Apps that stop having to choose which half to show
The list for the single thing the extra width buys outright: a library and the thing open out of it, on screen together, instead of one hidden behind the other.
Almost every app on a phone is a stack. There is a list, you tap something on it, the list goes away, and getting back to it is a gesture. That is not a design failure — it is what one narrow column forces — but it costs something on every tap, and the cost is highest in the apps where the list is how you decide what to open next.
Unfolded, the stack can become two panes, and the apps here are the ones with an obvious seam to split along: feeds and the article, a binder and the draft, a library and the page. Each one already ships that layout on a tablet, which is the check the whole site runs on — the listing has to declare a universal binary with a tablet layout before an app can be on any list here.
The order runs from the apps where the second pane changes how the app is used to the apps where it is a convenience.
- 1
Reeder Classic
Silvio Rizzi
An RSS reader and a read-later service in the same app, which on a phone means two stacks taking turns in the same column. The subscription list is the thing you are navigating by and the one the single column keeps hiding; put it down the left and the reading column stops being the only thing the app can show you.
- 2
Readwise Reader
Readwise, Inc
The pitch is that web articles, newsletters, RSS, PDFs and EPUBs stop living in five apps and live in one, and the moment they do, the queue becomes something you triage rather than something you work through in order. Triage is a two-pane job: the list of what is waiting, and the one you are deciding about.
- 3
Scrivener
Literature & Latte Ltd
Built on the idea that a manuscript is written in pieces and assembled afterwards, with a binder down the side holding the pieces. Folded, the binder is a screen you visit; unfolded it is furniture, which is the difference between an outline you consult and an outline you write against.
- 4
Obsidian - Connected Notes
Dynalist Inc.
Plain Markdown files in a folder, with links between them and a graph view over the top — an app whose whole argument is that the connections matter as much as the notes. The listing names sidebar pinning as a tablet feature, so the layout that keeps a note and its backlinks in view at once is already written.
- 5
PDF Expert: Editor & Converter
Readdle Technologies Limited
Reading a PDF is only half of it; the other half is the thumbnails, the outline, or the second document you are checking this one against. A phone shows you the page or the navigation, and the annotation workflow the app is built around assumes you can see both.
- 6
Panels - Comic Reader
Produkt Software Engineering S.L.
A comic library is a wall of covers, and a wall of covers is how you choose. On a folded phone the shelf scrolls past in twos and the reading view takes the whole screen; with the library beside the page, picking the next issue stops being a round trip.
- 7
Notion: notes, tasks, AI
Notion Labs, Incorporated
Pages inside pages, which is a structure that only makes sense if you can see where you are in it. The sidebar is the map, and an app that hides its map behind a button is asking you to remember the hierarchy you came here to avoid remembering.
- 8
Feedly - Smart News Reader
Feedly Inc.
A reader organised by folders and topics rather than by one merged stream, which is a structure that pays off exactly when the structure is visible. The folder list beside the articles is what turns a feed into something you can steer.
The selection and the order are ours. Each entry is written from that app’s own App Store listing, linked beside it, and this page from Apple's iPhone Duo product page. Drafted with AI assistance and checked back against those sources before publishing; the disclosure page explains how. The iPhone Duo has been on sale since 23 October 2026 and nothing here has been seen running on one, so what each entry says about the fold is an argument rather than a test.