Apple’s iPhone Duo revives Microsoft’s failed foldable vision and its name

Apple ↘ 0.26% unveiled its first foldable phone this week, the iPhone Duo, and the tech world has responded with a mixture of excitement and pointed irony. The device, which features a continuous 7.8-inch folding display and a starting price of $1,999, bears more than a passing resemblance — including the name — to Microsoft's ↘ 0.80% Surface Duo, a dual-screen phone the company launched in 2020 and quietly abandoned.

The Name Game

Much of the initial reaction has centered not on the hardware but on the branding. As NDTV reported, "IYKYK" — if you know, you know — has become an unofficial tagline among those who remember Microsoft's ill-fated device. Windows Central senior editor Zac Bowden wrote that Microsoft "gave up on the Duo after just one follow-up model and never even gave its sister device, the Neo, a proper chance," arguing that Apple felt free to take the name precisely because Microsoft walked away from it. Some commenters noted that Apple had used "Duo" branding before, on its PowerBook Duo laptops in the 1990s and the MagSafe Duo charger, though that history has done little to quiet the jokes.windowscentral+1

A Pattern Years in the Making

The comparisons run deeper than a name. ZDNet's Ed Bott wrote that Microsoft had been "chasing the dream of a foldable computing device" since its Courier prototype in 2009, and that Apple's new phone appears to address every shortcoming he identified when he returned his Surface Duo after six weeks of use in 2020. The Surface Duo suffered from an awkward hinge that split the screen, unreliable software, and a form factor that felt "too big and too small" at the same time. Apple's approach — a single continuous folding display built on iPadOS-style multitasking — sidesteps those issues entirely.zdnet

9to5Mac highlighted how the iPhone Duo's ability to drag content between apps across the two halves of its screen echoes a capability Microsoft demonstrated in its 2009 Courier concept video, calling it "quite amusing" that Apple delivered what Microsoft only prototyped.9to5mac

What It Means for Surface

The launch has renewed scrutiny of Microsoft's hardware strategy. Windows Central argued that Surface in 2026 "is no longer the innovative hardware maker that drove the 2-in-1 form factor," stuck instead in "the middle of a crowded PC space" without a clear identity. Microsoft neither iterates long enough to perfect experimental products nor waits for categories to mature before entering them, the outlet wrote.windowscentral

As Bott put it: "If you want to figure out what Apple's next hit product will be, look toward Redmond. Whatever Microsoft is flailing with today will be starring in an Apple keynote in five years."zdnet