Apple's iPhone Duo Debuts to Strong Demand, Mixed Reviews, and a Test for Its New CEO

Outside an Apple store in Sydney, a queue had formed before the doors opened at 8 a.m. local time, which was 2100 GMT. It was Friday, the first day Apple's folding phone, the iPhone Duo, could be bought in person, and Sydney was the first store to start selling it.

Simon Krishnan, a 48-year-old engineer, paid A$3,899 (about $2,734) for a Duo with 512GB of memory. He called it a bit of a luxury because of the price, but said that life is too short to hold back.

The launch matters beyond one store line. The Duo is Apple's first foldable, and market watchers are betting on whether it can do for small, niche foldables what the original iPhone did for smartphones. Samsung Electronics and Huawei Technologies have sold premium foldables for several years, so Apple is entering a category others built. It is also an early test for new CEO John Ternus, the former hardware chief, who unveiled the phone barely a week after taking charge in September.

Demand was visible before sales began. Within minutes of pre-orders opening the previous Friday, Apple's estimated delivery dates slipped to late January because demand outpaced supply. The company called the customer response "nothing short of extraordinary."

Reviews have been more divided. Critics praised the design and a sturdy, barely visible hinge, a real achievement in a category where a prominent creased screen has long put buyers off. But reviewers also pointed to compromises: no telephoto lens, and third-party apps that still need reworking for the new display size. They also found the smaller, folded Duo less handy for the many quick tasks people do on a standard iPhone, and several prominent reviewers recommended against it for many Apple customers.

John Gruber, the longtime Apple commentator behind the blog Daring Fireball, wrote that after a week of fun with the Duo it felt like an extraordinarily polished prototype, not a finished product he would want to buy and carry. Marques Brownlee, known as MKBHD, said in a YouTube review that a regular person who mostly texts, uses social media and browses should probably pass. But if $2,000 doesn't mean much to you and you like the idea, he said, then after a learning curve and getting used to having no facial identification, it is a really fun phone.

Supply is also tight. Apple told Reuters that walk-in availability varies by country, with limited stock in the US, Australia, Canada, Mexico and much of Britain and Europe. In China, France, Hong Kong, India and Japan, units 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.

Analysts see a bigger shift ahead. Francisco Jeronimo, a vice president at market 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 much broader audience. IDC expects Apple to take 44% of foldable value in 2026 on 31% of units, and to lead the category in both value and units by 2027. After a week with the passport-shaped Duo, Jeronimo 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.