doubleback

READY FOR iPHONE DUO

Dual cam,
meet Duo.

The iPhone Duo opens into a screen no iPhone has had before. It's almost square. Video isn't. So before the Duo reached a single store, we sat down and asked what a camera should do with all that screen.

Download on the App Store

Duo support is in Doubleback 1.0.2. Free to download.

Our sketch of Doubleback on the open Duo, drawn on 7 October Doubleback recording with both cameras on the open Duo, the picture filling the whole screen
7 OCT · THE SKETCH13 OCT · IN THE APP

01 · The problem

A phone app in a tablet-shaped screen.

Open a Duo and an ordinary iPhone app sits in a phone-shaped box with black beside it. This is Doubleback on Apple's Duo simulator before we touched it. All that screen, and the picture sits in a box in the corner.

Doubleback on the iPhone Duo simulator before any Duo work, boxed in a phone-shaped window with a black strip

02 · Fill the screen

Never cover the shot.

The Duo's screen is 1.41 to 1. Video is 16 to 9. The picture can't fill that screen exactly, so the leftover space is where the controls go. Hold it wide and the picture runs edge to edge. Hold it tall and the picture runs the full height, with every control in one column under your thumb.

Built · in version 1.0.2

Sketch: the Duo held wide, the picture edge to edge with the controls above and below
Sketch: the Duo held tall, the picture full height with the controls in one column

03 · The Duo's own shape

Why not film in it?

The new FULL format records from the whole sensor, so every pixel of the unfolded screen is the shot. A 16 by 9 or 9 by 16 version can still be made afterwards from the same take.

Built · in version 1.0.2

Sketch: the Duo held wide with the picture filling the whole screen and the controls floating on it
Sketch: the Duo held tall with the picture filling the whole screen

04 · Half open on a table

It stands up by itself.

Prop the Duo half open. The standing half is the picture. The flat half becomes the controls: a big clock, big zoom, and a record button you can hit without looking. No tripod. Set it on a table, a wall, a car hood. Both cameras rolling.

Built from the simulator · tested on a real Duo the day it arrives

Sketch: the Duo half open on a table seen from the side, the standing half is the picture and the flat half is the controls
Sketch: the screen half open, the picture on top and a big clock, zoom and record button below

05 · The tent

A two-sided interview from one phone.

Stand the Duo like a tent in the middle of the table. The rear cameras film the person across from you. The outside screen and its camera face you. One phone gets both people, each on their own camera, each file clean.

On the drawing board

Sketch: the Duo stood like a tent between two people, seen from the side
Sketch: the outside screen in tent mode, the guest filling the frame and you in the small picture

06 · On the simulator

Built before anyone could buy one.

The Duo isn't in stores yet, so all of this was built on Apple's simulator. These are real screens from the app running on it: a take rolling with the picture at full height, and the Take screen. The simulator has no camera, so the scene is a still dropped in where the camera would be.

Doubleback recording on the Duo simulator, the picture at full height with every control in one column on the right
The Take screen on the Duo simulator

Ready for iPhone Duo.

2 angles. 2 clean files. 2 minutes of pre-roll. And now the screen to match.

Download on the App Store

Free to download. iPhone 15 Pro and later.