Apple's iPhone Duo moves the dock to the edge that Samsung reserves for shortcuts

Samsung already occupies that strip of the inner screen. Its Edge Panel sits there but stays hidden most of the time, and what it holds is Now Brief and AI Select, which Engadget's reviewer says get used far less than core apps like Gmail or Messages ^[6]. Apple's dock and menus stay visible in the same place while an app is open ^[5]. The difference is which apps the operating system keeps within reach when nobody has asked it for anything. Apple said in the announcement that the two screens share an identical aspect ratio; Engadget's reading is that they are more unified, if not precisely that ^[22].

The price is where the comparison gets specific. At $2,000 the Duo sits $101 above the Pixel 11 Pro Fold and $100 below the Galaxy Fold 8 Ultra ^[4]. It is also $100 above the Galaxy Z Fold 8's launch price ^[10], which puts the Fold 8's launch at $1,900 ^[1]. Samsung's first Galaxy Fold cost $1,980 in 2019 ^[11], so Apple's first foldable arrives $20 above it in nominal dollars ^[2]. "That's not the Apple I'm used to," Engadget wrote ^[21].

The multitasking gap is three apps ^[3]. Engadget reads the limit as a decision, writing that the two-app function is "likely a deliberate choice by Apple, not a technical limitation" ^[13], and reports never having used more than three apps at once across the 10-plus foldables tested and reviewed ^[14]. That is a judgement about how people work. A team whose people keep a third pane open does not get to make it.

When Engadget lists what is genuinely substantial here, the list is a coating and a stylus, with nothing on the scale of dropping the home button for Face ID ^[19]. The nano-coating gives the screens a matte finish that cuts reflections and helps obscure the crease ^[17]. The volume buttons sit on the upper edge so they are in the same place whichever screen is in use ^[18]. Of iOS 27, Engadget wrote that "it's still mostly an iPhone experience, not an iPad one" ^[7].

A buyer can settle this on two facts about the work. If it needs three panes open at once, the only device in this comparison that clears the bar is the Fold 8, at five ^[12]. If it needs handwriting on a phone, the only one is the Duo, because the Pencil has not worked with an iPhone before ^[4]. Everything else in the Duo's favour is a preference about where a dock sits, and it costs $2,000 ^[8].