After the iPhone Duo, Engadget Urges Apple to Build Smaller and Larger Foldables

The column notes that Apple waited nearly seven years before responding to Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold, a device Engadget describes as practically a beta product during its first few generations. It asks whether Apple's new chief executive, John Ternus, could follow the Duo's debut with a smaller "iPhone Flip" as early as next year, and points to the slow pace at which ASUS and Lenovo have improved their large foldable tablets as room for Apple to innovate.

Such a phone would not require Apple to stray far from the template Samsung set, according to the column. It suggests taking an iPhone 17 and folding the top half down, the way older clamshell cellphones closed, with a small external display for checking notifications and shooting selfies with the rear cameras. Engadget says the format is hardly exotic: small foldables have been on sale for six years and typically cost about half as much as large folding smartphones, sometimes less. The writer adds that the Samsung Z Flip and Motorola Razr turn up regularly among non-enthusiast users, while the Z Fold rarely does, and that an iPhone Flip could serve buyers who have been asking for a new iPhone Mini.

Apple is rumored to be preparing a major iPhone redesign for the lineup's 20th anniversary next year, built around a bezel-less screen with curved edges. Engadget writes that such a phone is unlikely to excite anyone, whereas a handset that slips into a pocket or a small purse would.

On tablets, the column argues Apple can do more than ASUS or Lenovo, both of which are limited by building for Windows. It points to the iPhone Duo as evidence that Apple has thought carefully about juggling apps and functions across folding screens, and says the software edge would carry over to a folding iPad. One option would pair an iPad Mini-sized outer screen with a larger inner display; another would drop the outer screen entirely to save cost.

Engadget sketches several use modes: opened flat, the device would work like any current iPad; folded in half, the top half could act as a laptop screen while the bottom becomes a touch keyboard with haptic feedback; the same folded shape could run a video on top while handling Slack and handwritten notes below; stood up vertically, it would offer taller windows for multitasking, and with a wireless keyboard attached would resemble a very light mini-desktop. The column favors a 13-inch foldable iPad Pro, which it says would remain useful when halved, and an 11-inch iPad Fold positioned as a portable journal similar to Microsoft's unreleased Surface Neo. It also remarks on the irony of Apple now selling products named Duo and Neo, both names Microsoft had used.

Working out the details of a folding iPad would likely take Apple years, the column concedes, and demand for such a device is not yet large. But it argues that Samsung has already done most of the groundwork for a flip phone, leaving Apple only to follow.