The iPhone Duo can do split view, but not like your iPad

Apple’s iPhone Duo is the first iPhone capable of running two apps side by side, but anyone expecting the kind of freedom that Split View offers on iPad may want to temper their expectations.

Apple’s iPhone Duo marketing materials talk about pairs of apps and windows side by side, but don’t mention anything about resizing them. There is a reason for this.

If you place two apps side by side on the iPhone Duo’s 7.6-inch foldable screen, you can’t slide the divider between them so that one app takes up more space than the other. Either way, it’s a fixed 50/50 split.

This may be disappointing for anyone who used Split View on the iPad. Indeed, iPad owners have been able to resize apps in landscape mode since 2015, when iOS 9 introduced this feature.

So why doesn’t Apple let you resize apps on the iPhone Duo? This is likely due to the device’s screen geometry.

The inner and outer screens share the same 1:1.4 aspect ratio, and each half of the inner screen is roughly the same size and shape as the outer screen. So, equal distribution gives each application a canvas that it already has to support, with the separator sitting perfectly on the fold. If you could drag the limit, not only would it create a bunch of in-between sizes that wouldn’t fit perfectly on the outer screen, but it would also be a nightmare for developers to build support into their iPhone apps.

Despite the lack of resizing capability, the iPhone Duo’s foldable screen still has many advantages. It lets you quickly switch between apps, open two windows of the same app, and have a conversation on Messages while viewing content from another app on the other side of the screen, in landscape and portrait mode. You can also save app pairs to come back to later.

Apple’s first iPhone with a foldable screen was always going to have a learning curve, especially for users coming from the iPad. With a starting price of $1,999, iPhone Duo pre-orders begin Friday, October 16 and will be available starting Friday, October 23.