Those with very long memories might have spotted a resemblance between the <a href="https://myappsplus.com/keep-your-new-iphone-18-pro-or-iphone-18-pro-max-safe-from-day-one-the-cases-to-buy-right-now/” title=”Keep your new iPhone 18 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro Max safe from day one: The cases to buy right now”>iPhone Duo and a prototype device seen way back in 2009, the Microsoft Courier.
My headline is, of course, tongue-in-cheek: Microsoft never got any further than the prototype, and abandoned the project less than a year later. All the same, it is remarkable now to look back at it and see just how similar it is in terms of the integrated user-interface …
I said in my earlier piece that Apple has shown the world how to properly make a foldable smartphone, and that the clever integration between hardware and software is absolutely key to this.
One of the examples I gave was dragging part of a photo from one side of the screen to a separate app on the other, so it’s quite amusing to see Microsoft demonstrating a very similar capability in that 2009 concept video.
Microsoft did run with some of this type of capability with some of its Surface products, but it’s ironic that it took Apple to really match the level of integration the company originally had in mind. Check out the video below.
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![Microsoft invented the iPhone Duo back in 2009 [Video] Microsoft invented the iPhone Duo back in 2009 [Video]](https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2026/09/Microsoft-Courier.jpg?quality=82&strip=all&resize=1200,628)