8 iPhone Duo features every Android foldable needs to copy in 2027

It’s no longer a dream. Apple officially makes foldable phones now. The company unveiled its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo, at its September 9 event at Apple Park, finally entering a category that Samsung, Motorola, Google, and other Android manufacturers have competed in for years.

But in typical Apple fashion, the company hasn’t simply launched another foldable phone. Apple has taken a form factor that’s been around for nearly a decade, looked at some of the problems we’ve almost learned to live with, and introduced a few interesting solutions of its own. And now I want Samsung, Google, and Motorola to copy these iPhone Duo features for their next foldables.

Bring back stylus support

The iPhone Duo supports Apple Pencil input on both the cover screen and the inner foldable display. You can use it for taking notes, drawing, marking up documents, or pretty much anything else you’d normally use an Apple Pencil for.

Now, Apple isn’t the first company to support stylus input on a foldable. The problem is that Android foldable makers have recently started removing it for seemingly no reason. Samsung supported the S Pen on its foldables until the Galaxy Z Fold 7 launched last year, and the Galaxy Z Fold 8 doesn’t bring it back either. Google has never supported stylus input on the Pixel Fold lineup. Motorola remains one of the few companies offering it with the Razr Fold.

And I really don’t understand why. You’re carrying around a device that unfolds into a mini tablet. What is all that inner screen space for if I can’t even use a stylus to write on it?

IP68 dust and water resistance should be standard

The iPhone Duo may be thicker and heavier than the Galaxy Z Fold 8, but one thing Apple has done well is to give its foldable proper IP68 dust and water resistance. That puts the iPhone Duo roughly in line with the rest of Apple’s flagship iPhones in terms of protection.

And that is something we can’t say about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold even now. Samsung has been making foldable phones for nearly a decade, yet the Galaxy Z Fold 8 still doesn’t offer full IP68 protection. That’s one of the things that continues to make these extremely expensive phones feel slightly more fragile than regular flagships.

Google has offered IP68 protection since the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, so we know it’s possible. It’s just that other Android foldable phone makers need to catch up.

Bring Flex Mode back

With the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Samsung made some major changes to the hinge on its passport-style foldable. Samsung introduced a new titanium-based design that is more durable and helps significantly reduce the display crease. The downside, however, is that Flex Mode is gone.

If you aren’t familiar with it, Flex Mode lets you keep a foldable partially open at different angles. That means you can place the phone on a table and use the rear cameras for selfies, prop it up for video calls, or split content and controls between the two halves of the display.

The iPhone Duo doesn’t have this limitation despite also having a significantly reduced crease. You can leave it partially folded for taking photos with the rear cameras or use the two halves of the screen in different ways.

Flex Mode was one of those features that actually took advantage of the foldable form factor, and I don’t want Android manufacturers to sacrifice it in the name of improving their hinges.

Every foldable needs an anti-reflective display

One of the more interesting features of the iPhone Duo’s inner display is Apple’s nano-texture finish, which helps reduce glare and reflections. And this matters a lot more on a foldable than you might think. The materials used to make these inner screens flexible also tend to make them extremely reflective, which can make using the larger display under direct lights pretty annoying.

Samsung has already tackled this with the Galaxy Z Fold 8, which also features an anti-reflective coating on its inner display. But it still isn’t standard across Android foldables.

We pointed out in our recent hands-on with the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, for example, that its inner display remains quite reflective. If we’re paying nearly $2,000 (or more) for these devices, I think reducing reflections on the screen we’re buying them for should be a priority.

Native Qi2 shouldn’t be optional anymore

I may sound like a broken record, but it’s 2026 (almost 2027) and plenty of Android flagships still don’t have native Qi2 magnets. The iPhone Duo supports MagSafe out of the box, meaning you can use all Qi2 and MagSafe accessories without relying on a third-party case.

Unfortunately, I still can’t say the same about many Android foldables, including the Galaxy Z Fold 8. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold remains one of the few flagship Android foldables to offer native Qi2 support, but now it’s high time Samsung, Motorola, and everyone else caught up.

Samsung, it’s time to bring back under-display cameras

The iPhone Duo uses an under-display camera on its inner screen. When you’re normally using the display, there’s no obvious camera cutout. The camera is still there when you need it for FaceTime calls or selfies, but otherwise, it stays hidden underneath the screen.

This isn’t something new. Samsung used under-display cameras on its Galaxy Z Fold phones for years before dropping the technology with the Galaxy Z Fold 7. And while those cameras weren’t exactly known for their image quality, I still think the uninterrupted inner display looked better without a punch-hole.

If Apple has found a way to make the technology work without completely ruining camera quality, maybe it’s time for Android foldable makers to give it another shot.

We need more creaseless displays

Samsung has already improved the crease with the Galaxy Z Fold 8 this year, but we’re still not at the point where it has completely disappeared. Early hands-on impressions of the iPhone Duo suggest Apple has made the crease even less noticeable on its first attempt, especially compared to devices like the Pixel 11 Pro Fold and Razr Fold.

Of course, we’ll need to put these phones side by side before declaring any winner here. But if Apple really has managed to get this close on its first-generation foldable, Android manufacturers that have been making these devices for years don’t have much of an excuse anymore.

Give me a 2TB option

I know asking this in the age of memory shortage is slightly silly. But foldable phones are expensive devices that you usually expect to keep for longer than a standard slab phone, and one thing we often overlook when thinking about longevity is internal storage.

Sure, Samsung and Google already offer up to 1TB of storage on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Pixel 11 Pro Fold, respectively. Apple, however, goes one step further with a 2TB option on the iPhone Duo. I know, a 2TB foldable would be ridiculously expensive and probably only make sense for a small number of buyers. But on a device that already costs this much, I’d rather have the option than not have it.

All in all, the iPhone Duo may be Apple’s first attempt at a foldable phone, but the company has already shown Android manufacturers that there’s still plenty they can improve on.

We might discover even more as we spend more time with the iPhone Duo and compare it directly with the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and other foldables. But for now, it seems like Apple has done its homework and delivered a pretty solid first attempt with the iPhone Duo.