Hello, Duo

The iPhone Duo arrived this week, and we had one on day one. Roamly 4.0 is what came out of that week: a layout built for a phone that opens into something closer to a small tablet. It's also the first version of Roamly for iPad.

Here's what changed, and why.

Closed, it's the phone you know

Folded, the Duo is a normal-sized iPhone, and Roamly works exactly as it does on any other iPhone: the globe up top, your plans in a sheet you drag up and down. Nothing to relearn.

Open it up and the globe gets the room

Unfold it and the app spreads out. The globe takes the whole screen, every country we sell pinned on it, and your plans move into a panel in the corner beside it. The panel is the same one you drag on a phone: pull it up to browse, pull it down to look at the world. It just doesn't cover the globe any more.

We spent most of the week trying to build that panel ourselves before realising Apple had already built it. iOS 27 lets a phone's sheet sit at the edge of a wide screen instead of across the middle, with the same drag, bounce and snap you get folded. So that's what Roamly uses. If it feels like the iPhone sheet moved over to the side, that's because it is.

Two buttons sit over the globe when the phone is open. One moves the panel to the other side, for left-handers or for whichever way you're holding it. The other is new to everyone.

Globe or map, your call

Some people want the globe. Some want a map they can take in at a glance. Roamly 4.0 has both: tap the map button and the globe fades into a flat world map with the same pins, framed so the places we sell most sit beside the panel. Tap again and the globe is back. The app remembers which one you picked, on every device.

Roamly on iPad

Once we had the open-Duo layout, the iPad was the obvious next step, because an open Duo is roughly an iPad mini. So Roamly is on iPad for the first time, with the same layout: full-screen globe or map, your plans in a panel beside it, in portrait and landscape, and in Split View next to your notes or your flight.

If your iPad has cellular, a Roamly eSIM installs on it the same way it does on a phone. If it doesn't, the iPad app is still a comfortable place to buy a plan and keep an eye on the eSIMs on your phone.

Also in 4.0

• Titles that stay put. Page titles are bigger and no longer shrink away as you scroll.

• An eSIM page that talks. Instead of just "Active", your eSIM page now says how your data is tracking and what to do next: plenty left, running low, install before you leave.

• Guides that use the width. Our in-app guides lay out picture beside words on a wide screen, instead of stacking.

• Fixes. The Install button sits cleanly in its bar, notifications show once instead of stacking on big screens, and signing in copes with an email that's already verified.

Get it

Roamly 4.0 is on the App Store now for iPhone and iPad, on iOS 26.2 or later. If you're on Android, the Android app is unchanged by this release.

We're a small team in Sydney and this is a new kind of device for us too. If something looks off on your Duo or your iPad, tell us from the Support tab and include a screenshot. It helps more than you'd think.

New to Roamly? Find your destination and your eSIM is installed before you fly.