Indie developer Vidit Bhargava has built Duo-Man, an app for Apple’s upcoming foldable iPhone Duo that recreates the experience of using a classic Walkman. The app uses the phone’s two displays and folding design to let users choose music, “insert” a virtual cassette, and close the device to start listening.
Apple introduced the iPhone Duo earlier this month as its first foldable iPhone. The device has a 7.6-inch inner display when open and a 5.4-inch outer display when closed, with preorders starting October 16 and availability beginning October 23.
Duo-Man Recreates the Walkman Experience
Bhargava designed Duo-Man around the physical act of opening a cassette player and inserting a tape. Users open the iPhone Duo to choose music and load a virtual cassette, then close the device to begin playback.
He also recorded button clicks and static from a real Walkman to make the experience feel closer to the original hardware. Bhargava said he has been a longtime Walkman enthusiast and still owns and listens to one occasionally.
The idea came while he was searching for hinged physical objects to recreate during a Bitrig hackathon. He noticed that a Walkman cassette door had to be opened before inserting a tape and decided the same interaction could work with a foldable phone.
Duo-Man won second place at the hackathon, where developers used Bitrig software to build native apps with Apple’s Swift programming language. After Bhargava posted a demonstration on X, it attracted more than 1.8 million views and nearly 10,000 likes.
Hackathon Project Is Becoming a Full App
The response prompted Bhargava to develop Duo-Man beyond its original hackathon form. The planned app will support Apple Music and locally stored audio files.
Bhargava also plans to let users rotate the virtual cassette loop using an Apple Pencil. Fast-forward and rewind controls are being designed to resemble the original Walkman experience, while Spotify support could be added later.
Duo-Man follows several other apps Bhargava has released, including the LookUp dictionary and vocabulary app, Movie Buzz, and a time zone utility called Zones.
The iPhone Duo is Apple’s first foldable smartphone and its largest iPhone display to date. Apple says both screens use the same aspect ratio so content can scale between the inner and outer displays as the device is opened or closed.
Featured image credits: Apple
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