Preorders for the iPhone Duo went live at 5:30pm IST on October 16, and delivery estimates slipped from next week to late January almost as soon as the order pages loaded. Apple’s first foldable iPhone sold out within minutes of preorders opening on Friday, and anyone placing an order now will have to wait until the new year to get one.
The iPhone Duo goes on sale in US stores on October 23, and Apple usually keeps some units aside for walk-in buyers, though long queues are likely. Folded, the Duo is roughly the size of a passport and has a 5.4-inch outer screen. Open it up and there’s a 7.6-inch display, the largest on any iPhone so far, with Apple Pencil support and split-screen multitasking. Counterpoint Research estimates around 6 million units or fewer will be available in the near term, against an installed base of roughly 1.4 billion iPhones. IDC expects Apple to ship about 7 million Duos this year, pointing to how complex a foldable is to build to Apple’s standards.
It gets two 48MP cameras, a main and an ultrawide. Apple does not share how many units it has ready, but analysts expect demand to stay ahead of supply for a while.