Apple iPhone Duo pre-orders delayed until January due to massive demand

If you want that iPhone Duo, brace yourself. You are looking at a wait until January. Pre-orders sold out faster than anyone expected this morning as fans rushed to buy the £2,000 foldable. Apple said phones would ship by October 23. Many buyers found themselves shocked instead. They discovered massive delays before their devices ever left the factory.

The Daily Mail looked at Apple's site at roughly 3pm BST. It showed the earliest shipping date was now January 22. One fan on X called it the worst pre-order experience in years. Another user noted a trillion-dollar company should handle high traffic better. They said customers plan for launch day and face technical issues instead. That points to a serious lack of planning.

Apple unveiled the phone last month. Pre-orders opened at 1pm BST today. Shoppers flocked to stores, but stock vanished fast. Every colour and memory size hit shortages. No option arrives before January 22. One user joked that every variation is sold out until 2027 within an hour of opening. Another claimed the launch was a disaster with cancelled orders and website errors. A third simply called it the worst day ever and said good job Apple.

Expected delivery dates shifted quickly as more people ordered. Early customers saw November or December windows. Latecomers found nothing until late January. All combinations suffered these delays. One customer complained their date moved from October 23 to November 9 while checking out. They wrote they have never seen this happen after years of buying Apple gear.

Some users struggled just reaching the Apple Store website. Sheer demand caused the lag. One fan was online at 12:50 refreshing the app but could not enter until 13:10. The site went down for four minutes and blocked them in. They asked why a seven minute delay pushes delivery into December.

Demand is so high that even O2 stores are having trouble. Social media posts show people stuck in online queues facing technical glitches while trying to order. One O2 customer shouted about what is going on with the shop website. The new foldable iPhone has created chaos for everyone involved.

Customers are frustrated. They feel stuck in a loop of fighting for sign-in access, clicking pre-order, and staring at a queue that does absolutely nothing. One person told @O2 they know the line is paused so nobody can actually preorder the iPhone Duo. O2 replied on X by saying it cannot confirm if there is a problem with the queue itself. The new iPhone launch is seeing extremely high demand, which leads to much longer wait times than usual and may make progress appear slower than expected.

The device arrives in just one size. Buyers can choose between four storage options though. The 256GB version costs £1,999 or $1,999. Move up to the 512GB model for £2,199/$2,199. At the top end, the 1TB variant hits £2,599/$2,599 and the 2TB option reaches £3,199/$3,199.

The iPhone Duo shares that squat, book-like shape with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8. The screen is wider than it is tall when opened. Both inner and outer screens share the same 1.4 aspect ratio. This ensures apps don't get distorted or leave dead space when switching between views. The outer display measures 5.4 inches while the inner screen extends out to 7.6 inches. Users can use the phone in any orientation or position. Leaving it half open allows people to prop up the device and watch movies hands-free, or hold it partially folded like a book.

The new A20 Pro chipset lets Apple's foldable handle multitasking easily. It runs different apps on either side of the screen. The display also supports the use of an Apple Pencil just like an iPad. This makes it the first iPhone to do so. On the back, the camera setup uses the same 48-megapixel sensor found in the iPhone 18 Pro.