Apple’s biggest ever change to the iPhone formula brought some unique features and scene-stealing upgrades when it was revealed back in September. But now that we’re actually getting our hands on the device (well, some of us are), it turns out there’s a lot more underneath that 7.6-inch nano texture display to discover.
Alongside the likes of Smart Take and Kid Cue, the iPhone Duo has a bunch of cool tricks that can help with usability or productivity that I’ve started to use during my time with the phone. If you’re planning to pick up an iPhone Duo for yourself, you may want to give some of these a try.
Portrait Picture-in-Picture
The iPhone Duo is the first iPhone to allow you to run two apps side-by-side but only if you’re holding it in landscape orientation. One of the frustrations our Global Editor-in-Chief Mark pointed out recently is that you lose the functionality as soon as you rotate it into portrait mode.
This isn’t exactly a silver bullet to that problem, but you can utilize picture-in-picture to snap a video to the top of the portrait orientation whilst keeping a separate app running below, or vice versa.
To accomplish it, start any video app and minimize it into picture-in-picture mode. When you start a second app, the minimized video will generate a new button next to the full-screen option that automatically expands it to just the top of the display. It will automatically resize the secondary app to take up the lower half of the screen.
Tap for Control Center
Over the years, iPhone users have grown accustomed to swiping down from the top-right of the display to open the Control Center. On the Duo, you’re given a one-handed shortcut through the new icon that displays your Wi-Fi and cell reception.
Usually, it just sits there being useful, but if you tap on it, it’ll launch you straight into the Control Center without having to reach up with your thumb to swipe down.
Edge Light
Apple has borrowed the Edge Light feature from macOS and added it to the iPhone Duo’s repertoire. If you’ve not used it before (I hadn’t) then it turns the border of your display into a virtual ring light. This serves to give you some nice illumination when you’re on a video call in dim light.
Edge Light is only available when the iPhone Duo is unfolded. To enable it, open Control Center while on a video call and tap the colored control bar labelled “FaceTime controls”. Then tap on the light bulb button next to "Edge Light" in the video effects menu. You can manually adjust the brightness and hue of the light or hit the Automatic toggle to have the Duo analyze the ambient light in the room and adjust accordingly.
Fixed Position Volume Controls
The decision to put the iPhone Duo’s volume controls on the top of the phone is one that takes some getting used to. If you’re using the phone unfolded, and you happen to rotate it with the volume keys on the bottom, things can get awkward. That’s because the default configuration fixes the right button as volume up and the left as volume down — even if you’re holding the phone upside down.
If you want to set the buttons to dynamically adjust depending on the Duo’s orientation, you can find that option under Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Fixed Position Volume.
Once you disengage it, the button on the right in any position will always increase the volume while the left decreases it. It would still be better to have them on the side in the first place, but that’s a job for the iPhone Duo 2.
Folding Shortcuts
Tucked inside the Shortcuts app is a new feature that’s exclusive to the iPhone Duo called “Open or Closed.” This lets you automate a shortcut based on whether the phone is open or closed. So, for example, you could create one to open the Books app automatically when you unfold the iPhone Duo.
In order to activate it, you need to open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone Duo, tap the + button in the bottom corner, then tap Edit in the top right corner. From there, tap the Automation option that appears at the top of the options list and scroll down to “Open or Closed” under the Display section.
Once you have that in place, find the Open App command and choose the app you want to launch. When you exit the Shortcuts app it will activate immediately.
Bottom Line
Apple missed iOS 27.1 for all non-folding iPhones, instead jumping straight to iOS 27.2 (and now, iOS 27.3) for the likes of the iPhone 18 Pro Max and leaving iOS 27.1 a Duo exclusive. In all likelihood, that was due to some of the custom designs and features only available on the Duo.
As the Duo gets into more hands around the world and developers start to optimize their apps for the first folding iPhone, I expect we’ll see many more cool new Duo exclusive features coming to the fore. I’m particularly interested to see if Apple can expand on Split View multitasking to make it even better as the Duo matures.
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