Now this is the sort of iPhone Duo app I want to see.
Meet Duo-Man, a wonderfully nostalgic little music player from developer Vidit Bhargava that turns Apple’s new foldable iPhone into a virtual Walkman.
The clever bit is that it actually uses the Duo’s folding design.
Open the iPhone Duo and you can pick up a cassette and “insert” it into the player. Close the Duo and playback begins. Open it back up and you’re back inside your little virtual Walkman.
It doesn’t stop at the visuals. Vidit says he actually recorded the button clicks and static noise from a real Walkman to make the whole thing feel authentic.
It’s silly. It’s nostalgic. And, frankly, it’s exactly the kind of thing that makes a new form factor feel exciting.
Apple has spent a lot of time talking about how iPhone Duo enables developers to rethink their apps around the fold, rather than simply stretching an existing interface across a bigger screen. Duo-Man is a tiny example of that idea done right.
The best Duo apps might not necessarily be the ones that cram the most information onto that 7.6-inch display.
Sometimes, they might just make you smile when you close your phone.
And yes, I absolutely want to know what cassette I’m putting in this thing — first.