Tiny Computers folds the iPhone Duo into a pocket 1984 Macintosh, Commodore 64 or Windows 95 laptop, keyboard and all

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Bend Apple’s first foldable into an L, stand it on a desk, and it looks like a laptop that shrank in the wash. That’s the whole trick behind Tiny Computers, and the App Store listing opens with the pitch: “A museum of tiny computers. Please touch the exhibits.”

The ten exhibits are “inspired by the Macintosh, Commodore 64, IBM PC, Amiga 500, Windows 95, ThinkPad, iMac G3, iBook G3, PowerBook G4 and Windows XP.” The press kit names them TinyMac 84, JellyMac 98 and Friend 500, and the games are Minefield, Bricks and Snake.

Each machine gets “clicking keyboards, working command lines, paint programs and floppy disks,” per the press kit, plus a game with a medal to win on every computer. The listing promises “Hidden files, secret commands and a medal for every computer’s game are waiting to be found,” and then adds the line every Windows veteran was waiting for: “Occasionally, even Windows crashes.”

Closed, the phone keeps working as the museum lobby. “Browse the collection and choose your next exhibit when your phone is closed,” the listing says, which puts the 5.4-inch outer display Apple describes to use as a picker.

Fountain Interactive is an independent studio in London. The press kit says founder Dan Fountain was “the game designer and technical artist behind the fluid ink in State of Play’s INKS., winner of a 2016 Apple Design Award.” His studio’s first two apps, Tiny Computers and the fold-to-print painting app Fold & Squish, both launched alongside iPhone Duo.

The app has already had one update. Version 1.0.1’s notes say it “Improved experience on iPhone and iPad versions to ensure they are in parity with duo experience,” so the question of how a desk-sized Mac feels on a phone that doesn’t fold is the one the day-one owners are answering now.

Why it matters

Foldables finally have a reason to fold halfway. Apple’s own launch page talks about a big inner canvas and side-by-side apps, and says nothing about a half-folded tabletop mode. Tiny Computers is built around that posture: “Fold your Duo into tabletop mode and it becomes a miniature machine from decades of computing, with the screen above and a working keyboard below.”

Day-one apps set what a new device is for. The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999 and went on sale October 23, and the apps waiting for it that morning are the first answer to why anybody would fold one. A $3.99 toy that makes people stand their phone up like a laptop teaches the posture faster than a keynote slide.

No Duo still works, with a catch. On a regular iPhone or iPad, the listing says the app “presents each tiny computer with simulated perspective,” and on iPhone you “turn sideways and switch between the screen and the keyboard.” The real two-screen version needs the folding phone.

The pattern to watch is the hinge as an input. A painting that prints when you close the phone, a Macintosh that only exists while the phone is bent at 90 degrees: each of these needs the fold to work at all, which is something no flat-phone app can copy.

If that holds, the iPhone Duo’s best software may come from small studios who treat the hinge as a toy before Apple treats it as a feature. The next thing to watch is whether Apple’s own apps learn the half-fold, or leave tabletop mode to the museums.

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