Apple Working to Fix Safari Screen Usage On Outer Duo Display

Apple is trying to address issues with Safari’s interface and how websites display on the iPhone Duo’s outer screen, a problem Android foldable makers have dealt with for years.

In a blog post on the WebKit site, Apple’s Jen Simmons addresses the issue, while acknowledging the issue is widespread across foldables.

In Safari 27.1, web content does not currently extend to fill the space behind these controls. Just like on other platforms, Safari looks at the web page and extends its background color to fill the space.

We would like to give web designers and developers the ability to design and use that space in more creative ways. Perhaps you want to extend your header background across the full width of the display, for example. It might seem like there’s just one obvious way to make this possible, but really there are many possibilities.

We could use the HTML viewport meta tag with viewport-fit=”cover” to extend the webpage into that space, hoping developers also use the appropriate environment variables to scoot important content away from system controls. But as we research how today’s sites are built, we see a lot of projects that fail to inset all four edges correctly. We are investigating if there’s a better way to accomplish the same result — something more foolproof and perhaps easier for you to use. If you have ideas, we’d love to hear them. And stay tuned.

Foldables have been gaining in popularity for years, but one of the most common complaints about them is that many apps don’t take full advantage of the form factor. Some apps don’t fill the screen as much as on a slab phone, while other apps have some interface elements cut off on the smaller, passport-style outer screens, like the Duo and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8.

Many in the Android community hoped that Apple joining the foldable market would facilitate better app support for the form factor. Unlike Android, which can be fragmented across multiple brands, devices, and software customizations, Apple’s ecosystem is much more homogeneous. Apple also has far more control over how closely developers adhere to its interface design guidelines.

If Apple can help push developers to make their apps more compatible with foldable phones, that work should carry over to their Android counterparts and elevate the entire industry.