The iPhone Duo is finally out. While the offer is still limited as customers that didn’t secure a model during pre-orders are likely to walk out of Apple Stores without a device in their hands, there are a few other lucky customers who will be able to get their $1,999 foldable phone — the first ever made by Apple — this Friday. While many stock Apple apps are already available for the iPhone Duo’s new form factor, several developers also optimized their software for the new inner and outer displays, such as Portal, the team behind Gentler Streak and The Outsiders, and even the piano game PianoFold.
What makes this release so exciting — even more exciting than Apple’s latest flagship launch, the iPhone 18 Pro – is that this marks the first time Apple is betting on a completely new design since the introduction of the iPhone X almost a decade ago. With a passport-like shape, iPhone Duo apps can be enjoyed on the outer display, the inner screen, which is almost as big as the one available with the iPad mini, and side by side in Split View.
Whatever way you’re planning to enjoy the iPhone Duo, we’ve selected some apps that have been optimized for the iPhone Duo on day one and that will continue to make your iPhone experience even better. Besides these selections, we also suggest taking a look at apps like Deck-man, Penalty Area, and Toastie, which also provide a unique experience on the iPhone Duo.
Portal
Portal is one of the most interesting apps available on the Apple ecosystem, as it wants to bring users close to nature while they try to sleep, focus, or be creative. With its biggest redesign happening in September, the developers changed how they bring nature to people’s lives with the known Circadian Flow feature. It syncs the different portals available on the app with your local time of day, helping users enjoy these landscapes according to their time zone for an immersive experience from sunrise to sunset.
With over 100 portals, it’s easier to share and experience them using the new Liquid Glass interface. There are also new timers and alarms, new widgets for the Home Screen, Lock Screen, and Control Centre, in addition to a deeper integration with Siri AI, Spotlight, and Handoff to help users discover and play portals across devices. With its iPhone Duo update, users can easily select their favorite portals and immerse themselves by unfolding the device.
Portal’s premium subscription costs $2.99/month, $29.99/year, or $99.99 for lifetime access. First-time users also get a new way to enjoy Portal by having seven days of premium access without requiring them to add payment details, opting in for auto-renewal, or having to be reminded of canceling their subscription. The app is available to download for free on the App Store.
Gentler Streak & The Outsiders
For those who love to keep on top of their daily fitness, two of the best apps for that, Gentler Streak and The Outsiders have been updated for the iPhone Duo’s display. They come as version 5.13.5 for Gentler Streak and 1.8.3 for The Outsiders. Basically, these apps offer a layout made for this larger inner screen, while making sure everything works properly on the outer and inner displays, whether or not users are taking advantage of Split View. With that, users of these apps will have more room to see what’s happening with their Activity Path, Training Readiness, charts, and workout summaries.
Gentler Streak, for those who are learning about this award-winning app today, is a fitness app focused on improving people’s wellbeing. Without forcing them to just do more and more, the app wants to help users to stay consistent, while respecting their bodies. With the Apple Watch, Gentler Streak can analyze how sleep impacted your wellbeing while suggesting workouts based on what you like to do. Resting days are also a big part of the app.
Coming to The Outsiders, it’s an app tailored to help athletes who require every tiny detail about how their workout impacts their bodies — whether they’re training for a marathon, triathlon, or are simply nerds for statistics. Like Gentler Streak, The Outsiders won’t push you harder, but will help regular athletes to understand where to focus and how their training is progressing over the weeks and months.
Netflix & Instagram
Two of the most downloaded apps on the App Store, Netflix and Instagram, are already prepared for the iPhone Duo. Netflix was even one of the examples that Apple used when it introduced the iPhone Duo, revealing that whenever users are taking advantage of the inner display, they can use the hinge of this phone to enjoy the streaming in a laptop-like mode. With that, half of the screen shows the content being played, while the bottom half displays what’s being streamed while also offering basic controls for the media being played. In addition, customers can take full advantage of the inner display of the iPhone Duo to watch their favorite shows in landscape, and Netflix’s home screen is completely integrated with the new design, as users can choose the title they want to watch with the display folded and unfold it for a more immersive experience.
Instagram, for example, is another great surprise to be on-board with the iPhone Duo on day one. After all, Meta apps usually take some time to implement big changes with the iOS system — like 3D Touch, Liquid Glass, and so on — but not in this case. After the company finally rolled out Instagram and WhatsApp apps for several of Apple’s platforms, including apps for iPad, Meta’s applications are ready for the iPhone Duo, making watching reels, posting content, or scrolling through Stories much more accessible.
RainViewer & Carrot Weather
If Apple’s stock Weather app is not your cup of tea, both of the popular RainViewer and Carrot Weather apps support the iPhone Duo on day one. For RainViewer, the developers behind it say they have rethought navigation in the outer display, as they adjusted several buttons for the right part of the app. However, what they really want is for users to unfold the iPhone Duo so the rain radar can fill the larger display, with layers sitting beside the map instead of covering it.
For Carrot Weather, the app is fully optimized for the new experience, but the biggest update happened a few weeks ago with the full iOS 27 support. Duo support comes in version 6.9.2, and there’s a new Layout Assistant that can help you determine what layout works best for your needs. Moreover, there’s an Activities section showing when it’s the best time to do your favorite workouts, and a Highlights section, which shows possible weather changes and other extremes.
PianoFold
PianoFold is a newly released app made especially for iPhone Duo. Customers can fold the iPhone Duo like a laptop and press the bottom part of the display as the tiles glide towards pads beneath users’ fingers. With every tap, the melody keeps going. Users can choose between a camera-powered Room view or a glowing dark stage, depending on whether they’re playing with a nice view or if they just want to concentrate on the game.
According to the developer, there are 40 levels ready to be played in eight different chapters, bringing music by Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, and other composers. More interestingly, as you unlock new songs, you can take advantage of a practice room to slow down the tiles, play with one or two hands, and even switch from tiles to an onscreen piano keyboard.
Like old-school piano games, there’s even a “Wait For Me” option that makes the music pause until you reach the note, helping users explore and practice some of the nicest arrangements for piano. The app is free to download, but as you progress there’s a one-time in-app purchase of $4.99 that unlocks the full app. That said, even if you decide to try the game without going further, it has no ads, it doesn’t create a profile of you, and the developer says there are also no trackers.
