DESPERATE for a new iPhone Duo but can’t find one? Or quietly praying Apple will drop the £1,999 price in the future?
Speaking to The Sun, a top industry insider has revealed the truth about stock resupply and pricing for Apple’s first foldable phone – and whether bendy mobiles are finally going mainstream for the latest episode of Future Tech Feed with Sean Keach. (Watch in full on YouTube / ).
It’s been just over a week since the went on sale, and nearly two months at Apple’s glitzy .
Stock has been , with delivery windows now running deep into January 2027.
Whether foldable phones will take the throne from regular mobiles is still open for debate, but tech expert Ben Wood reckons the launch timing is symbolic.
“The good old-fashioned kind of monoblock phone that we’re all used to: this is the dominant design, which emerged pretty much the day that Steve Jobs walked on stage in January 2007 and unveiled the iPhone to the world,” said Ben, the chief analyst at FDM CCS Insight.
“It’s astonishing to think that’ll be 20 years ago next year.
“So the foldable is very interesting. The Duo is particularly interesting because have gone down this route of this passport form factor.”
Keen gadget fans will know that there are several on offer.
And one of the earlier options was a kind of flip-phone design – one that Apple rival still offers in its line-up.
“I was always very excited about the flip form factor,” said Ben, a smartphone expert who also founded the Mobile Phone Museum.
“I think there was a lot of nostalgia there, having grown up with things like the Razr, which were iconic devices.”
But Apple ultimately that looks less noughties and more like a hi-tech book that opens up.
Samsung offers a similar device – which The Sun reviewed very positively when it came out earlier this year (read our ) – but Ben hints that the South Korean tech giant may have been racing to beat Apple to the punch.
“They had their device, which I’m sure you’ve talked about in the past, the Z Fold 8, which is a really interesting product,” Ben told The Sun tech editor Sean Keach.
“I think Apple were a little miffed, if I’m honest.
“Some of the videos I’ve seen of Apple executives feel like perhaps Samsung heard a rumour and went down that route.”
In any case, growing interest in foldables is good for both Apple and Samsung, with Ben adding: “We know there’s been a surge in interest with regards to people at least going online and looking up what Samsung offer as an alternative.”
According to Ben, Apple had been developing some of the tech in this phone for a very long time.
But they were just biding their time to launch at the right moment, to make sure the technology worked.
“They’ve had this technology in their labs for more than a decade,” Ben said.
“Their patents have been filed a long, long time ago, but they didn’t want to rush into.
“Apple, they’re never usually first to the party. They’ll wait til technology gets to a certain level of maturity.
“Samsung had done a huge amount of the hard work. Let’s not forget the Duo is using a Samsung display.”
Apple’s launch has been a monumental success in terms of publicity and sails.
But it hasn’t been totally smooth, with a smattering of early reports of some screen cracking.
“I always thought that Apple would be nervous because if anything went wrong, it would be a big story,” Ben said.
“And of course, that brings us to some of the screen failures that we’ve seen with the Duo.”
The good news is that it appears to be an extremely rare issue, with Apple additionally offering .
Ben has speaking to his industry contacts in the retail sector and says there’s no evidence of a widespread problem.
“So far I’ve seen only very, very limited examples of this,” Ben explained.
“I’ve done some channel checks. I spoke to one channel, a big, big company that sold thousands of these devices.
“And they haven’t had a single return, so fingers crossed it stays like that.”
Of course, despite the massive demand for Apple’s foldables, it’s still a tiny proportion of the world.
Regular smartphones are still by far the dominant device versus bendy handsets.
“Let’s not forget: foldables are very, very niche,” Ben explained.
“We do lots of forecasts. We reckon that out of the total mobile phone market – and this is a billion-unit market – that’s 35, 36, 37 phones every second being sold.
“This is about 2% of the market.
“But obviously a super, super high value part of the market.
“We don’t see that growing certainly not to double-digit by the end of the decade.
“But if it got to 5%, that would be good. But the demand has been astonishing.”
Ben added: “I think the demand has surprised them. I think that Apple probably took a slightly cautious approach because they wanted to see how it bedded in.
“And there’s nothing like a little bit of scarcity to build a bit of excitement as well.”
It might seem shocking to many shoppers, the idea of spending £2,000 on a smartphone.
And if you increase the storage capacity on the phone, the price can soar as high as £3,199.
That is a tremendous amount of cash to drop on a phone, but people are doing it – and Ben thinks he knows why.
“What’s astonished me is how many people I’ve shown it to have said, I’d really like to buy one – and the way they rationalise the purchase,” Ben told The Sun.
“I think it’s very easy to focus on that ‘wow, £2,000’, but actually, if you look at it in the context.
“If you’ve already got an iPhone Pro model – you know, 16 Pro, 17 Pro, whatever – you could well be spending £40, £50 a month on that device.
“There are offers out there where you can get the Duo for £65, £70, whatever per month.
“And I think people are kind of looking at it like: ‘Well, that’s not that much more’.
“And then to have the new shiny thing. And it’s not all crazy Apple fanboys either, it’s people who are actually looking at it going, yeah I’d really like one of those.”
And the good news is that you should find it much easier to buy an iPhone Duo very soon – at least on the stock front.
Apple’s VP of iPhone Marketing told The Sun just last month that the company was “absolutely” working hard at boosting stock.
And Ben says it looks like Apple is on track to have plenty of iPhone Duo units to go around in the near future.
“It absolutely seems that somehow, they are really ramping up production, ready for the end of January,” Ben said.
“And it looks like there’s almost limitless supply at that point.”
But it’s not all good news, especially when it comes to the price.
Normally you might expect prices on gadgets to drop over time, but Ben reckons that the iPhone Duo might get even more expensive.
And it’s all linked to a problem plaguing the entire consumer tech industry: the price of memory.
It’s sending the cost of smartphones, tablets, computers and games consoles soaring, and it won’t get better any time soon.
“I’d bad news on that front, I’m afraid,” Ben warned.
“I think from where I’m sitting, there is a potential the price could even go up because of factors outside of Apple’s control.
“I’ve been talking to a lot of very senior people across all of the mobile phone manufacturers.
“And this issue with the cost of memory, which has been field by the AI boom and other companies who are building big AI data centres.
“They’re prepared to pay more for the memory that would have gone in phones. So that’s a big challenge.”
He added: “I also think from Apple’s perspective, they have to have a portfolio of products.
“And if you reduce the price of the Duo, that will have a knock-on effect on other parts of the portfolio.
“So what does that mean for the iPhone 18 Pro Max, 19 Pro Max, whatever that becomes?
“So they’re very, very structured and disciplined on their pricing – and I think as long as they see demand, you won’t see the price come down.
“And that’s an unfortunate reflection of where the market it.
And Ben warned: “I think if people are looking at phones these days, the days of the sub-£150 phone are gone.
“If you get one of those at , you’ll be very, very lucky. Next year, they won’t exist.”
