Apple's First Foldable iPhone Duo Goes on Sale Amid Strong Demand and Scarce Stock

At 8am on Oct 23, a queue of customers was already waiting outside Apple's store in Sydney, the first in the world to put the company's new folding phone, the iPhone Duo, into buyers' hands. Simon Krishnan, a 48-year-old engineer, was among those who paid. He spent A$3,899 (S$3,500) for a Duo with 512GB of memory, and was candid about it. It was a luxury for him, he said, because of the price, but life is too short.

The launch is Apple's first move into foldables, a category that Samsung Electronics and Huawei Technologies have served with premium devices for several years. It is also an early test for John Ternus, the former hardware chief who became chief executive in September. He unveiled the Duo barely a week after taking over. Market watchers are betting on whether the phone can do for small foldables what the original iPhone did for smartphones.

Demand showed itself early. Within minutes of pre-orders opening on Oct 16, Apple's estimated delivery dates had slipped to late January, as orders outran supply. The company described the customer response as nothing short of extraordinary.

Supply remains the constraint for anyone hoping to walk in and buy one. Apple told Reuters that walk-in availability varies by country. Stocks will be limited in the US, Australia, Canada, Mexico and much of Britain and Europe. In China, France, Hong Kong, India and Japan, units will go only to customers who ordered online. In Macau, where the Duo is available to walk-in customers only, fans lined up hours before the store opened, according to social media posts and media reports.

Reviews have been mixed. Critics praised the design and a sturdy, barely visible hinge, a real achievement for a category in which a prominent crease in the screen has long put buyers off. But reviewers also pointed to compromises: the camera system has no telephoto lens, and third-party apps still need reworking for the new display size. In its smaller, folded state, the Duo is less handy for the many quick tasks people do on a standard iPhone, and several prominent reviewers advised many Apple customers against buying it.

John Gruber, the longtime Apple commentator behind the blog Daring Fireball, spent a week with the phone. He wrote that it felt like an extraordinarily polished prototype rather than a finished product he would want to buy and carry. Marques Brownlee, known as MKBHD, said in a YouTube review that for a regular person who mostly texts, uses social media and browses, it is probably a no. But if the roughly US$2,000 price means little to you, he said, and you can get past the learning curve and the absence of facial identification, it is a really fun phone.

Analysts see a larger opening. Francisco Jeronimo, a vice-president at researcher IDC, said foldables have been established for years but adoption has stayed limited compared with conventional smartphones, and that Apple's entry could bring the format to a far broader audience. IDC expects Apple to take 44% of foldable value in 2026 on 31% of foldable units, and to become the category leader in both value and units shipped in 2027.

Jeronimo spent a week with the passport-shaped Duo and said Apple has made a convincing case for the form factor. The next test, he said, is turning excitement into availability, adoption and a lasting new chapter for the smartphone market. With deliveries stretching to late January, that test is only beginning.