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| IPhone Duo opening animation |
Apple has only just launched its first proper foldable, the iPhone Duo, but the competition is already doing what it does best: taking notes. Not on the hardware—shorter, stockier foldables have existed for years, and devices like the Oppo Find N2 even offered better cameras. The feature stealing the show is much smaller, and much more software-driven.
When you fold or unfold the iPhone Duo, the display naturally blurs during the transition, as if you’re opening a transparent window. It smooths out the jarring screen shift that has become common on other foldables. It’s subtle, it’s satisfying, and within days, a Reddit user had already rigged a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 to mimic the effect using its hinge sensors. The phone was already discounted on Amazon, making it an easy target for tinkerers who wanted to see whether Apple’s polish could be recreated on Android.
Now, according to a popular Chinese tech blogger, domestic foldable makers are studying the animation closely enough that someone has apparently already created a foldable with it. That should surprise no one. Apple has a long history of shipping a design detail that looks nice to have, only for the rest of the industry to copy it en masse. The notch became a template. Dynamic Island spawned a wave of pill-shaped cutouts and software tricks on Android phones. Even Control Center and the swipe multitasking gestures introduced with the iPhone X eventually became baseline expectations.
The iPhone Duo’s unfurling animation fits the same mold. It is not a hardware innovation, and it is not something exclusive to Apple like the A20 chipset. That is exactly why it will be easy to copy—and why so many companies are apparently already trying.
Why the iPhone Duo’s foldable animation matters
Foldables have spent years fighting the perception that they’re chubby, heavy, and not taking full advantage of the extra screen real estate. A smoother transition animation may sound minor, but it goes a long way toward making the category feel premium rather than experimental. It turns a mechanical action into a polished moment, and it gives users the sense that the software and hardware were designed together instead of stitched together after the fact.
That kind of detail is hard to patent and easy to imitate. It doesn’t require a new hinge, a new display, or a new chip. It just requires a team willing to pay attention to how a foldable feels in daily use. For Android makers, that is both an opportunity and a warning. The opportunity is that they can close the experience gap quickly. The warning is that Apple may once again set the standard for an interaction users didn’t know they wanted.
The copycat race is already underway
Samsung has the most obvious path to copying the effect. With One UI, it already controls the software layer on its Galaxy Z Fold line, and hinge sensors are already part of the hardware. If Samsung decides to ship an official version, it could arrive as a small update that makes the Z Fold series feel noticeably more refined. Chinese manufacturers, meanwhile, have been aggressive about beating Apple to hardware features. If they can replicate the animation first, they may try to use it as a selling point in markets where Apple’s foldable is expensive or unavailable.
Whether Chinese manufacturers ship their own version first or Samsung beats them to it with something official on One UI, Apple may have again standardized a daily device interaction. The iPhone Duo’s blur effect is not the kind of feature that wins a spec sheet. It is the kind of feature that wins a feeling—and in the foldable market, feeling premium may matter more than any single hardware upgrade.