QuickTake: How Delta 2.0 turns the foldable iPhone Duo into a modern Nintendo DS

I've followed the Delta emulator since its GBA4iOS days. I've spoken with developer Riley Testut and his business partner, Shane Gill, for a few years, and finally met them at CommunityKit back in June. Now, they've been hard at work on updating Delta for iPhone Duo, and they've kindly sent me some screenshots of the app running Nintendogs, a Nintendo DS game.

If they're not talking to Apple about third-party app stores, they're updating their own, AltStore. Or they'll work on future updates for Delta, like this one. It's been a crazy five weeks getting Delta 2.0 out the door, and thanks to Riley, it looks fantastic on an iPhone Duo. Already, it's one of the best examples of playing games on the foldable.

Touching is Good Again

The three screenshots Testut has sent me show off Delta 2.0 running Nintendogs on the Duo, and it looks like a perfect fit for the foldable. The emulator works in any orientation, but portrait mode best mimics using a DS, just like a real one.

Another nice touch in Delta 2.0 is that when the iPhone Duo is closed, the emulator goes into standby mode, just like a real Nintendo DS. But as the image above shows, you can also have another app show as you play Nintendogs or something else.

Until recently, foldable devices and Android gaming handsets like the Retroid Pocket Duo Lite could mirror the DS's dual-screen setup. Yet the iPhone Duo and Delta 2.0 feel like the next step. Thanks to these images that Testut sent me, the Duo seems tailor-made to play DS games - especially since it has Pencil support.

I asked Testut how it went in updating Delta to support iPhone Duo: "Updating Delta for Duo was a huge undertaking — especially for our designer Caroline Moore, who had to redesign all the skins herself! But at the same time, I genuinely haven’t had this much fun playing around with new app ideas since when the iPad came out. And we didn’t even get to ship all the ideas we came up with, so we have plenty more fun stuff to work on in the next couple of updates."

In 2004, Nintendo launched the DS, the company's dual-screen device originally meant to sit alongside the Game Boy. But the DS's huge success changed that. Numerous games made it one to remember, such as Brain Training, Elite Beat Agents, Pokémon Platinum, Tomb Raider: Legend, and many more.

And whilst the 3DS followed in 2010, the original model still holds a huge part of the nostalgia for many. In addition, whilst it's been easy to emulate the DS, there's always been a feeling that we can't really mirror the same dual-screen experience on our smartphones, tablets, and the rest. But Delta 2.0, as these screenshots show, looks to bring back the best part of using a Nintendo DS.

Yes, the iPhone Duo costs $1,999 / £1,999 at minimum, and due to the successful pre-order period, you won't be able to buy one until early 2027 at the time of writing. So I don't recommend justifying one to relive part of your childhood. However, if you do manage to get a Duo and you used to carry around a Nintendo DS back in the day, I strongly advise downloading Delta and getting one of the best experiences of playing the device and its iconic games all over again.

And one more thing. I asked Testut if the new update meant other dual-screen handhelds could feature someday, like the 3DS. Testut's reply: "We’re always looking for new systems for Delta 😉." So who knows, more systems that take advantage of the Duo may pop up in the future.