Craig Federighi admits iPhone Duo may replace iPads for some users

Apple usually does a careful job of separating its products so that they each have distinct use cases, but Craig Federighi has now acknowledged that the iPhone Duo does overlap with the iPad mini.

Apple's iPhone Duo, and especially its price tag, immediately raised the issue that users could get the same benefits by buying a regular iPhone and an iPad mini. Now Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, has talked about overlapping devices.

"I agree for someone who maybe had an iPad mini... this device can often fill that space for them," he told Marques Brownlee in a short YouTube interview.

Federighi stopped short of saying there was no longer any reason to buy an iPad, though. He said that this was another case where Apple's devices find their use cases.

"I think we had the same question when people said, hey, well, I have an iPad and a Mac, like, when are you going to use one or the other?" said Federighi. "And I think we all fall into very natural patterns in our lives or the kinds of activities where we just naturally feel like, okay, the Mac's the right tool for the job, the iPad's the right tool for the job."

"I think very naturally, it's going to play out that way with this device," he continued. "So, I think people are gonna find their way."

Federighi revealed that he's been using an iPhone Duo for months and it has indeed found a place for him. "If I am starting on the iPhone... and I actually just want to go deeper into a piece of content," he explained, "this device is extraordinary to open up, often open in portrait, actually, and page through some content."

Public response

Federighi was also asked about the public reaction to the device and he had a similar response to senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak's.

Joswiak was delighted at how much Apple had managed keep secret. Federighi says he liked how people were surprised by what Apple had done with the device.

"This was exciting in that I think people didn't fully anticipate how much we were going to adapt the software experience to the form factor," he said. I hope, as people do spend time with it, that's what they take home is not hardware, our software apart, but how we brought them together."

Considering that the iPhone Duo has been rumored for years, both men are right about how surprisingly good it still managed to be.