iPhone Duo, Apple's first-ever foldable is now official. And honestly, there isn't much that one can wave a flag about. Especially when you compare the new Duo with the much cheaper but equally specced Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 or the vastly superior (and exactly similar looking) Xiaomi 18 Fold. We did a detailed comparison of the three phones, if you're interested. Also, the shocking price tag that iPhone Duo carried wasn't worth writing home about, either. In India, iPhone Duo starts at Rs 2.99 lakh for the 256GB storage model, while the top-end 2TB model can drain your bank account of Rs 4.49 lakh.
Now, Apple fans across the world had to beat the Cupertino giant's drums about some feature that was unique, so what they zeroed down was the opening animation. Let that settle in. A phone that costs $1,999 in the US and more than a small car in India... and all you have to show for it is an animation.
Tipster Ice Universe even threatened Samsung that the Korean tech giant may as well "give up on the foldable market."
The iPhone Duo’s dreamlike transition animation. This is a level of elegance Samsung will never be able to surpass.
— Ice Universe (@UniverseIce) September 9, 2026
I’d even tell Samsung this: you might as well give up on the foldable market. You don’t stand a chance anymore. pic.twitter.com/U9E4MZ6CFp
Pure clickfarming or perhaps purely sarcastic but well, I must admit that the animation IS cool indeed. But is it unique?
Turns out, not really! As someone on Reddit just posted a proof of concept on how he managed to replicate the same animation on Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 (its starting price is more than Rs 1 lakh less than the iPhone Duo, just something that you should know).
Redditor moomanjohnny posted a video showing the exact same animation on a Fold 8 on Wednesday. You can check out the video below:
Tried to recreate the iPhone Duo animation on my Fold 8
by u/moomanjohnny in GalaxyFold
How did he do it? In the OP's own words: "I realised it would be pretty simple to take the hinge sensor values and use them to drive a transition animation on both screens."
"I did this by making an app which drives an AGSL shader directly on both screens using the Presentation API. The 'screens' are screenshots I took of the inner and outer displays, and the shader interpolates between them given the current hinge sensor value," the OP added.
They did clarify: "So sadly this isn't the real SystemUI. Samsung doesn't provide the necessary access for us to build this as a third-party app. tldr: this is a proof-of-concept, not a real launcher."
Will Samsung add this effect officially to Fold 8? I don't think so. Will someone develop an app for this and put this up on Play Store? Highly possible.
Will Apple be able to hold on to its 'one' unique feature? Only time will tell.
