Forbes 5.1.0: iPhone Duo support in the first week

We just shipped Forbes 5.1.0. The most visible change is support for the new iPhone Duo.

Apple did the groundwork

For years, Apple has been pushing developers to stop designing for fixed screen sizes. iPhone and iPad apps share one codebase, and tools like Size Classes let a layout adapt to the space it gets instead of assuming a specific device. If you follow those patterns, a new screen shape isn't a redesign. It's another size your layouts already know how to handle.

That's why supporting Duo didn't take much work. Most of our screens already adapted to it. We fixed the few places that didn't, tested on the device, and shipped.

Native UI pays off

Our app shares its business logic in Kotlin, but the UI is 100% native SwiftUI on iOS. That split matters here. When Apple releases new hardware, we get everything SwiftUI offers for it right away, with no extra framework in between that we'd have to wait for. Supporting Duo was regular iOS work, done with Apple's own tools.

Small audience, small effort

Very few people own a Duo yet, and we know that. But because the work was small, it was easy to justify. Readers who pick up a new device on day one notice which apps already support it, and now Forbes is one of them, within the first week.

What's next

For now the changes are minimal. The app works well on Duo and respects its layout, but we haven't built anything specifically for it. The device is still very new, and nobody has worked out the best practices yet, including Apple, other app makers, and us. As we learn how people actually use it, more Duo-specific layouts and features may follow.