Forget crackgate, Apple can't make iPhone Duo fast enough to meet demand

Apple’s first folding iPhone has been available to buy for just over a week. The device was announced alongside the iPhone 18 Pro models back in September, but it wasn’t available to pre-order until 16 October and on sale until a week later.

So, with fans having waited several years for Apple to follow the same path as Samsung in this sector, it’s not all that surprising that the iPhone Duo sold out online rapidly.

If you had trekked down to a store on launch day, you would have had more chance of picking one up, but online was a different story. The iPhone Duo sold out within a few minutes, with delivery times pushed back by weeks.

Anyone trying to buy one now will see delivery times of late January, with some networks even suggesting a 12-13 week wait, so you can forget buying it as a Christmas pressie.

"Really hard to predict when supply and demand will be in balance"

Sadly, that doesn’t look like it’s going to improve anytime soon either, based on a report from the BBC.

“At this time, it's really hard to predict when supply and demand will be in balance,” Apple’s new chief operating officer, Sabhi Kahn, told financial analysts during a call discussing the company’s latest financial results.

The BBC report also noted that Apple didn’t mention the issues affecting some of the iPhone Duo models which was causing some screens to crack near the fold inside, but that issue doesn’t seem to affecting demand anyway.

Apple has previously said it would replace any of the phones affected, while noting in its financial results that it has sold more iPhones globally than ever before.

In its fourth quarter results, which include the three months leading up to 26 September, iPhone sales went up by 17 per cent to $57 billion – and that doesn't even include the Duo as it wasn't out in time.

It will be interesting to see the next quarter results which will include iPhone Duo too, although Apple doesn’t detail the sales numbers for individual iPhone models so we may never know how many iPhone Duo models have sold and continue to sell.

We do hope the supply catches up soon though – no one should have to wait three months for a phone, even one this popular.