Apple's First Foldable iPhone Goes on Sale as Lines Form at Stores
The iPhone Duo launched Friday in more than 70 countries with limited walk-in supply. Apple's U.S. stores are telling customers to check back Saturday for pickup reservations.
Apple put its first foldable iPhone on sale Friday, and customers lined up to buy one. The iPhone Duo launched in stores and online in more than 70 countries, with Apple warning that walk-in supply would be limited and would sell out fast.
Lines formed before dawn. At the Town Square store in Las Vegas, a reader told 9to5Mac that more than 150 people were waiting by 4:15 a.m. In Sydney, where Friday arrived first, customers queued outside the flagship store before its 8 a.m. opening. In Shanghai, a 26-year-old healthcare worker who already owns a Xiaomi foldable joined a line at 6 a.m. to buy Apple’s version.
Apple set the tone for the day with a press release sharing photos from launches around the world. Marketing chief Greg Joswiak celebrated at the Fifth Avenue flagship in New York. In Austin, chief executive John Ternus marked the day at the Domain NORTHSIDE store alongside retail chief Deirdre O’Brien. Ternus took over as CEO in September; the Duo was unveiled barely a week into his tenure.
Pre-orders opened Oct. 16, and the early response overwhelmed supply. Delivery estimates for new orders slipped to January within the first half hour, MacRumors reported. The U.S. online store is now telling customers to check back Saturday for Apple Store pickup reservations, and U.S. stores are limiting buyers to two per customer.
Walk-in purchases are on offer in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Mexico and several European countries. In France, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, walk-ins are not allowed — customers need a pickup reservation.
The phone starts at $1,999 for 256 gigabytes of storage. A 512GB model costs $2,199, a terabyte $2,599 and two terabytes $3,199. It comes in two colors, Star White and Night Sky.
Unfolded, it opens to a 7.6-inch Super Retina display with a 5.4-inch screen on the outside. Apple calls it the thinnest iPhone ever when open. Both displays run ProMotion with an always-on mode and peak at 3,000 nits of brightness, and a nano-texture finish is meant to cut glare and make the crease harder to see.
Touch ID is back, built into the side button. There are two 48-megapixel cameras on the back with optical-quality 2x zoom and macro photography, an under-display FaceTime camera inside, and a 12-megapixel front camera on the outer display. The phone supports the Apple Pencil over USB-C, records 4K video at 120 frames per second in Dolby Vision, and runs on the A20 Pro chip with iOS 27 and Apple Intelligence.
Foldables have been a small, expensive niche — Samsung and Huawei have sold premium versions for years without turning them into mass products. Early signs point to real demand for this one. Simon Krishnan, a 48-year-old engineer, paid A$3,899 ($2,734) for a 512GB model in Sydney. “This is a bit of a luxury item for me, because it’s so expensive, but I just think, you know what? Life’s too short,” he told BusinessWorld.
