The Foldable iPhone Duo Could Be Apple’s First True Smart Display
Toggle Dark Mode
It looks like Apple may still have a few surprises in store when the iPhone Duo launches next month. After all, while it showed off quite a bit about its first-ever foldable iPhone during this month’s “Surprise and Shine” event, there’s never enough time to show us everything.
What Apple has shown us so far has already revealed a few interesting quirks about the iPhone Duo, including support for the Apple Pencil (USB-C) (but not the Apple Pencil Pro), IP68 dust and water resistance that beats out Samsung’s foldables, and some fun new camera modes and other exclusive software features.
Perhaps the most unique among these is the addition of a more advanced and versatile StandBy mode. While Apple introduced StandBy with iOS 17 in 2023, it’s always been a bit of a niche feature, requiring the iPhone to be placed in a landscape orientation when charging. It technically works well enough with MagSafe stands, although it’s less practical with wired charging, and only kicks in if you actually prop the iPhone up at an angle while it’s charging.
That’s set to change with the iPhone Duo. Since a foldable iPhone can by its very nature double as its own stand, Apple is making StandBy work whether the iPhone Duo is plugged in or not. You’ll be able to either prop it up tent-style to use the outer screen as a StandBy display, or lay it down unfolded like a little tiny laptop to see StandBy on the upper half of the inside screen.
We’ve also reimagined StandBy for iPhone Duo. Set it down and it will enter StandBy even when it’s not charging. You can customize it with faces, including Weather and Calendar, as well as widgets like Music to enjoy your favorite songs.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering
This will let you turn your iPhone Duo into a clock, digital photo frame, desk calendar, or even just a weather station just by setting it down on your desk or table. From the videos shown during Apple’s event, it even looks like StandBy will work when the iPhone Duo is standing partially folded in a book-like orientation.
Apple hinted that it was redesigning some apps and widgets to function with the new StandBy implementation. It hasn’t gone into any further details, but developer pdfu, who has shared a few other fascinating code leaks recently, has unearthed several more apps that Apple has yet to officially mention, plus an unexpected level of customizability.
Code reveals five more StandBy faces for iPhone Duo:
• Home Camera: Single camera view or a grid of up to nine.
• Home Modular: Perhaps a Home accessory-focused Modular.
• Flow (ResponsiveArt): Possibly an animated, abstract face.
• Fade: No design details.
• Snoopy pic.twitter.com/vYg6tD4AHb— pdfu (@itspdfu) September 28, 2026
In fact, it seems as though the StandBy screen on the iPhone Duo may be more akin to an Apple Watch face than merely a set of widgets, although they’ll probably do more than just show the time.
The new “StandBy faces” include classic analog and digital clocks, along with the expected options for Photos, Memories, and Shared Albums, plus two “Home” faces, likely for controlling accessories and monitoring cameras, and a “Snoopy” face.
There are also some pretty advanced options for tweaking some of these faces, letting users change fonts, choose from multiple color palettes, and even slot in “widgets,” similar to Apple Watch complications.
Interestingly, Apple is seemingly holding these cards close to the vest right now. While it released an iOS 27.1 development kit last week, the app meant to host the redesigned faces, dubbed “Rushmore,” is missing from the iOS 27.1 simulator. The data on the new faces came from the localization strings that pdfu was able to piece together; the images he’s shared appear to be renders based on the data he’s gleaned.
While none of this is confirmed at this stage, it seems highly plausible based on what Apple has shared and pdfu’s track record for accurately inferring such things from code snippets. It also parallels a code leak from August on what Apple’s smart home hub could look like.
The iPhone Duo is slated to go up for pre-order on October 16, and will hit store shelves in 70 countries on October 23, with 28 other countries and regions following on October 30.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
