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Apple Execs Explain iPhone Duo's Display Design, Secrecy, and Price

In a joint interview with Tom's Guide and TechRadar, new Apple CEO John Ternus and marketing chief Greg Joswiak explained why the company waited until now to release a foldable, its design philosophy, and how it kept the iPhone Duo under wraps.


Ternus said the timing always comes down to when a product idea meets Apple's bar "for quality and durability, but also for design." He said the device "was like a greenfield of opportunity for us because it was an opportunity to rethink so many different things."

Apple took a hard look at what other foldable makers were offering and felt it "wasn't particularly inspiring," said Joswiak, adding that Apple's approach was "twofold – no pun intended."

First, Apple believes the device's wider 1:1.4 aspect ratio is the answer to designs that resemble two phones "awkwardly stuck together," said Joz. Second, Apple worked on the software to make the Duo "unlike any foldable that's out there."

As for the foldable display, Ternus said the inner screen's top layer is polymer, not glass, which meant devising an entirely new way of making Apple's nano-texture finish. Rival displays, he said, are "kind of cheap-feeling plastic surfaces. They don't feel good to touch, they're kind of wavy, wrinkly."

"The nano-texture just wipes that all out," he added. "It's beautifully flat. It feels amazing to touch and it's incredibly durable."

Joswiak said he is "super proud" that Apple kept the project relatively secret: "We put the extra security on it. We didn't talk about it to anybody. We had a very funny code name, which I won't even repeat, that had nothing to do with it. But we said we're going to keep this one extra secret because, look, people knew through leaks that we were working on a foldable."

Leakers did get the aspect ratio right, Joz conceded. "There were a lot of coincidental instances of people finding that an interesting aspect ratio. And this is when we said, okay, we're going to really keep this one locked down – and it worked."

As for the $1,999 starting price, Ternus mused: "Yes, it's more expensive than the other phones, but we think it's great value." Joz added: "It's called iPhone Duo for a reason. It's like two products."

You can watch the full interview via the embedded video above or on the YouTube website. Pre-orders for the iPhone Duo begin Friday, October 16, ahead of an October 23 launch.
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Apple to Pay $250 Per iPhone Duo Foldable Display in Samsung Deal

Samsung Display has signed a three-year exclusive supply agreement with Apple to provide foldable display panels for the iPhone Duo and future models, reports Chinese leaker Instant Digital.

The iPhone Duo is the first device on the market to feature Samsung's M16 OLED material set, said to bring improvements to brightness, color performance, lifespan, and power efficiency over previous OLED generations. Apple will reportedly pay around $250 per panel, making it one of the device's priciest components.
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Why iPhone Duo's Under-Screen Camera Isn't in the Corner

If you're wondering why the under-screen camera on the iPhone Duo's inner display isn't placed in the top-right corner, Chinese leaker Instant Digital has provided an explanation.

"The iPhone Duo's under-display camera wasn't placed in the top-right corner of the inner screen because of engineering difficulties," said the leaker in a Weibo post this morning. "The next generation will likely move it there, aligning it perfectly with the outer screen's camera." That sounds like a real engineering challenge, since the opposing rear cameras are the thickest things in the whole phone, but let's wait and see.
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Apple Isn't Revealing the iPhone Duo's Under-Screen Camera Resolution

Hidden beneath the 7.6-inch inner screen of the foldable iPhone Duo is an under-display FaceTime camera. The long-rumored feature is a first for Apple, yet the company hasn't provided as much detail about it as the device's other cameras.


For example, unlike the 12-megapixel sensor on the outer front display and the two 48-megapixel lenses on the back, Apple has not revealed the megapixel count of the under-screen camera. Apple's tech specs page for the iPhone Duo offers the following details about its capabilities:

  • Under-display FaceTime camera

  • Center Stage for video calls

  • Ζ’/1.8 aperture

  • Tap to zoom and rotate

  • Ultra‑stabilized video

  • 1080p video recording at 30 or 60 fps

  • Animoji and Memoji in FaceTime

  • Wide color capture for photos and Live Photos

  • Lens correction

  • Auto image stabilization

  • QuickTake video at 1080p at 30 fps and 60 fps

  • Spatial Audio and stereo recording

  • Wind noise reduction

  • Audio Mix


Apple says the under-display camera records video at up to 1080p at 60 frames per second, compared to 4K at up to 60 fps for the outer front camera and 4K at up to 120 fps for the Main rear camera. This means the sensor is at least 2 megapixels – the minimum necessary to shoot 1080p video. However, its apparent inability to shoot 4K video may suggest it is less than 8 megapixels. Given that Apple has kept quiet, perhaps it's closer to 2 megapixels.

The under-screen camera's f/1.8 aperture is faster than the outer camera's f/2.2 aperture, which makes sense since it is probably helping to compensate for light lost through the display. Of course, Apple has not detailed the resulting trade-offs in image quality. How it affects photos and video is only likely to become clear once we get more time with the device.

According to a December 2023 report, LG Innotek was developing an under-display camera for Apple using a "freeform optic" lens array designed to reduce distortion and compensate for brightness loss. Again though, we don't know if this is the camera that made it into the iPhone Duo.

Another thing to note is that the display layer over the camera appears to lack the anti-reflective nano-texture coating found on the rest of the screen, resulting in a glossy dot. The screen also likely covers the lens with a lower density patch of pixels.

Regardless, the difference means the camera's location is less discreet than one might expect depending on the angle of ambient light. Apple even subtly acknowledges this in its marketing materials with a circular shadow on the screen, but going on the video below and the variable reflectivity, the effect can be more pronounced than the company is letting on.

Under-screen camera visibility on the iPhone Duo (video credit: Instant Digital https://t.co/teZ9DhbDkT) pic.twitter.com/tCbR81B52F

β€” Tim Hardwick (@waxeditorial) September 10, 2026

Video shared by Instant Digital on Weibo

Samsung has grappled with the same issue. The Korean company previously used under-display cameras in models including the Galaxy Z Fold6, before switching to a conventional 10-megapixel punch-hole camera with the Galaxy Z Fold7. This is Apple's first attempt at under-screen camera technology, so future iterations of the Duo may be better at hiding what can appear like a small smudge or blemish in the display – depending how you look at it.

Apple says preorders for the iPhone Duo will go live at 5:00 a.m. Pacific Time on Friday, October 16, with availability beginning Friday, October 23.
Related Roundup: iPhone Duo
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This article, "Apple Isn't Revealing the iPhone Duo's Under-Screen Camera Resolution" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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