Apple's first foldable iPhone Duo opens pre-orders on Friday, 16 October

Pre-orders open Friday morning

The Apple Store went offline on Friday, 16 October, with a placeholder page promising that iPhone Duo pre-orders would begin at 5:00 a.m. Pacific Time. That start equals 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time and 12:00 p.m. UTC. Apple has used the 5 a.m. Pacific opening for several years, replacing the 12:01 a.m. start it previously used. Customers in more than 70 countries and regions will be able to pre-order through Apple's website and the Apple Store app once the store returns, with Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, the UAE, the UK and the US named among them. Carriers such as Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T, along with UK networks O2, Vodafone and EE, are also set to open preorders.

Design and price

The iPhone Duo is Apple's first foldable iPhone and comes in Star White and Night Sky. It has a 5.4-inch display when closed and a 7.6-inch inner screen when opened. Engadget's hands-on look by Sam Rutherford called it Apple's most exciting device in a decade. In the US, the price starts at $1,999 for 256GB, rising to $2,199 for 512GB, $2,599 for 1TB and $3,199 for 2TB. Engadget cited the price, the lack of Face ID and a main camera without variable aperture as the main drawbacks.

Missing features and trade-offs

MacRumors lists features the iPhone Duo lacks compared with the iPhone 18 Pro models, including a dedicated telephoto camera with up to 8× optical zoom, variable aperture on the main camera, the Action button and a LiDAR Scanner. The Duo uses a Touch ID button instead of Face ID, and its front camera is 12 megapixels against the 18-megapixel Center Stage camera on the 18 Pro. The Duo does add Duo FaceTime and forthcoming Apple Pencil support, according to MacRumors. The Duo was unveiled in September alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, GSM Arena reports. Those two Pro models went on pre-order earlier and are already on sale.

Launch dates and supply

MacRumors gives Friday, 23 October, as the day deliveries and in-store availability begin. Availability expands to 28 more countries and regions on Friday, 30 October. The deadline to prepare for one-click checkout was 9 p.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, 15 October. 9to5Mac says all reports point to constrained supply and relatively high demand, so launch-day stock is expected to sell out quickly. TechRadar advises pre-saving shipping, color, storage and trade-in details in Apple's store to avoid missing out.