Apple says the apps for its foldable iPhone Duo are arriving. On Friday, November 6, the company said more than 100,000 apps built for the Duo are now live on the App Store, and that thousands more are added every day, according to TechCrunch and 9to5Mac. The figure is reported by Apple and has not been independently verified.
What is new. Apple released new Duo-ready apps with the announcement, TechCrunch says, including Microsoft Word, Outlook, Zoom, the NBA and NHL apps, Etsy, LTK, Goodnotes, Extra and the Halide Mark III camera app. Netflix, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp were already optimized before this. Other coverage says Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint were also named, and that Word and Outlook were adjusted toward desktop-style layouts, while Zoom uses the inner screen for more room in meetings.
What counts as built for the Duo. TechCrunch says Apple’s definition is not stated in its article. Other coverage, citing MacRumors, says the count covers apps built with the iOS 27.1 software kit or later, which use the full width of both the inner and outer displays, and that optimized apps carry a Made for iPhone Duo badge in their App Store listings. Apple also published a list of 46 apps optimized for iOS 27, including ChatGPT, Grok Bot, Microsoft Copilot, Spotify and The Weather Channel.
What Apple said. Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of worldwide developer relations, said it has been wonderful to see how quickly developers have embraced the iPhone Duo, and that Apple is excited to see updates continue to accelerate, according to TechCrunch. Apple says more than 2,000 developers attended over 50 in-person workshops in 19 cities.
The early reviews. TechCrunch says early reviews were a bit hard on the foldable for lacking Duo-optimized apps at launch. Its review unit still showed a black side bar on Spotify, and the App Store showed no update available at the time of writing. Another report notes the 100,000 figure reflects early momentum, not full coverage, and that some widely used apps are still not optimized.
Price and supply. The Duo starts at $1,999 for the 256GB model, according to TechCrunch. It sold out within hours of orders opening, and ship times have moved into next year. Apple said on its earnings call this week that it is hard to predict when the constraints will improve, as covered in an earlier article here.
Why it matters. A foldable is only as useful as the apps that fill its extra screen, and a lack of optimized apps was an early criticism. A large count of optimized apps, and the arrival of the Microsoft apps in particular, helps to answer that. For potential buyers in the US and UK, the practical steps are to check that the apps they use most are marked as optimized, and to expect long waits for stock.
What to watch. Look for updates to the biggest unoptimized apps, the iOS 27 rollout, and whether Apple says when supply will improve.
Sources: TechCrunch and 9to5Mac, with MacRumors details via search coverage. Figures are as reported by Apple and those outlets.
iPhone Duo (file image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
