iPhone Duo Sells Out Immediately, Now Backordered Until Next Year (9to5mac.com) 68
Apple's first foldable iPhone, the $1,999 iPhone Duo, sold out within minutes of preorders opening, with every configuration slipping to late January 2027. "All color and storage combinations show an estimated ship date of January 25," reports 9to5Mac. "Some users are even seeing January 29 for their estimated shipping date." From the report: This is a combination of strong demand and severely constrained supply for iPhone Duo. It's impossible to know the exact balance between the two, though. Going into the launch, there were multiple reports suggesting iPhone Duo would be in short supply as Apple was still ramping up production. A report from Nikkei Asia last month said Apple was making just a few hundred iPhone Duo units per day, significantly behind the ramp of a normal iPhone launch.
$1,999 for a phone? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess I should be embarrassed by my $120 Samsung.
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I'm right there with ya' bro'!
Re:$1,999 for a phone? (Score:4, Insightful)
I love the idea of folding screens, but what we have available so far just isn't worth the hassle or price for a tiny bit more screen. Meanwhile, $2k will buy an amazing tablet or a pretty decent laptop. If the sole feature that puts a phone ahead of a tablet or laptop is being a phone - Just get a $100 phone and a $1900 laptop.
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You misspelled "proud". You have 90% of the functionality for 6% of the price ...
There is a point of diminishing returns for smartphones, but it's still quite a bit north of one-hundred-twenty bucks. Of all the things to cheap out on, it's baffled me that it's such a common refrain among techie folks that so many are fine with a phone that's a bit of a clunker.
For most people, a smartphone is one of their most often used possessions. It only makes sense to buy something you'll enjoy using and that doesn't waste your time with laggy performance while you're out and about. Every moment
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There is a point of diminishing returns for smartphones, but it's still quite a bit north of one-hundred-twenty bucks.
The value of a phone depends on the potential buyer's goals and expectations. If having a large screen in indispensable, then $2k for that phone may be worth it. If that larger screen adds no personal value, then it's way overpriced. However, there is no inherent value or corresponding worthwhile price that is universal to all people.
Re:$1,999 for a phone? (Score:4, Insightful)
My digital life is Windows 11 at work and Debian at home, each with multiple external screens.
So phones are commuting devices, not computing devices. Navigation, camera, music, doomscrolling during public transport rides.
No doubt they're impressive pieces of hardware but not a primary computing platform. The only time I'd consider a foldable is if I didn't want to lug a 14" laptop around South America for 5 weeks on vacation (which, yes if you're relying on apps and mobile websites, sucks).
Re: $1,999 for a phone? (Score:2)
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You're not getting a mid-tier anything for $120 in the RAMpocalypse era. That price point comes with a lot of compromises, the OP's implication that it's even close to "90%" of a $2k phone is laughable.
On the Android side, for true flagship performance we're talking something like $900 for a Pixel 11. Once you start getting into the real bargain territory (like the Samsung A17 5G), yeah, it's $270, but it starts at 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM. Then if for some ungodly reason you absolutely can't spen
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You mentioned in another comment IT folks are surprisingly fine with "clunkers" - But in my experience the simple explanation is, performance is not a metric by which most IT folks measure phones. The speed of a phone is utterly irrelevant. We have gaming rigs at home that would probably violate ITAR if taken out of the country; we have dedicated VMs at work with so much horsepower the underlying hardware
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I love the idea of folding screens
Idea, sure. Actual execution, not so much. Back in the early 90s (?), I had a Casio BOSS, and the constant opening and closing of the clam shell case eventually wore out the cable connecting the top and bottom, making it useless. The form factor was fine, but the device was dead with a broken cable. Since then, no foldies for me. Bending cables is the weak point; especially in a $2000 device.
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I guess I should be embarrassed by my $120 Samsung.
No, don't be embarrassed. Rather, Apple Fanboys should be thanking people who are price conscious consumers. Otherwise, the Duo would be $2,999 and there would be no iPhone SE.
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"Apple Fanboys" Get yer head out of the 1990s and 2000s. There aren't any techno fanboys left unless you count the AI pseudo-men from Silicon Valley. Their latest bright idea it to take up smoking (according to Bloomberg) because they can then claim it won't hurt them since AI will cure cancer before it strikes them.
And these are the geniuses that private equity is funding.
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+1 to literally everything you just said except the last part.
I do want a foldable phone so I can have enough screen real estate to blow up the font size and still have usable apps. But that would require supporting different accessibility text size settings on the different screens to be useful.
But I also critically want a home button. In every way, gestures are inferior to a physical home button. It's harder to swipe to kill an app, harder to switch apps, etc. And add a case around the phone, and usa
Re: $1,999 for a phone? (Score:1)
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Very few Android phones have home buttons these days. Usually they just have the power button and volume buttons. Home is either a swipe or a soft, on-screen button.
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Bring back the smaller and lighter iPhones like minis and SEs!
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Isn't SE limited like slow speed, low memory, etc.? I had to replace my 12 mini because of them. Some games really are killers. :(
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Someone owns a Ferrari so you're embarrassed by a family sedan? Why would you be embarrassed about someone else's priorities and how they spend their wealth?
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I'm still saving for a house. If I don't buy 300 of these and cut back on the smashed avo! :)
Me? I just wish they made compact phones again that didn't slide out of my pants pocket. 640x360
But I'm not part of the tiktok generation insisting on a 6.5" ultra widescreen slab phone.
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Samsung also sells a $1999 phone https://www.samsung.com/us/sma... [samsung.com]
It's called a Veblen good (Score:2)
You can't really do that with Android phones because they all look the same.
And yeah you should be deeply deeply ashamed of your $120 Samsung phone.
Then again I was pretty pissed off spending $500 to get a OnePlus 13r and had to replace a family member's phone recently and ended up needing to spend $700 for a OnePlus 15r just to get a m
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It's something you buy to show off that you can buy it. A status symbol and a way to attract girls and to make men think you're successful whether you are or not.
Actually, $2k ain't what it used to be. I regularly see people riding the train with e-scooters that cost about that much. Granted, a $2k e-scooter is a nice e-scooter, but nobody is looking at it and thinking that person won at capitalism. It will be exactly the same with this folding iPhone.
But you don't attract a lot of chicks by walking up to him and saying, hey baby I've got Superior wide band reception... In my pants!
In my expert opinion as a card-carrying member of the LGBTQ+ community, I have some bad news for you if your chicks are using the he/him pronouns.
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Why? You're doing what works for you, others have other needs / likes. But when Apple releases a $2k phone it's a tragedy, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 is right there with it on pricing and nobody says a thing.
I hope they got the hinge-screen right (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not the target market for one of these things. Maybe the people who shell out 2k+ for a phone will trade it in after a year or two anyways in order to keep up with the most recent model. Maybe this product simply isn't designed for the "buy-and-keep" crowd
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the seam is inevitable. I'd like to see manufactures embrace that and just make two hard glass screens that come together. At least that way you wouldn't have to make the screen out of that weird feeling soft plastic.
Instead they keep trying to pretend the seam won't happen and end up compromising the screen in other ways.
Re: I hope they got the hinge-screen right (Score:2)
I feel like they should focus on rollable screens. Should help avoid seams cause there's no specific place where it creases.
Re: I hope they got the hinge-screen right (Score:2)
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Can't remember the last time I saw a reference to Earth Final Conflict on slashdot. Well done.
Just the other day I was thinking that at this point I'd probably welcome the Taelons with their disruptive technology (free energy, transportation, etc), even with their ambiguous and dark motives. Can't be much worse than what the people who've seized power in the three rival empires want to do to us all. Plus all the regional warlords (soon to be anyway) jockying for scraps of power. Eliminate the need for oi
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I feel like they should focus on rollable screens. Should help avoid seams cause there's no specific place where it creases.
I oh so want an Earth: Final Conflict “Global”.
But a Touch Interface doesn’t work so well with a roll up screen. . .
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Re: I hope they got the hinge-screen right (Score:2)
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I don't think many people are buying them outright. They come with cellular contracts.
Anyway, Samsung released a better version earlier this year, and I think Xiaomi have one too. The form factor is interesting for certain uses, but there are more established players with experience, and of course a better OS. First gen Apple products are notorious anyway.
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I've only seen a few foldable-screen phones in person, but every single one of them had visible waves in the screen in the hinge area.
That's not a test of time issue. The screens literally all have a visible crease. They don't seem to get worse over time, and you don't need to guess about this. Foldable phones are literally on their 8th generation already, and while the first 2 generations had reliability issues, the same could not be said from about 2022 onwards.
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Foldable phones are literally on their 8th generation already, and while the first 2 generations had reliability issues, the same could not be said from about 2022 onwards.
My sister-in-law bought one of the recent-ish Motorola RAZR phones. It lasted a little bit past the warranty before the screen failed. She's now using an old iPhone 13. I'd say a folding phone is probably not for people who like to keep their phones for the long haul.
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I'm going to wait a few iterations to see what breaks and what doesn't. Eventually, enough engineering is going to happen where foldables will have a hinge that is reasonably resistant to things, especially dust and pocket sand. However, who knows if the Apple device is there yet.
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I'm not convinced that the hinged screen will stand the test of time. I've only seen a few foldable-screen phones in person, but every single one of them had visible waves in the screen in the hinge area. Maybe the tech has made a jump forward?
I'm not the target market for one of these things. Maybe the people who shell out 2k+ for a phone will trade it in after a year or two anyways in order to keep up with the most recent model. Maybe this product simply isn't designed for the "buy-and-keep" crowd
It doesn't have to last forever... it doesn't even have to last for years... it just has to last long enough for a replacement to be out... or at least long enough that the hard of thinking won't think twice about paying another grand for a phone.
Everything sells out immediate these days (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know that the metric is very meaningful other than as a marketing tactic for free press.
Re: Everything sells out immediate these days (Score:2)
It just means the manufacturer doesn't really believe in the product.
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It is useful in a couple ways-- first off Apple has demand at a $2k price point, which they must be thrilled about. As for supply, while I am sure it is constrained Apple tends to order about 2x their sales projections and then cut the rate as sales start. This at least suggests they have fairly well used infrastructure. As for the "few hundred per week" production, if real then it might not be a huge boost to the bottom line, but I would be surprised if production doesn't ramp up at least an order of ma
Re:Everything sells out immediate these days (Score:5, Insightful)
If you produce 500 units for the "influencers" and VIP's to get, yeah it's easy to say that this was a sell out. Artificial scarcity!
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Re: Everything sells out immediate these days (Score:2)
...and most stock goes to resellers anyway.
No one is going to use these phones (Score:2)
These early sales are just the fanbois buying collectors items. Most valuable if you never open the box! And a steal at a mere two thousand bucks!
Not buying this narrative... (or phone) (Score:4, Insightful)
This smells like artificial scarcity, if it farted directly in my face.
bendy screen (Score:3)
Can someone please explain to me why a bendable screen is superior to two screen that can essentially fold next to each other with no outside bezel?
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Can someone please explain to me why a bendable screen is superior to two screen that can essentially fold next to each other with no outside bezel?
Are you asking why no gap between pixels is superior to gap between pixels? Bezel-less screens still have a gap. It's a rubbish experience for anything maximised across both screens at once.
Only on Apple.com (Score:2)
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Iphones had to be as thin as possible (Score:2)
Now they have double thickness and they sell like fresh bread.
The truth is... (Score:2)
...that many (most?) of those instant sales were people whose only goal is to resell the phone later with a significant markup.
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There are TONS of sold listings on eBay already. Lots of order confirmation screenshots. A lot of them around the $3k mark... which, after tax and eBay/Paypal/whatever fees, doens't feel as high of a markup as I expected. A bunch higher than that too, but most with higher storage (a couple 2 TB ones I saw "sold" for about $5k).
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Xiami 18 Fold probably still available (Score:2)
The new Xiami 18 Fold is probably still available and is basically the exact same shell hardware build.
And AFAICT it's cheaper and better in the specs. Which was to be expected.
Gotta envy Apple though, how much they got their fan crowd under control. Pretty impressive IMHO.
We were warned. (Score:3)
$2,000 and up for a computer that can only run software some rich tech bros in Silicon Valley think it should. This is what the paranoid GNU advocates warned us about decades ago.
No acounting for taste... (Score:2)
My take (Score:1)