When I first got my hands on the iPhone Duo, I admittedly dismissed the unfolding animation that would soon become a highlight of online discourse. I was less interested in the smooth transition as content switched from one screen to another and more focused on details like the matte interior display and seemingly invisible fold.
But in the weeks since Apple unveiled its first foldable iPhone, which drops on October 23rd, I’ve seen countless examples on social media of people trying to recreate the buzzing animation on their Android foldables. While the Play Store offers plenty of launchers to customize Android phones — including ones that mimic the iPhone home screen — this seems to be an iOS design element that users are particularly keen to bring to their devices.
Sometimes you really can’t predict what people will care about most — or the lengths they’ll go to imitate a feature.
The primary phone people have used to recreate the iPhone Duo’s cascading transition effect is Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, which debuted in July with a foldable passport-sized design ahead of Apple’s release. Unlike iOS, Samsung’s One UI interface, which runs on top of Android on Galaxy devices, does not include a folding animation. Instead, the content simply transfers from the Z Fold 8’s cover screen to its inner screen when the phone is about halfway opened. I never considered this a shortcoming until I saw the flood of positive reactions to the iPhone Duo’s fluid transition effect.
To bridge this gap, some creators have posted videos explaining how to use third-party apps and developer tools on GitHub to get a similar effect on the Z Fold 8, with caveats such as “the smoothness and quality will not be the same” and “install it [at] Your own risk.” (That’s encouraging!) The steps don’t seem particularly complicated, and some options seem to have popped up in the Play Store as well.
I chose to install these duo-copycat apps on my precious Galaxy Z Fold 8 for two reasons. First, I’m not much of a risk-taker. Second, I’m not interested in imitating an aesthetic element of Apple’s software with a derivative version, especially when the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is a standout foldable device in its own right. While the value of the Duo’s smoother animation has since grown on me, I’m not quite desperate enough to convert it to a foldable phone that’s just as functional without that flourish.
Don’t get me wrong: I think Apple’s combination of hardware and software expertise elevates the iPhone Duo in a way that deserves the attention the phone has received, despite being relatively “late” to the foldable game. But I also think it’s more palatable for consumers to embrace what each phone manufacturer does best, rather than skimping on a competitor’s feature for something as superficial as an animation effect.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 is one of my favorite phones I’ve tested this year, and it deserves a CNET Editors’ Choice award. Its versatile design is optimized for both vertical and horizontal content: I can stream YouTube videos and movies on the 7.6-inch internal display, then rotate it to seamlessly scroll through social posts. The craze is barely noticeable, and the battery easily lasts all day. The 5.5-inch cover screen never feels cramped, while its sharp corners give the phone a highly polished look. And despite the lack of a telephoto lens, the Z Fold 8’s dual rear cameras pull their weight, capturing crisp, vibrant photos.
The iPhone Duo shares many attributes with the Z Fold 8, including a palm-sized design, 7.6-inch inner display and dual rear cameras. Those similarities prompted Samsung to post a series of salty tweets after Apple debuted its foldable bar last month, including one that read, “Let us know when you’re done heating up our leftovers.”
That said, I’m curious to see how app developers can optimize their platforms for the iPhone Duo in ways we haven’t seen with other foldable phones. While the Android operating system spans a wide range of devices and configurations, iOS developers only have to cater to a single folding bar, potentially leading to a more tailored and streamlined experience. We’ve gotten a glimpse of how Netflix is building its app for the Duo, and it’ll be interesting to see how Apple and other third-party developers take full advantage of the phone’s 1.4:1 aspect ratio in ways that might have left its predecessors behind the curve in that regard.
“Borrowing” features from each other is what phone manufacturers do best. Down the road, it’s possible for companies like Samsung to implement foldable capabilities that Apple rolled out first, and vice versa. Heck, Apple’s delayed entry into this space means it had time to analyze what worked well for its competitors before jumping in with its own performance. It’s just how the industry works.
So maybe the Galaxy Z Fold 9 – or whatever Samsung decides to call the follow-up to the Z Fold 8 – will have its own fancy opening animation. But until Samsung itself embraces the idea, I’ll stick with the standout foldable as it is.
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