The iPhone Duo has been in customers' hands for only a couple of days, but developers are already building apps that treat the fold itself as part of the interface. MacRumors has rounded up a set of the more playful examples, and they show how third parties are experimenting with the hinge.
Retro computers and cassettes. Tiny Computers ($3.99) turns the device into a miniature retro machine, with options inspired by the original Macintosh, Commodore 64, Amiga 500, iMac G3 and iBook G3. Deck-Man ($4.99) imitates a cassette player: you open the Duo to choose music, then snap it shut to start playback.
Folding as a game mechanic. In Toastie ($2.99), you assemble a grilled cheese sandwich and then close the Duo to toast it, with timing deciding whether it burns. Duometry ($2.99) asks players to fold the phone to a target angle, while Orisuji ($4.99) is a paper-maze puzzle that moves between the inner and outer displays. Fold Accordion ($2.99) uses the hinge as bellows to play music.
Familiar tools, reshaped. Delta Game Emulator has been updated with Nintendo DS controls, and closing the Duo puts the game to sleep, much like a DS shell. TypeDraw ($4.99) presents itself as a closed notebook that opens to writable pages and supports Apple Pencil. Living Earth ($5.99) shows a rotating globe with live weather, aimed at tent mode, and Portal offers nature scenes and sleep timers for $2.99 a month.
Several of the apps are free, including Fold & Squish, a Rorschach-style art maker where you paint on one half, close the phone and rub the outer display before revealing the result, as well as Foldfish, Nitelore and Foldissimo. Lake, an adult coloring book, is free to try with a $9.99 monthly subscription for the full app; its developer says an Apple Pencil update is coming.
Not everything here is a gimmick, but the list is a useful snapshot of how developers are thinking about a new form factor. Apple itself has encouraged this work: earlier this week it highlighted more than 50 apps updated for the Duo and added a "Made for iPhone Duo" badge to the App Store. Prices and features above are as listed by MacRumors and may change, and the article does not name developers for most of the apps.
Whether any of these ideas become lasting habits is unclear. For now, they suggest the Duo's hinge is more than a mechanical detail: developers are using it as a new input, an animation device and a physical prop.
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