Apple wants to fix cramped websites on its $1,999 foldable iPhone

Apple says it is working on a fix for cramped websites on the outer screen of its foldable iPhone Duo, which costs $1,999. The Safari team said Friday it is exploring a way for sites to use more of that display. There is no date for a fix yet.

What is going wrong

Safari puts a column of controls on the right side of the outer screen. Web pages cannot draw behind that column. Apple placed the controls there to save vertical space, but it costs width. In portrait, pages are about 382 CSS pixels wide, a unit web designers use. Safari tints the leftover strip to match the page.

Developers can make a page fill the whole screen with a setting called viewport-fit=cover. The catch, as WebKit's Jen Simmons points out, is that many sites do not leave safe margins on every edge. A button or headline could end up hidden under the controls.

So Apple wants something sturdier and simpler than that setting. For now, it is asking developers for ideas and promising updates.

What to do for now

Long web pages read better on the inner screen, where scrolling feels better. PDFs work well too. Fold the phone partway, like a paperback, and Safari shows two pages at once. It goes back to one page when the phone lies flat or closes.