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> None of that matters for a phone. Of course it does. They show the most basic example right on the page, which is that you can side-by-side full screen apps.

• guyzero 7d ago
  this isn't great design, it's tautology. of course the phone open is twice the size of it closed. it would be hard to make it otherwise.
  • Nevermark 7d ago
    It isn't just twice the size. Both sides have the same aspect ratio as the whole screen. > this isn't great design, it's tautology. of course the phone open is twice the size of it closed. Well, it sounds obvious now, but before Archimedes, ancient engineers split their screens 60-40, so the full screen wasn't twice the size of either side.
    • guyzero 7d ago
      Yes, I do understand the issue with the aspect ratio, which is indeed good design, but parent comment's example is that "you can run two apps side by side" is the tautology. Well, at least since the invention of double-entry bookkeeping and getting rid of Archimedian phone design.
      • Wowfunhappy 7d ago
        No, you can't, unless the apps are designed for different aspect ratios.
        • mrmanner 7d ago
          which they have to be anyway, to support normal iphones and maybe ipads and in many cases a cackle of Android phones too. (but I still think this is brilliant design)
          • jaggederest 7d ago
            in this thread many people have clearly never developed for iOS Here's just the screen sizes, not even taking into account actual resolution: iPhone (2007) 3.5" 74.0 × 49.3 36 cm² iPhone 5 4.0" 88.6 × 49.8 44 cm² iPhone 12 mini 5.4" 124.5 × 57.5 72 cm² iPhone Duo, cover 5.4" 113.4 × 77.2 88 cm² iPhone 6 Plus 5.5" 121.8 × 68.5 83 cm² iPhone X 5.8" 133.7 × 61.8 83 cm² iPhone Air 6.5" 150.0 × 69.1 104 cm² iPhone 18 Pro Max 6.9" 159.2 × 73.3 117 cm² iPhone Duo, inner 7.6" 157.6 × 111.5 176 cm² Now, you can leave out a few of those as hopelessly obsolete like the OG iphone, 5, 12 mini, arguably the x, but it's still a pretty wide selection.
            • tikotus 7d ago
              Good list. And if you support both portrait and landscape, you need to support twice that, and you need to be able to switch on the fly. But for the apps that don't currently support both orientations, it's possible they don't have support for switching aspect ratio on the fly. This design might help with those apps not completely breaking when folding/unfolding.
              • jaggederest 7d ago
                Yeah to be fair I'm all for the 1/sqrt(2) aspect ratio, I just think it's funny that it's treated as some kind of holy design constraint when they're all over the map on phone sizing :) And the extra irony is I'm currently shipping an app that doesn't deal well with different size phones (just pads the edges), heh, so do as I say, not as I do.
            • kgwgk 6d ago
              12 mini and 13 mini remain supported in iOS 27.
        • guyzero 7d ago
          The inside screen, when divided in two vertically, along the fold line, is exactly the same dimensions as the outer screen. Pretty much by definition. Any folding phone, of any aspect ratio, can run two apps on the interior display side by side. The issue of the internal screen being the same aspect ratio as the external when rotated is completely separate.
        • wavemode 7d ago
          But, the iPhone Duo has a different aspect ratio from a regular iPhone. So your app needs to be designed for multiple aspect ratios anyway.
        • wtallis 7d ago
          If the outer screen has dimensions X by Y, then you unfold it to have the inner screen with dimensions 2X by Y, which cleanly permits side by side apps at the original dimensions of X by Y. This is true for any ratio between X and Y. If the user isn't going to be multitasking, then the app needs to additionally support the widescreen dimensions of 2X by Y, and the portrait orientation of Y by 2X. Both of these are so drastically larger overall that aspect ratio is a barely-relevant part of the UI layout problem, because nobody wants every button and text label to be double the size (which would mostly defeat the benefits of having the larger screen for anything other than multitasking).
      • MobiusHorizons 7d ago
        The missing piece that makes it not a tautology is that two apps side by side have the same aspect ratio as one app full screen (but 90 degrees rotated)
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  • hbarka 7d ago
    You have to understand 1:√2. It’s not merely folding in half. The test is the folded half has to be the same ratio as the parent. It’s same ratio all the way down. “The mathematical brilliance of A*” https://youtu.be/oQfzSt5bLVs https://youtu.be/oQfzSt5bLVs
    • leni536 7d ago
      You are not answering the parent comment. If the original aspect ratio was a square, making the "full screen" aspect ratio 1:1, then folded out it would have aspect ratio 2:1, fitting two squares side by side. The sqrt(2) aspect ratio allows a portrait full app to be scaled up to the exactly to the folded out screen. But does anyone want that? You probably want to fit more content on the bigger screen, so some layout necessarily changes.
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      • 1e1a 7d ago
        It's still folding in half, so you can have have one app taking up the whole screen, or two half-screen apps, all with the same aspect ratio.
    • nonethewiser 7d ago
      But its two states. What do you mean “all the way down?”
      • anigbrowl 7d ago
        You can keep folding it and it keeps the same aspect ratio. Scaling becomesa simple matter of multiplying everything by 2^+/-n.
        • nonethewiser 7d ago
          Everyone knows its impossible to fold a smartphone in half more than 7 times.
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  • Romario77 7d ago
    first - it's not hard to make. Outside screen size doesn't have to be half of the open screen. second - main idea is about proportions, if you want to design apps that seamlessly transfer from one screen to another they have to have the same proportions of the sides. This is not a given and depends on the height and width. If you take iPhone 18 Pro resolution : 2,622 x 1,206 doubling it would make the screen with 2,622 x 2,412 - almost a square screen. They chose to have the folded phone to have 1.4:1 aspect ratio which is consistent when folded and when unfolded.
    • chrisco255 7d ago
      What app is going to design to flow nicely with a iPhone Duo but not a iPhone 18? Unless Apple has a 1.4:1 ratio across their entire product line, app designers have to deal with variation. Also, when you rotate the device, the ratio changes. This is especially common when unfolding a foldable.
      • nonethewiser 7d ago
        People keep saying it’s so an app can resize to the full interior screen but none of the marketing photos actually have this. So its hard to say “what a genius masterstroke by Apple.” Most have the closed screen plus another view. Or the lock screen which is a full photo open and a small section closed. Im not saying its not possible but it doesn’t seem like that is their intention.
        • Shitty-kitty 7d ago
          A lot of people will look at this and say. Eh I already have an Ipad and a Imac why do I need a phone with such a large screen. Their selling point is: Not having to switch from one app to another when Multitasking.
      • MSKJ 7d ago
        Folded and unfolded will both be designed for 2 aspect ratios. 1 for Portrait and 1 for Landscape. Opening the fold and rotating 90 deg will give you the larger version while keeping the aspect ratio
  • benbayard 7d ago
    The difference is that it has the same aspect ratio folded and unfolded. If you look at other folding phones the inside screen is twice the area, but the shape of the phone is different. 1 : sqrt(2) is the only ratio where you can fold one side in half and the ratio stays 1:sqrt(2). Any other ratio of sides and the inside and outside have different ratios. Therefore, things have to move around, or scale.
  • grvbck 7d ago
    Yes, but 1:√2 keeps the ratio even when you rotate the screen vertically. A folded 1:1 screen becomes 2:1 when "unfolded" and the area doubles, so you can go from showing one 1:1 window to two 1:1 windows side by side. But when rotated to a vertical orientation, you can't just scale that 1:1 window to double its size. With 1:√2 you can.
• tshaddox 7d ago
  Apps already work on Apple devices with many different aspect ratios.
  • ambicapter 7d ago
    This way you don't need to design your app to work with different aspect ratios, because it's always the same.
    • ytpete 7d ago
      But you still do need to support different aspect ratios if you want your app to work on any other iPhone models, because many of them differ.
      • ambicapter 7d ago
        Ok? I didn't say this iphone would solve all aspect ratio issues ever. It can only solve the problem for the space it controls, e.g. itself.
        • zeratax 7d ago
          that still means it's effectively useless to app developers. who here is creating apps solely for the duo?
    • chrisco255 7d ago
      Even if it were true you would also have to design the app for when the device is rotated.
  • Shitty-kitty 7d ago
    Easier to support one more aspect-ratio then two. Unless these things start selling like hot-cakes (unlikely at the price) a lot of developers just might not bother.
• bakies 7d ago
  Hm, my folding phone doesnt have this aspect ratio and I can still do that.
  • zamadatix 7d ago
    I think they intended to continue "... without changing their aspect ratios". I.e. an aspect ratio of Sqrt(2)is the only one where the inner screen (full) and inner screen (half) match, and they seem to have tried to make the outer screen share a nearly identical aspect ratio too. I guess it's a nice consideration for more consistency in layouts for apps targeting the device. Not sure I'm particularly excited about that myself though.
    • bakies 7d ago
      it's a neat tidbit, but not important in the slightest imo. Probably helps with smoothly transitioning between modes, but that's not been a particular pain from my foldable use.
      • lmz 7d ago
        Android devs have always had to handle different screen sizes. Not the case for iPhone devs e.g. I have a game "Ridiculous Fishing" (from 2013) which is a mess layout-wise on my iPhone because it seemingly hardcoded some pixel values and used percentages for the others. They have a fixed version for Apple Arcade.
        • vlovich123 7d ago
          The first new resolution for an iPhone was 2012 which also saw the introduction of Auto Layout. The second new resolution was in 2014 which added size classes. It's entirely possible that the 2013 game was built before they actually started caring about this. This is a non-issue for almost all apps you're realistically going to encounter.
    • fsckboy 7d ago
      >I think they intended to continue "... without changing their aspect ratios" but the context was "see, you can have two different apps running side by side, each with the same aspect ratio as either of the apps when run in the space of the folded screen. not only the same aspect ratio, but the same dimensions" the whole A3/4/5 scheme is completely overblown as a feature for consumers. You format a document for A4, ok, but you wouldn't print that document A5 because the fonts would be completely shrunken. nobody does that. We use word processors to format documents for the space we have, and we don't ever print wedding invites on A3 or A4
• caturopath 7d ago
  This would matter for bigger versions of the same thing. For side-by-side, the aspect ratio is unimportant since you naturally unfold to have two of them.
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  • anamexis 7d ago
    Not sure if I'm misunderstanding you, but of course the aspect ratio is important. If you unfold a square, you don't get two squares.
    • ggm 7d ago
      I think the person you are responding to is not thinking visually. They basically seem (to me) to think reformat-flowed fixes this, and that having the view of a web page alter because you open a book, is "not a bad thing" when you (and I) are of the view, if you maintain the aspect ratio and simply decimate how many pixels are available to show it, the actual "change" in the layout is kept to a minimum WHICH IS THE INHERENT GOOD HERE -the whole point of the A, B and C series is that the scaling function preserves the ratio of sizes of the contents, under the quality change of bigger or smaller fidelity of presentation. Unless there is some upsight I am missing, I think the OP just "doesn't get it"
      • oceliker 7d ago
        The upsight is that they are responding to a point about side by side apps, not a single full screen app on the unfolded screen
        • ggm 7d ago
          I don't think this is a killer logic either. If you consider that the apps were both running, both full screen on the folded state and alternate which is in view, and now can come into view side by side when you open, surely the "good" is that nothing positional in the layout or styling changes, when you move from swipe-and-select to side-by-side.
• cm11 7d ago
  But apps can just rejigger into widths that fit. It would be more of an issue back when mobile sites were first becoming responsive and we pragmatically chose 2 or 3 media query widths to serve different layouts and then applied the same thinking to mobile apps. Of course the initial mobile apps, particularly on iPhone, stuck to just one and later just a few sizes themselves. As there was a wider range we did things more responsively on a continuum. I still think the broader point of there being design reasons to hit these ratios stands and is great. I just think the idea that it needed to be precisely twice the width so apps can fit full-sized doesn't hold too much because there isn't really a "full size" notion. Or if there is, the full-size is probably the double width one. If it wasn't exactly twice the width, most apps are already built to fit into varying iPhone/mobile screen widths.
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  • djtriptych 7d ago
    App rejiggering is not an exact science, and is often poorly done. Even if apps transition well between aspect ratio / screen size breakpoints, there is a cognitive load to maintain 2+ UI configurations. Preserving aspect ratios eliminates these issues. It'll make every app better.
    • xp84 7d ago
      ^^This. Despite all the responsive design tools and declarative layouts to ensure a great layout even on an oddball resolution... the fact is that in practice it's nontrivial, and remember that the companies that make most of the apps you use have finite design and QA budgets. They need to actually use the resolution in question in order to really do a good job of designing for it, and giving them double the work, for a $2000 and up phone which probably won't be super highly adopted, is a recipe for getting apps that end up with layouts that aren't optimized properly on one (or both) of the screen sizes.
      • cm11 7d ago