Apple’s design team reveals how laptops helped inspire the iPhone Duo, as well as interface principles and expectations for future features, in a new interview with GQ.
The interview features Apple CEO John Ternus, VP of Industrial Design Molly Anderson, and VP of Human Interface Design Steve Lemay. In addition to the device’s previously announced features, Anderson and Lemay discuss how Apple approached its physical design and the experience of moving between its two screens.
Anderson said the familiar laptops set a benchmark for creating a device that offers more space while remaining compact enough to carry comfortably.
Everyone knows what a laptop feels like in your pocket and how it feels to carry around. So that’s a big part of the inspiration: “How do you get something that gives you space but is still compact?” »
The proportions of the iPhone Duo are derived from the international A-series paper system, allowing the device to maintain the same proportions when opened and closed.
Anderson also explained how Apple adjusted the hinge resistance. Its custom variable torque profile makes it easy to open the device before pushing it to stay open and flat.
Lemay said the driving idea behind the iPhone Duo software was to make the rollout feel like it was expanding the device users already owned. Maintaining the location and recognizability of controls was part of this approach, so users wouldn’t have to search for a button again after opening the phone. The transition animation was designed to reveal an inner display that appears to expand below the outer display.
From the beginning, it was very important to us that iPhone Duo felt like a cohesive experience, not two different products awkwardly merged together.
Lemay explicitly identified the Mac as a key influence on the Duo’s interface, alongside the existing iPad and iPhones. He called the result one of the products’ “greatest successes.”
The interview also asked how Apple expects the product to develop after launch. Lemay said developers would design uses that Apple’s design team hadn’t anticipated, and suggested some could influence the broader foldable industry and change the direction of the iPhone Duo itself in the future.
There are so many things that the developers are going to offer that we never anticipated. Some of these will become big ideas that take over the industry and change the product in interesting ways.
The iPhone Duo launches on October 23 and pre-orders begin on October 16. Pricing starts at $1,999.
