Apple Unveils iPhone Duo, Foldable iPhone, iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max

“iPhone Duo Sells Out Immediately, Now Backordered Until Next Year​

BeauHD 5 hours ago		39
Apple's first foldable iPhone, the $1,999 iPhone Duo, sold out within minutes of preorders opening, with every configuration slipping to late January 2027. "All color and storage combinations show an estimated ship date of January 25," reports 9to5Mac. "Some users are even seeing January 29 for their estimated shipping date." From the report: This is a combination of strong demand and severely constrained supply for iPhone Duo. It's impossible to know the exact balance between the two, though. Going into the launch, there were multiple reports suggesting iPhone Duo would be in short supply as Apple was still ramping up production. A report from Nikkei Asia last month said Apple was making just a few hundred iPhone Duo units per day, significantly behind the ramp of a normal iPhone launch.”
 
Following up on the iPhone Duo sellout with word that some buyers are having their ship dates bumped up by weeks or even months.

This isn't surprising — there are probably some people who cancelled because they didn't want to wait that long, or simply realized they couldn't justify $1,999-plus on a phone. That most of the accelerated orders are still weeks off suggests that demand is still high. There's talk of Apple ramping up production, but we're certainly not going to hear that from the company itself.

I'm most interested in how this compares to the latest Galaxy Z Fold models. Samsung also saw lots of early demand for the Z Fold 8, but not to the point where delivery dates were months away. Its advantage is simply that Android dominates in some parts of the world — you buy a Z Fold because iPhones don't enter the conversation.
 
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The first iPhone Duo reviews are out (on the Wednesday before release, as usual). Here's a great example from Michael Fisher:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5_GBTMAbFI

The common thread: the hardware is great (particularly that inner display), but fans will miss Face ID and many apps aren't currently optimized for the Duo's screens. And of course, it's $1,999 (not that the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is a bargain).

We've seen this software story play out before, though. The iPad, iPhone 6, and iPhone X releases saw a lot of apps that weren't tuned, but the story was very different even weeks later. Just know that you're going to see some wasted space if you get a Duo early.
 
I was able to luck upon an in store option so I got my Duo. Overall I'm pretty impressed. I played in store or with friends' Android flip phones for years now, sometimes unimpressed, other times amazed and envious, and while iPhones are my primary device I usually try to keep a not-too-old Android phone as a backup on an old unused number we still keep on our plan, so I was getting closer and closer to that point of buying a Galaxy Fold or something. This puts that on hold for a while. The UI, overall design and build quality, and experience is extremely polished and very pleasing. I could give this to my 80 year old mom and she'd take to it in seconds, that's how polished and approchable it is. Most impressive is the interior screen, the coating really is something else. It weirdly feels almost sci-fi like.

Battery life is quite impressive as well.

Main frustration is the camera - it's nice, yeah, but I also got my wife an 18 pro and that 8x camera is just so sweet, and as someone using the camera on my phone probably 20 times a day, not having that in such an expensive device is annoying. I know this is common to the format but I still dislike it. This class of device with flagship camera systems would be an amazing portable shooting and editing device because the larger screen really gives me a ton of breathing room when editing photos.

Anyhow, I'm happy with it and here's hoping the hinge doesn't get wonky or something.
 
I'll probably grab a Duo 2 next year to try it out. I'll let everyone else beta test it and go through the growing pains of waiting for apps to update to take advantage of the new design and interfaces to improve.
 
I have had Apple phones since 2013, yet I have zero interest in this or any other foldable phone. I’m just not the market.
 
Lateralus said:
I have had Apple phones since 2013, yet I have zero interest in this or any other foldable phone. I’m just not the market.
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And that's fine — I don't think Apple expects the Duo to dominate existing iPhones, at least not until it catches up in camera tech or the price comes down. Like the Z Fold 8, it's for well-heeled buyers who value the screen space over photography.

I'd probably have to go with an iPhone 18 Pro if I were buying this time around (in a money-is-no-object situation) as I love my telephoto cam too much, but I'd be sorely tempted by the Duo every time I wanted to triage email or just catch up on videos.
 
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