The best apps for iPhone Duo so far, and what each does with the fold

The best apps for iPhone Duo so far change what they show when you open, close or half fold the phone. As of 26 October 2026, three days after Apple’s first foldable went on sale, these are the standouts by category:

• Apple’s launch apps: Netflix, Zoom, Slack and Detail.
• Work: Fantastical, Craft and PCalc.
• Reading and listening: Inoreader, shelff and Deck-Man.
• Photo, video and sport: Instagram, Prime Video and MLB.
• Travel and training: Flighty, RainViewer and Gentler Streak.
• Games: Delta, Asphalt Legends, Planet of Lana, PianoFold and Penalty Area: Face2Face, plus Bitfold and Football Kick, which we make.

An app is optimised for iPhone Duo when its developer has rebuilt it with Apple’s iOS 27.1 SDK. Apple says those apps fill both displays and move their tab bars and toolbars into a column down the side. Apps last built with the iOS 27 SDK leave an empty strip along the right edge of the open display, and apps built with the iOS 26 SDK or earlier are pillarboxed in a window in the middle of it.¹ Every iPhone app still runs.

9io, which publishes this blog, makes two of the games here, Bitfold and Football Kick. Both are marked as ours, and the list is grouped by category and isn’t ranked. Everything we say about the other apps comes from Apple, the developer’s App Store listing or notes, or a named publication, cited in the footnotes. We haven’t tried them on an iPhone Duo ourselves.

What “optimized for iPhone Duo” means

Apple uses the phrase for apps built with the iOS 27.1 SDK or later, and began accepting them on the App Store on 5 October.² Its developer page shows what each generation of app looks like.¹

FoldHunt notes that the outer display is where you’ll notice an un-updated app least.³

For iPhone Duo apps, filling the screen is the baseline. Apps built from Apple’s standard SwiftUI and UIKit parts move their controls to the side, spread into columns on the inner display and nudge buttons away from the fold when the phone is half folded. Anything more, such as a video above its controls, uses the new hinge API, which reports the angle as the phone opens and closes, or the reserved-region APIs for laying content around the fold.⁴ Our guide to building for iPhone Duo covers them.

Below, closed means the outer display, open means the inner display laid flat, and half folded means bent part-way, like a laptop on a table or a book in your hands. Each app is here because Apple, its developer or a named publication says what it does in at least one of those positions.

The best apps for iPhone Duo at a glance

Prices are US App Store prices as of 26 October 2026. “Not described” means none of our sources says what the app does in that position.

Apple’s launch apps: Netflix, Zoom, Slack and Detail

Apple showed these four when it announced iPhone Duo on 9 September, and said its own apps are optimised too.⁵ CNN’s reviewer singled out Apple Books, which shows a page on each side when the phone is slightly folded like a book.⁶

• Netflix (Netflix, Inc.; free download, needs a membership). Closed, you scroll Clips on the outer display. Open the phone and you keep watching on the inner display, with Clips switching between vertical and horizontal views. Half folded, the picture sits above the fold and the controls below.⁴⁷⁸⁹
• Zoom Workplace (Zoom Communications; free, with paid plans). Open, it shows shared content and the people on the call at once, side by side or stacked when you stand the phone upright.⁴⁷¹⁰
• Slack (Slack Technologies; free, with paid plans). Open, your channels and conversations sit beside the one you’re reading.⁴⁷¹¹
• Detail (Detail Technologies; free, with a Pro subscription). A video editor whose AI models run on the phone. Open, the transcript sits on one side and the video on the other, and Flip Cameras cycles through all three cameras. Closed, it switches between the outer and rear cameras.¹²⁴

Work apps

• Fantastical (Flexibits; free, with a Premium subscription). Open, calendars, tasks and menus share the inner display. Version 4.2.4 adds iPhone Duo support.⁴¹³
• Craft (Craft Docs; free, with a Plus subscription). Closed, its toolbar moves into the column down the side of the outer display. Open, the style gallery and a live preview sit side by side.⁷⁴¹⁴
• PCalc (TLA Systems; $9.99). As you start to fold the phone, the calculator splits its keys either side of the hinge. Past a threshold it switches to a laptop layout with every key on the lower half. James Thomson showed this in Apple’s simulator in September, and version 3.15.2 notes “improved support for iPhone Duo”.¹⁵⁷¹⁶

Reading and listening apps

• Inoreader (Innologica; free, with a Pro subscription). Closed, the RSS reader keeps its iPhone layout. Open, it switches to a version of its iPad layout, with feeds and folders beside your articles, and keeps your place as you fold or unfold.¹⁷⁷
• shelff (Satoshi Kojima; $6.99). A PDF book reader. Open flat, it shows a two-page spread. Slightly folded like a book, the spread’s binding sits on the hinge, buttons stay off the fold and the library splits into three columns either side.¹⁸¹⁹⁷
• Deck-Man (Squircle Apps; $4.99, no in-app purchases). Open the phone to browse your albums as cassette tapes and load one, then close it to start listening. It plays Apple Music and your own music files.⁴²⁰²¹

Photo, video and sport apps

• Instagram (Instagram, Inc.; free). Open, it shows more posts and Stories at once, and Engadget and CNN both reported it updated before launch.⁴²²⁶²³ FoldHunt’s guide, updated 26 October, still lists it among apps with no announced Duo version, so check it yourself.³
• Prime Video (Amazon; free download, with a Prime membership). Half folded, the video plays on the top half while X-Ray details about the cast fill the bottom half.⁴²⁴
• MLB (MLB Advanced Media; free, with a subscription for out-of-market games). Stand the phone half folded on a table and the live game plays on the upright half while real-time stats fill the flat half. Version 26.18.3, out on 21 October, added the Duo layouts.⁴²⁵

Travel and training apps

• Flighty (Flighty LLC; free, with a paid Pro upgrade). During a flight, prop the phone up like a tent to follow a live, glanceable map hands-free.²⁶⁴
• RainViewer (MeteoLab; free, with in-app purchases). Open, the radar map fills the inner display with panels beside it. Half open, the forecast splits at the fold. Closed, everything carries over to the outer display.²⁷⁸
• Gentler Streak (Gentler Stories; free, with a paid Premium upgrade). Version 5.13.5 adds a sidebar and layouts for the outer display, the inner display upright or sideways, and Split View.²⁸⁸

iPhone Duo games, including two we make

These are the games whose iPhone Duo support we could confirm in a source. For games alone, see our iPhone Duo games roundup. We make Bitfold and Football Kick, listed last. Neither is on the App Store yet; both are on their way and have free browser versions. FoldHunt’s directory of 106 games built for the fold listed no football game on 26 October,²⁹ but BGR’s launch roundup points to one you can download now, Penalty Area: Face2Face.⁸

• Delta (Riley Testut; free, with optional patron tiers). The retro game emulator’s library adapts to the phone closed, open, and propped like a tent or a laptop. Version 2.0, out on 22 October, adds controller skins for every position and Split View. Closing the phone puts two-screen handheld games to sleep, like shutting a real handheld’s lid.³⁰³¹²¹
• Asphalt Legends (Gameloft; free, with in-app purchases). Races fill the inner display, with more than 350 cars and up to seven online rivals, and the game supports Split View.⁴³²
• Planet of Lana (Playdigious; $8.99). A puzzle platformer that added iPhone Duo support in version 1.0.6. CNN’s Lisa Eadicicco called it her favourite app on the phone so far.³³⁶
• PianoFold (Brian Corrieri; free, $4.99 for the full game). A piano rhythm game with 40 levels of classical pieces. Fold the phone like a laptop and the upright half shows your room through the camera, or a dark stage, while tiles glide towards pads under your fingers.³⁴⁸
• Penalty Area: Face2Face (Eray Dinç; free, $4.99 for all modes). A swipe-to-shoot penalty game against a keeper called ED, with a two-player mode on one phone. Its listing says the fold is part of the game on iPhone Duo but doesn’t describe each position.³⁵⁸
• Bitfold (ours; on its way to the App Store). A retro game console app with ten original games. Closed, it’s a pocket console on the outer display. Folded like a laptop, it becomes a clamshell with the game on the top half, controls and a companion screen below, and the console’s hinge drawn over the real fold. Folded like a book, it opens into two pages so nothing sits on the crease. Three of its games play free at bitfold.9io.ai/play, five minutes a day, and our launch post has more.
• Football Kick (ours; on its way to the App Store). A one-finger football game. Fold the phone like a laptop and stand it on a table, and the bottom half lies flat as the pitch while the top half stands up as the goal. You swipe the ball across the fold into the net. Folded like a book, one page shows a camera behind the net. A five-shot penalty game plays free at footballkicks.9io.ai, five minutes of play a day, and our launch post has more.

Football Kick and Penalty Area: Face2Face both turn a swipe into a shot on goal and use the fold. Penalty Area is the one on the App Store today. Both of our games are on 9io.ai/games.

Popular apps that weren’t optimised at launch

Engadget calls the gap between optimised and unoptimised apps “the biggest growing pain” you’ll face on the phone.²² Every iPhone app runs on iPhone Duo, but many popular ones hadn’t been rebuilt when reviewers tested the phone in the week before launch.

• Google Maps, Gmail, Call of Duty: Mobile and Uber hadn’t been updated when CNN tested the phone, and some apps looked like floating windows in the middle of the screen. Amazon’s Kindle app hadn’t been updated either, while Google, TikTok, Instagram and Threads updated during CNN’s testing.⁶
• Telegram opened as an upright phone app with dead space either side, Engadget found. Sword of Convallaria, a game that runs sideways, kept letterboxing at the top and bottom, and Gmail had no layout like the one it has on Android foldables.²²
• Reddit, YouTube and X were iOS 27 SDK builds in 9to5Mac’s review, filling most of the display but leaving the strip along the right edge.³⁶ The review’s example of an older build, MLB with black bars either side, got its optimised version later the same day.²⁵
• WhatsApp, YouTube and Spotify had no announced Duo version that FoldHunt could find as of 26 October, though its tracker rows for them were last checked on 6 October.³³⁷

Apple says Microsoft Word and Outlook will follow in the coming weeks, DoorDash later this year, and Zenless Zone Zero and UnGodly in November.⁴

How to check which apps work well on iPhone Duo

1. Read What’s New. Developers who have done the work usually say so, as in Fantastical’s “Added support for iPhone Duo” or Asphalt Legends’ “now optimized for iPhone Duo”.¹³³² Search for the phone’s name, since many developers describe the change in their own words.³
2. Look at the App Store page. Apple says optimised apps carry a Made for iPhone Duo badge, which appears once a developer submits iPhone Duo screenshots, and those are only required for apps submitted from April 2027.⁴² A missing badge proves little, and FoldHunt said on 26 October that it hadn’t seen the App Store label apps this way.³ Apple’s iPhone Duo collections on the App Store are another place to start.⁴²¹
3. Open the phone with the app running. Empty space on both sides means an iOS 26 build or older, and a blank strip down the right edge means the iOS 27 SDK. Tab bars and toolbars in a column down the side mean the app is optimised.¹
4. Half fold it. Apps built from Apple’s standard parts nudge their buttons away from the fold. An app that puts its picture above the fold and controls below, like Netflix, or reacts to the hinge angle, like PCalc, has had work beyond the rebuild.⁴

Our rule for choosing apps:

• If you use an app mostly closed, an older build is fine for now. It runs beside the status bar much as on any iPhone.¹
• If you’ll use it open every day, for reading, video, calendars or email, pick one whose What’s New mentions iPhone Duo. 9to5Mac’s Chance Miller says he’ll choose the optimised app when two do the same job.³⁶
• For games, try before you pay. PianoFold and Penalty Area: Face2Face start free, and Bitfold and Football Kick have free browser versions.
• Check again in a few weeks. Apple expects updates to keep rolling out “throughout the year”.⁴

Frequently asked questions