With just three days until the release of the iPhone Duo, Apple is gearing up for the launch. Behind the scenes, the App Store now offers screenshots of Apple’s built-in apps running on the Duo. We’ve seen some apps in marketing materials, but images of the ones we haven’t seen give us an idea of what it will be like to use the iPhone Duo on a daily basis.
Many apps are displayed in landscape orientation with an iPad-like interface that uses part of the screen for sidebar navigation. Other apps use full screen for more viewing space.
Some apps have a dual view that goes beyond sidebar navigation. In Contacts, the app is divided into a list of names and a view for editing the information.
The Siri app doesn’t have a traditional sidebar, but it’s not entirely split either. The left side of the interface is a tiled view of conversations, while the full conversation can be viewed on the right.
The iPhone Duo adopts a vertical dock and vertical navigation bars on the right side of the screen in open and closed view. The exception is an open view with the iPhone Duo held vertically, similar to an iPad in portrait orientation. When positioned this way, navigation bars remain at the bottom of the interface.
Apple’s screenshots don’t show many apps in the unfolded vertical orientation, but it is a viewing option. Apple says it’s ideal for apps that use the keyboard or for navigating Safari.
Apps like Preview have palettes at the bottom for selecting tools, and these are combined with sidebars, navigation bars, or both. Markup Editing gives a good overview of what drawing and photo-editing apps will look like, with a large amount of display real estate coupled with a smaller tool palette.
Apps that don’t need large navigation bars have widescreen views that take up the entire screen. Apps with navigation bars have the option to tap to hide the bar.
Floating popovers appear when you hold down an icon. The popovers are not enlarged and take up less space on the screen than on Apple’s smaller iPhones.
When you’re on the home screen, you’ll see the Today view on the left of the screen with your widgets, while the app icons are on the right. The status bar is at the top right corner and lock screen icons like Flashlight and Camera are at the bottom right. The interior screen does not have a dynamic island that is always visible because there is no Face ID and the FaceTime camera is under the screen. Apple still uses the Dynamic Island, which extends to the side of the screen for live activity and alerts. The outer screen features a small vertical “dynamic island” that includes the camera cutout.
Most screenshots from the App Store show the iPhone Duo unfolded in landscape orientation, although some also show what apps will look like on the smaller exterior screen.
Apps will be able to quickly switch between open and close and different positions, and Apple has worked to keep the navigation buttons in the same place for a unified experience no matter how you use it.
Open and closed aren’t the only options for the iPhone Duo. Few screenshots show the positions, but the Duo can be used as a tilted laptop for watching videos or standing tent-like with the outer screen visible. You can also use it partially open and held like a book.
The screenshots also don’t show two apps in use side by side or multiple windows of the same app like Safari, both of which are options. We’ll see a deluge of iPhone Duo updates for third-party apps when the device is released.
The iPhone Duo will be launched on October 23, i.e. this Friday. We should receive media reviews and first impressions tomorrow since we will be two days away from release.
(Thank you Alireza!)
Gn tech
