Apple chief says iPhone Duo can replace iPad Mini

Apple's own software chief just admitted the iPhone Duo might make your iPad mini redundant.

In an interview last week, Marques Brownlee got Craig Federighi to sit down for a long talk, and the "overlap" question was one of the first things that Federighi had to address. It turns out Federighi isn't trying to sidestep it either. He likens the Duo versus iPad dichotomy to the way users already balance their time on their iPad and Mac.

The comparison got specific fast. Federighi described his own habit of opening the iPhone Duo in portrait mode to read longer content when he's sitting down and wants to go deeper on something, a use case he called "extraordinary" on the new form factor.

That was where he gave up the most ground; for anyone who had an iPad Mini just for that type of light reading and web surfing, the Duo might easily fill those needs by itself. He didn’t present it as a problem but rather as people finding their own way to the device.

The interview was used by Federighi as an opportunity to highlight the contrast between his view on how competitors are designing software for their foldable products. His assessment: other companies have generally modified an existing interface for their phones to work on a different form factor.

Apple, in contrast, Federighi maintained, began with a clean slate and designed its software based on the form factor of the Duo right from the beginning.

Federighi's comments won't settle the iPad Mini question definitively; that's something actual usage patterns will answer once the Duo ships. But coming directly from Apple's software chief, the acknowledgement gives iPad Mini owners a clearer signal than Apple's marketing alone has offered about where the company expects its own product lines to blur.