Apple officially launches its first foldable phone, iPhone Duo Afterward, many people are focused on the specs, features, and price, but for a group of longtime Windows users, none of that may be the point—what leaves them dissatisfied is Apple’s naming approach.
well-known foreign Windows media outlet Windows Central Earlier, a dissatisfied article was published saying that Apple only used the Neo name that Microsoft had used before in March of this year, and now it is using Duo too, directly complaining in the headline that Apple keeps “stealing” Surface product names, and in the subhead asking: “As a Surface Duo fan, is this really necessary?”
Apple has taken the Neo and Duo names one after another. While Windows Central is unhappy about it, it also admits: Microsoft itself was the one that gave up first.
Windows Central editor Zac Bowden is himself a Surface Duo enthusiast, having used the Surface Duo and Surface Duo 2 long-term between 2020 and 2023. His strong reaction to the name is not just because Apple and Microsoft are using the same name, but because Duo once represented a product line that many Surface fans were very excited about, only for Microsoft to ultimately abandon it by its own hand.
For those who are unaware, Microsoft announced two products, Surface Neo and Surface Duo, in October 2019.
Surface Neo is a dual-screen device running Windows 10X, connected by a 360-degree hinge with two 9-inch screens, offering nearly 13 inches of workspace when fully unfolded, and can also be used with a physical keyboard, Surface Pen, and mouse.
Surface Duo, meanwhile, is an Android device whose two 5.6-inch screens unfold to create 8.3 inches of usable space. It opens and closes like a book, and different apps can be shown separately on the left and right, letting you join a Teams meeting while looking up documents or replying to email. Microsoft described at the time that the problem these two products were meant to solve was users repeatedly switching among devices, screens, and apps, which interrupts their train of thought while working.
Zac Bowden believes that Neo and Duo don’t just sound concise; their names are also tied to the product design itself. Neo means “new,” symbolizing the new device category Microsoft wants to create, and it also evokes Neo, the protagonist of The Matrix. Duo directly points to the two screens, and it was also the second surprise product at the launch event.
At the time, rumors that Microsoft was developing a foldable phone had been circulating for years, and before the event there were even reports that the project might have been cancelled. In the end, Microsoft still brought the Duo on stage, so Zac Bowden described it as a rare and genuinely unexpected “One more thing” moment.
However, in the end, only the Surface Duo actually made it to market.
Surface Neo was originally scheduled to launch at the end of 2020, but it was delayed after a change in direction for Windows 10X development and ultimately never went on sale officially. Although Surface Duo launched in 2020, and the following year brought Surface Duo 2 with 5G, NFC, a 90Hz display, and a triple-lens camera, neither generation succeeded in breaking into the mainstream market.
When the original Surface Duo launched, it not only cost as much as $1,399, but also drew considerable criticism for its hardware specs, camera, and software polish. Surface Duo 2 fixed many of those shortcomings, but the market response was still lukewarm.
In his article, Zac Bowden said that Apple using Neo on its cheapest MacBook, for some reason, made him feel like it was a savage mockery of Microsoft’s Surface Neo vision from back then. And the iPhone Duo really hit a nerve.
Surface Duo is a slim, foldable phone with stylus support, and so is the iPhone Duo, which is expected to support the USB-C version of the Apple Pencil later this year. The iPhone Duo is practically a “modern Surface Duo,” and seeing the name Duo on an Apple product doesn’t sit well with him.
Zac Bowden believes Apple could not possibly have been unaware of Neo and Duo’s past association with the Surface brand; perhaps Apple thought it did not matter, so it went with these two names anyway. He also wrote that Apple ignoring Microsoft’s approach was “the right decision.”
On the surface, he’s criticizing Apple, but what really disappointed him is Microsoft.
He believes that after Microsoft saw the first-generation Surface Duo sell poorly and the Surface Duo 2 perform even worse, it decided to stop investing in the product category and did not give it enough time to improve. Now Apple, using the same Duo name, has launched a phone that also focuses on folding, multitasking, and stylus input, as if to show what the Surface Duo might have become if Microsoft had kept at it back then.
Although he’s still annoyed that Apple took the Neo and Duo names, he acknowledges that Apple “deserves” them. Microsoft no longer plans to use them for new products, and both the MacBook Neo and iPhone Duo have clear distinctive features that make them easy to identify in Apple’s product lineup.
Source: KOCPC Chinese