Apple Says It Can't Predict When iPhone Duo Shortages Will Ease

The $1,999 foldable sold out within hours, and buyers who missed preorders are seeing ship dates that run into next year.

Buyers who missed preorders for the iPhone Duo, Apple's $1,999 folding phone, are seeing ship dates that run into next year. Apple's top executives can't say when that gets better.

On Monday's earnings call, Apple Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan said it's "really hard to predict when supply and demand will be in balance," TechCrunch reported. CEO John Ternus gave Reuters nearly the same answer, saying Apple is "not able to predict" when that happens, according to The Verge. Two executives, one shrug, and no date.

The phone went on sale last month, and the first wave went fast. Preorders sold out, some orders aren't expected to arrive until 2027, and Apple held back only a limited number for its stores at launch, The Verge reported. Apple told the Financial Times in October that demand was "nothing short of extraordinary" after the Duo sold out within hours on Apple's own website, TechCrunch noted.

The wait is already costing somebody. Verizon has been handing out gift cards to say sorry to customers stuck waiting, according to TechCrunch.

A sellout is only half of what's going on. The other half is memory. The AI industry's appetite for memory chips has driven up what every hardware maker pays for parts, TechCrunch reported, and Apple is no exception.

"What we're seeing with memory pricing right now is unprecedented," Ternus said on the call, The Verge reported. He said Apple expects memory to cost even more in the December quarter, and that the price increases it has already made partly make up for that. That round of increases reached the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, whose cheapest versions now cost more, according to The Verge. Khan said Apple raised prices reluctantly, according to TechCrunch.

Apple's one concrete supply move is in titanium. The company said it's working more closely with Perryman, a titanium producer that supplies material for the Duo, TechCrunch reported. Apple didn't attach a date to that either.

For people who already have a Duo, the open question is the screen. Ternus told Reuters that "a very small percentage" of Duos had been returned over cracked screens and that Apple is replacing them, The Verge reported.

None of this showed up in the numbers Apple posted Monday. The quarter in its earnings release ended Sept. 26, and iPhone revenue still hit a September-quarter record. That was before the Duo went on sale, which means every Duo sold so far lands in the December quarter, the same three months Apple expects memory to cost even more.

Source: TechCrunch, retrieved November 3, 2026. Other sources: The Verge, Apple.