Apple has unveiled the iPhone Duo, its first foldable phone, positioning it as a direct rival to Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8. Both devices share the same "passport-style" short-and-squat form factor, marking a departure from Samsung's traditional tall, narrow foldable design, and the two are expected to be the main choices for consumers considering a foldable phone this year. Samsung had already reported strong early sales for the Z Fold 8 and its larger Z Fold 8 Ultra sibling, but Apple's entry is anticipated to be a major disruptor in the foldable market.

On specifications, both phones feature a 7.6-inch inner display at 120Hz, with Apple's slightly higher resolution, alongside similarly sized outer screens of around 5.4 to 5.5 inches. Notably, Samsung manufactures the folding OLED screens used in the iPhone Duo, yet Apple has still matched Samsung's anti-reflective coating technology with its own "nano-texture finish," and both devices use titanium reinforcement plates. Apple's new A20 Pro chip, built on a 2nm process, reportedly outperforms Samsung's Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in productivity and gaming, offering 50 percent more memory bandwidth and a 40 percent faster GPU than its predecessor, though Apple has not disclosed the Duo's RAM compared to Samsung's 12GB (or 16GB on the top storage tier).