Apple’s iPhone Duo announcement contains a trolling Surface Easter egg

Developer September 11, 2026No Comments

Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo this week, taking the tech world by storm and dominating social media. While folding phones are hardly new, Apple used some clever tricks to make the iPhone Duo stand out. Apple’s classic approach of perfecting a product category after other companies have tested the waters is fully on display.

Windows Central readers and Surface enthusiasts were quick to point out that Apple’s new foldable has a remarkably similar name to the Surface Duo. Multitasking on the iPhone Duo also works in a similar way to split-screen work on the Surface Duo.

From the passport-like aspect ratio to multitasking to the literal name of the device, it’s clear that Apple took inspiration from Microsoft’s foldable. It appears that someone in the Apple marketing department had a bit of fun with this fact.

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So it turns out, it’s more than just the name that Apple borrowed. iPhone Duo is the first folding phone I’ve seen copy the Surface Duo’s unique multitasking and windowing system pretty much 1:1!https://t.co/4KDClS9JxgiPhone Duo can treat each half of the folding display as… pic.twitter.com/gtsnIcbSEX September 10, 2026

In a video demonstrating the multitasking capabilities of the iPhone Duo, Apple chose to have an article from Surface Magazine appear on the screen. That piece is not just a mockup made by Apple, it’s a real article that was published in 2018.

X users @zenbookpro1 spotted the Surface article.

It’s an interesting read about how Comporta, Portugal became a hot spot for architecture and how the area evolved from its agricultural roots. It also seems to have nothing to do with the iPhone Duo, at least directly.

I confess that I’m not an Apple historian. There is a chance that Comporta’s rich architectural history is somehow related to the iPhone Duo, but that seems unlikely.

Before joining Windows Central full time, I worked for a company that presented on stage at WWDC. While I wasn’t part of making that presentation, I have experience working on a team that makes videos for that audience.

Marketing videos are meticulously edited. At a company the size of Apple, every single frame that appears on stage will have been looked over several times by an entire team of people. There’s almost no chance that the word “Surface” appeared by accident. The only debate that’s possible is arguing that there’s some other reason for it to appear.

Easter eggs like this are commonplace in the tech industry. Heck, Office 97 had an Easter egg that was not discovered until this year.

I suspect the appearance of Surface in the iPhone Duo announcement is a mixture of a playful jab at Microsoft and a nod to the work done on foldables to refine the category.