A decision yet to unfold.

This post is largely a response to MacSparky's video on the iPhone Duo and resulting blog post, and because we've been thinking about the iPhone Duo a bit over on Mastodon.

Our iPad Mini needs replacing. Not in our typical "it's been two years, time for an upgrade" approach we take with phones, but that it was bought with the lowest storage option offered at the time (64GB). With iPadOS getting more bloated over the years, the process of updating it basically involves deleting everything non-essential - Telegram, Discord, home security cameras, Kindle, podcasts, apps we use every single day, everything must go. When it's not time for an update, we can't use it for all the creative things we'd like to - it'd be nice to put GarageBand on to fuck around with, but there's no room to download instrument packs. We like sometimes doodling in Procreate but there's a big worry that will fill the rest of the space[1].

When we recognized this as an issue last year, our plan was to wait until a new one was announced and then upgrade... but so far, that hasn't happened. What has happened is that the iPhone Duo was announced. And it complicates things. A lot.

a fork in the road

It is far to say that the Duo is the most interesting iPhone in a long time. Possibly since the original. And while there have been Android foldables for a long time... at least from what we've been able to pick up from the periphery[2], none of them ever seem to have encouraged third party developers to make their apps compatible with all the different ways a folding device could be used.

We haven't held one. We probably won't until the preorder period opens and they're available to take a look at in our local Apple Store. And because of that, right now, we have no idea of which direction we're going - whether the advantages of consolidating two devices into one win over the tradeoffs.

We had a day out on Wednesday that got us thinking about the nature of the conflict. We used the fancy cameras on the iPhone 17 Pro to take photos all day, including some shots reliant on the telephoto lens that the Duo lacks. We sat on a bench by the canal, phone charging in bag, and got out the iPad Mini to work on something.

And the file in cloud storage we wanted to work on just... wasn't there. The directory containing it wasn't there. After 5-10 mins the Mini finally refreshed whatever out of date cache it had, but it struck us as the sort of thing that could only happen with an infrequently charged tertiary device that doesn't get the same opportunities to sync in the background.

The Duo has Apple Pencil support. That's incredibly appealing for note taking or doodling wherever we are. But it also has nowhere to store it, and a case can't exactly help with that unless Apple's plan is to release a shorter Pencil. Meanwhile, we really like the origami case we have for the Mini in being able to prop it how we want for the task at hand. There's also a question with apps like Procreate - the version currently on iPhone is stripped down and separate from the iPad version, so which version will the Duo get?

We also like MagSafe accessories, and while the Duo does have MagSafe, the worry is that a lot of the existing accessories may not fit very well - particularly wallets, due to the squatter nature of the Duo vs. the fact that all wallets have to accommodate credit cards.
But also some of the things we use MagSafe for (like pocket tripods) are handled just by the nature of being able to fold things.

Add to that we do really like the iPhone 17 Pro - the cameras, the vibrancy of the orange shell even if in a case most of the time, and we're probably one of the few people that records most videos as Spatial Videos, which the Duo can't because of the different camera layout. Add to that we only got it last year, so typically we'd consider phone upgrades off the table this year.
But even as the smaller model, we sometimes find it difficult to reach the top part of the screen to pull down the notification shade one handed.[3]

so yeah

Writing all this out, the logical, rational choice is to get the Mini, especially if the rumoured refresh does come with an OLED screen.

...but the heart yearns. It yearns for not having the excuse of "oh, this is only a 20 minute bus ride at most, I can't be bothered getting everything out of our bag to read"[4]. It yearns for seeing how apps adapt to "tent mode" being considered just a valid a way to use a phone as anything else. It yearns less for the idea of potentially still carrying the 17 Pro when a nicer camera is needed, but that's still a whole lot smaller than a proper camera.

We'll see what wins in the end.

footnotes

  1. On the off chance you're reading this, Procreate devs, please reconsider this decision - we've got 2TB available in iCloud and basically nothing on the iPad Mini! ↩︎

  2. Our main Android device is a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 that we picked up when we saw it cheap in one of the local second hand shops. It doesn't get a lot of use, but it gives some ideas. Beyond that, we keep up with Mr. Mobile's reviews of every foldable that hits the market - and the most interesting use of third party apps in those tends to be mostly split-screening, sometimes with something LCARS inspired on the cover display. ↩︎

  3. Not helped by iOS 27 moving the location for the notification shade to top left only. ↩︎

  4. As per How to Take Smart Notes, we tend to "read with a pen in hand" - which is a lot easier with a device with a stylus that has split screen support... ↩︎