In addition to using the iPhone 18 Pro, I also conducted a little experiment while waiting for the iPhone Duo to launch.
To get an idea of what it might be like to use the big screen of the next device, I occasionally use my iPad mini as a replacement phone. Since the screen is a similar size and shape, I’m hoping this will give me some insight into the experience…
I’ll be the first to admit that I really have no reason to own an iPad mini. Most of the time it’s only used as an e-book reader for library books borrowed through the Libby app, as you can’t read them on a Kindle here in the UK. (Don’t get me started on that weird omission…)
Given the number of ebooks I’ve read, it’s not totally It’s not reasonable to have a second device more or less dedicated to this, but I feel a slight pang of guilt that such a powerful device has such a limited role. However, I have now found at least one temporary additional task: getting a sense of the experience we could expect from an iPhone Duo.
As my colleague Ryan Christoffel recently noted, the iPhone Duo’s interior screen is a bit smaller than the iPad mini’s, but the difference isn’t huge.
Due to the iPhone Duo’s much smaller bezels, the screen size difference isn’t as noticeable as one might expect:
iPhone Duo: 7.6-inch screen
iPad mini: 8.3-inch screen
What I did was install all the same apps that I have on my iPhone with a similar layout to reflect the experience as closely as possible. The iPhone Wi-Fi hotspot provides the connectivity needed to allow me to use the iPad on many occasions when I otherwise would have used my iPhone.
In some ways, the iPad mini offers a better experience than the Duo because it runs iPadOS rather than iOS, providing a more flexible multitasking experience. However, I’m not a fan of windowing on such a small screen, so I mostly use full-screen or split-screen apps, which makes it very similar to the Duo interface.
To counter the lack of pocket capacity, I only carry it with me when I have a backpack, but that’s about half the time when I’m on the go.
Of course, the iPad doesn’t support all of Duo’s features, so it’s only a very rough approximation of the experience, but it gave a good idea of what it’s like to have access to that kind of sized screen in a phone – and I really enjoyed it.
As with many such comparisons, the biggest impact is not the move to something new, but the move to something new. back to the previous product. Every time I switch from iPad mini to iPhone 18 Pro, the screen seems extremely small. This experience did absolutely nothing to reduce my technological thirst for the next device.
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