Samsung spent Apple’s big foldable launch live-tweeting jokes, and the internet could not look away.
When Apple finally walked into the foldable phone room on September 9, 2026, Samsung was already sitting there, feet up, having redecorated the place years ago. Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo at its “Surprise and Shine” event, its first ever foldable, and Samsung, the company that has been folding phones since before it was cool, decided the polite thing to do was to grab a microphone and roast the new arrival in real time.
The result was one of the most entertaining marketing sideshows in recent tech memory, delivered one post at a time while Apple was still on stage.
To be fair to Samsung, it did try to look gracious first. Hours before the keynote, it dropped a commercial titled “Welcome to Foldable,” which sounds warm until you notice it spends most of its runtime reminding everyone that the Galaxy Z Fold8 is the lightest foldable in the world. It was the corporate equivalent of baking your rival a cake and writing “took you long enough” in the icing.
Samsung’s funniest jabs at the iPhone Duo
Once the event started, the gloves came off and the group chat energy took over. Samsung’s official US account posted a steady run of one-liners while Apple was still presenting, and honestly, some of them landed harder than a stand-up set.
The account teased that the Duo felt awfully familiar, hinting Apple had shown up wearing an outfit Samsung wore years ago. It flexed about trifold phones while Apple debuted a single fold. It compared the launch to a sequel nobody asked for, took personal offense at the Duo’s bedside clock mode, and, in its most quoted moment of the night, invited Apple to let everyone know when it was done reheating Samsung’s leftovers. Every post came with the kind of winking confidence only a company with a five-year head start can pull off.
Then, in the early hours after the event, Samsung posted what read like a mic drop, a three-line verdict landing on the idea that the launch happened but was neither exciting nor surprising. It was the tech equivalent of a shrug set to music, and it racked up hundreds of thousands of views while everyone was still processing the keynote.
When Duolingo joined the pile-on
The best crossover episode nobody expected came when Duolingo, the language app with a reputation for unhinged social media, wandered in. Reacting to the name “iPhone Duo,” Duolingo made a joke about an ugly stranger claiming to be its twin and firmly disowned any connection.
Samsung, sensing a kindred spirit, replied with mock sympathy and a solidarity hashtag, essentially consoling Duolingo for having been copied too. That single exchange pulled in millions of views and briefly turned Apple’s launch into a two-brand comedy roast, which is not usually how the biggest phone reveal of the year is supposed to go.
Whatever you make of the phones themselves, the day belonged to the comedy. Watching two of the biggest names in tech trade winks and one-liners in real time, with a language app crashing the party for good measure, was a reminder that product launches do not have to be stiff corporate affairs. There is no scoreboard to settle here. One brand made its big debut, another had fun welcoming it, a third wandered in uninvited, and everyone scrolling along got a genuinely funny afternoon out of what is usually a very serious business. That is a win worth sharing no matter which phone ends up in your pocket.
