iPhone Duo is no Apple Vision Pro

Look, no offense to Apple Vision Pro. I’m sure Apple Vision Pro is a very nice person. But iPhone Duo and Apple Vision Pro are not the same.

There’s a take that the iPhone Duo may have the Apple Vision Pro problem. The idea is that due to its price and device-specific software, it may be a miss and not a hit. The two things are not the same.

iPhone Duo doesn’t suffer from Apple Vision Pro’s biggest challenges

The biggest problem with this view is that Apple Vision Pro doesn’t replace core devices. It can be a portable movie theater and a better viewport into gaming, and mixed reality experiences can be really moving.

Apple Vision Pro doesn’t replace your iPhone or your iPad. It’s an immersive world that can fit in a suitcase. Apple Vision Pro is mostly a stationary appliance. It’s not a small tablet that can fit in your pocket that you’ll use literally everywhere you go.

Then there’s price. iPhone Duo’s $1999 starting price is a lot, but it’s not as bad as we’d feared. People are willing to pay for premium smartphones. That’s just a result of how important phones are to modern life.

Apple Vision Pro’s original $3,499 starting price was never very palatable. Now it starts at $3,699. You can almost buy two iPhone Duos. That’s iPhone Quattro money.

Utility, portability, and affordability all feed into the biggest difference. Apple Vision Pro fails as a mainstream consumer product for all of these reasons. As a result, it struggles to fully realize its potential.

iPhone Duo is both an iPhone and a small iPad

iPhone Duo has the utility of an iPhone and a small iPad in a form factor that can fit in your pocket. It’s also the same price as say, buying an iPhone 16 Pro one year and upgrading to the iPhone 17 Pro the next year. That’s not unheard of.

Sure, iPhone Duo will have an uphill battle with software optimization, at least for third-party apps. But Apple has already crafted a highly considered story around the operating system and first-party apps. Developers will soon have the tools to make great apps for the versatile folding display as well.

The biggest challenge with the iPhone Duo, to me, is that it’s not the absolute best-in-class iPhone yet. Hopefully it can be in some future version.

It would be great to have the best of every iPhone in one device, including the foldable display. But for now, the iPhone 18 Pro still wins in the camera department and Face ID.

Importantly, those trade-offs won’t be missed for consumers curious to try a radically new iPhone form factor.

In the kindest way possible, Apple Vision Pro wishes it had iPhone Duo’s challenges.