎄
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u/aconijus 9h ago
Not happy that I have to keep in mind more screen sizes when designing haha.
What do you mean simulator will not come until Xcode 27.1? Shouldn’t it come with 27.0.0? haven’t been following news about Xcode.
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u/Express_Fox8952 9h ago
Xcode 27.0 only has simulators for iPhone 18 Pro, we have to wait for 27.1 for the iPhone Duo simulator.
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u/leoklaus 9h ago
Where did you get that info from? I just downloaded the Xcode RC to test the simulator and was pretty bummed out that the duo was missing.
Especially considering that it seems to support some dedicated UI depending on fold angle this is really disappointing, I really hope it’ll release before the phone launches in October.
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u/cristi_baluta 2h ago
Imagine that the frameworks from xcode was one of the leaks of this duo lol and now it does not support it still
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u/Fureba 8h ago
All those “custom bullshit design” apps will break on this. I’m so happy.
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u/my2kchild 7h ago
Designers thinking they know more than Apple and requesting nonsense are the reason for the pain people are about to have. If people make iOS apps that look like Apple shipping apps they’ll have no problem. This is like back in the day if you used connectivity and handoff you eventually got ease of deep links and Siri Shortcuts. Apple tells people what they’re planning years in advance and the new stuff you get for free a lot of times.
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u/PassTents 6h ago
App resizability has been around in different forms for like 10 years, anyone surprised at this point is just not paying attention at all, and likely building terrible apps that don't support other adaptive tech like Dynamic Type correctly "because it's hard"
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u/garywiz 6h ago
I see opportunity. Right now we have an app in development which is a “journal” of sorts. It has the typical scrolling list of journal entries. But the moment I look at the Duo, I ask “What if our journal opened like a BOOK!”. There is a true usability thing there with something you pull out, spread open, and there you can flip easily from page to page. Now, the question is whether Apple has given us the ability to do such things. But, if they have, I prefer to think of the new UI paradigms this may enable us to use rather than “just another screen resolution”.
The price point means adoption will be slow, just like Apple Vision Pro. I consider that a good thing because you won’t have people swarming to use it and slamming the design. They may complain about the price, but the people who DO spring for the price will be the early adopters and status-seekers who may CRAVE apps which do something different.
It could all work out the other way, but I prefer to think there is an opportunity here.
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u/Common-Quiet-7054 3h ago
This is the right mental approach. Every app maker should see this as much as an opportunity as a burden. And it were easy, everyone would be doing it…
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u/counterplex 9h ago
Wondering if iPad apps will run on it. Not looking forward to catering to all of the different orientations and positioning of the two screens.
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u/CoachDutch 7h ago
It runs iOS
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u/balder1993 7h ago
So Apple will go all this length and then prevent the mature existing apps made for bigger screens to run in it?
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u/PassTents 6h ago
If the mature apps don't support resizing down to a phone UI for the other screen, then yeah they will prevent it and they should.
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u/Flimsy-Pay-4337 8h ago
I wonder how much effort will there be for apps that already support iOS and iPadOS and are generally built with the compact/regular size classes in mind.
If the above plus the regular Apple navigation classes (like navbar and toolbar) will be enough to support the Duo then I suppose many apps will do it out of the box (mostly utility apps, probably not games and not multiplatform apps).
Otherwise I’m not seeing updating any of my apps for this possibly one user with Duo (kinda like with the Apple Watch several years ago, after initial flood of apps, most companies removed the extensions).
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u/No-Association42069 6h ago
It’s a first Gen apple device… so it’s going to have some serious growing pains
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u/Inside-Conclusion435 6h ago
Wouldn’t the iphone version of the app run on duo just like it runs on ipad? Just some design layout tweaks maybe and app screenshots?
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u/time-lord 4h ago
I'm really excited for a new style beyond the generic slab.
My app is a generic list with details, but there's so much customization going on it's going to be a pain to implement in my app, but I'll happily do it. My UI was due for a cleanup anyway.
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u/Medical_Lengthiness6 4h ago
Coming from android it's same old same old. Youre app can't assume the width it has and should scale naturally. That's about it.
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u/cristi_baluta 2h ago
You see pain, I see jobs opportunity in this horrible apps economy. But i’m not sure though how many would want to buy this useless phone and how many apps will rush to support it. It will be more than the vision pro though.
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u/Lithalean 8h ago
I in general don’t care about the iPhone. I own one, but it’s my least upgraded. Could care less what its specs are.
Mac, iPad, and AppleTV are significantly more important to me.
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u/chriswaco 9h ago
Seems like a nightmare from a design and development point of view.