The iPhone Duo has had a difficult first week, with messy pre-orders and a growing number of reports of cracked displays. Its first software update is a much better story. iOS 27.2 is now available, and Apple’s first foldable gets the feature that made it look most like a laptop replacement: Apple Pencil support.
Apple had only said Pencil support would arrive “later this year,” which left the timing vague. It has instead shipped days after the phone went on sale. The Apple Pencil (USB-C) now works on both the Duo’s outer and inner screens, making this the first time any iPhone has supported an Apple stylus. Samsung has offered S Pen support on its Galaxy Z Fold line since the Fold3 in 2021, so Apple is catching up rather than leading. Still, for a device sold on productivity, being able to write and sketch on the large inner display makes it much more practical. Whether that persuades buyers worried about the hinge and display durability is another question.
The Duo also gets Edge Light, a feature borrowed from the Mac that lights your face during video calls by brightening the edges of the display. It solves a real problem for anyone who takes calls in a dim room.
For everyone else, the main change is Siri AI. The assistant now speaks French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish, and Apple says Traditional Chinese, Norwegian, Turkish and Vietnamese will follow before the end of the year. It still is not available in the EU. Siri AI can also remember context from earlier conversations and use more personal information, including photos shared in Messages, voicemails, Safari history and Calendar attendees.
The smaller changes are worth a look too. Photos and Image Playground now support Google’s SynthID watermarking system. That is a notable move toward an industry standard for identifying AI-generated images, and it comes at a time when platforms face growing pressure to label synthetic content. The Apple TV app adds user profiles, which families sharing one device have wanted for a long time. Podcasts drops the Up Next queue in favour of separate New Episodes and Continue Playing sections. FaceTime group calls can now use the front and rear cameras at the same time, and Apple Music gets a new black icon that has divided longtime users.
The update is available now on every supported iPhone back to the iPhone 11. Testers of the release candidate reported improved battery life, though that is anecdotal. The bigger question for the Duo is whether software improvements like these can rebuild confidence in hardware that has so far drawn more attention for its problems than its features.
