Apple announced one foldable last week. Mark Gurman thinks it’s the start of a family, and his reasoning comes down to something small: the name.
Only the iPhone Duo actually exists
Apple has announced a single foldable, the iPhone Duo, with a 7.6-inch inner screen, a 5.4-inch outer screen and a starting price of $1,999. Everything else in this story comes from Gurman’s Power On newsletter at Bloomberg. He’s usually right about Apple’s roadmap, but none of the models below are on any official plan.
The name change from Ultra to Duo is the clue
Inside Apple, staff were reportedly calling the project iPhone Ultra, and that label leaked into press coverage for months. Gurman says Duo won out partly because it’s three letters like Air and Pro, and partly because it leaves room for suffixes that Ultra would have wrecked. iPhone Ultra Max doesn’t work. iPhone Duo Max does.
Three follow-up models are being floated
A Duo Max with a larger display, a Duo SE with cut-down specs at a lower price, and a Duo mini using a clamshell fold rather than the book-style hinge. That maps almost exactly onto what Samsung runs with the Galaxy Z line. Gurman also expects the third-generation Duo, not the second, to be where Face ID and a telephoto lens finally arrive, since both were dropped from this one to keep it thin.
The forecast attached to all this is very bold
Gurman expects the Duo to become the dominant foldable on the market by early next year, with scalping, inflated eBay prices and serious supply shortages. He says it’s impressive enough to make foldables normal. That’s a columnist’s prediction, not reporting, and the $1,999 entry price is a real obstacle to it. He admits as much himself, and points to falling component costs and leasing deals as the way out.
