This is Technology Bytes, episode 190 for October 25, 2026.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
Today I’m going to be talking about the iPhone Duo.
I know I’ve talked about it before, but Friday was the day that people who ordered the iPhone Duo actually got it in their hands.
Not everybody who ordered it, but some number of people.
And so I’m just going to talk a little bit about what I’ve read and, you know, I already talked before about why I’m not getting it, and so some of that will come into play.
So I’m just going to talk a little bit about what I’ve read, what I’ve heard.
I haven’t yet stepped into an Apple Store to experience it, so I still want to do that, and once I do that, I may talk more about it.
But we’ll see where this one goes today.
So as often happens with a new iPhone, especially something that is so new like the iPhone Duo, there is the availability or the scariness of availability.
And so what Apple does on the regular is sets up a way for people to get everything lined up.
They’ve got all of their ducks in a row, as it were, so that on the ordering day, it’s mostly just a press of a button to order the phone that you have set up previously to get.
And that way, people who have spent the time to do that can oftentimes be guaranteed that on the Friday of release, in this case the 23rd, they would be able to get the iPhone Duo that they preset up before the actual order date.
I listened to a couple of podcasts where people have talked about the fact that they are getting an iPhone Duo and that they’re planning on getting up early in the morning, five o’clock if you’re a West Coast person, and getting that order in early so they can get their phone by Friday the 23rd.
And so they went through all the pre-setup and everything else, and both of them, one did his ordering and went through the setup beforehand, and then when it finally went through on the morning you were able to order them, his date had slipped into December instead of October 23rd.
So you’re talking about six weeks, and he was up at five o’clock.
Another person that I listened to that went through all the whole setup at the same thing, her date had slipped to sometime into the middle of November.
She was able to go then onto like a Verizon site, I think, and was able to get the phone that she wanted, and I think she’s getting it Saturday the 24th instead of Friday the 23rd.
And then we’ll have to return the other one because she obviously doesn’t want to buy two.
But these are people who were ready to purchase and were ready to do everything that they could in their world, I guess, to get the phone on the Friday.
And it feels like the availability had some issues, and I’m not sure why, but I did hear one interesting thing, and I will talk about that next.
One thing that I heard on a podcast was that people were using like a Grok bot or an AI bot to do their ordering for them.
Now, why that would work better than doing it yourself, I don’t know if it can do it more repetitively quick or something like that.
I don’t quite get it, but there’s some thought that maybe Apple was scammed out of hundreds of iPhone Duos by People using artificial intelligent bots to order many of the devices as they could get their hands on, spending a lot of money for sure, and Apple still gets it, so I don’t know if they’re too sad about how it happened.
But then turning around and selling them for well over the purchase price on like eBay or sites as such.
Now, I haven’t heard any more about that.
That’s real interesting.
In my head, I can’t wrap my thoughts around why that would be possible.
And then there’s people talking about how Apple may have been able to stop that if that was the case, and I don’t know.
It’ll be interesting to hear over the next few days.
And I think there was some constraint, and people knew it, and, you know, it’s going to just take a minute to get your new iPhone Duo.
On the Wednesday before release date, so I guess that would have been on the 21st, then all the people that Apple had given iPhone Duos to for review, they were able to then release the reviews that they had made into the public.
And so a couple days before everybody else got their phones, but then people could read about it, maybe make a decision at this point.
I think if you order it, you’re probably not getting it till the, you know, first part of January maybe.
But there have been good and there have been bad.
I don’t know if there’s been bad reviews, but the reviews are a little bit mixed.
The funny thing is that what I’ve read is almost to a person in the closed mode is where the phone gets the least favorable reviews.
One person that I read said it is the, in the closed mode, it is the worst iPhone that Apple has ever made.
The screen is weird shaped.
It’s too small.
You’ve got the, the— Menu bar, or it’s not the menu bar, the tray, whatever, where you keep your four apps that are on every screen, is on the right-hand side, and it’s difficult to run maybe one-handed.
There’s still some complaints about what happens if you’re left-handed.
And so, in that mode, there have been quite a few unfavorable reviews about what the iPhone Duo is.
But then, on the other hand, as soon as you open it, it becomes a favorite device of many of the same reviewers.
So really, they just want to use it open.
You know, close it because it’s easier to put in your pocket, it’s easier to carry, but to use it, using it in the open mode is a joy, so many people have said.
And there’s some that have said you can actually get real work done on the iPhone Duo.
So it’s kind of interesting to see what people are saying about the device.
And I know one person built the machine to fold it and close it and fold it and close it, and she did that 32,000 times.
And then they measured the strength of the hinge on a strain gauge before and after, and the strength of the hinge actually went up just a little bit, maybe imperceptible, but it didn’t degrade at all.
So that was kind of interesting.
The choices that Apple’s made with the matte inside finish on the screen when you open it makes the fold or crease almost non-existent to the eye.
People have said if you hold it at a weird angle, an angle that you would never hold the phone to actually use it, the light reflection or refraction or whichever way it’s going to go makes that crease visible.
But when you’re in the normal mode of using it, it’s almost invisible.
And so there’s been good and bad all the way through.
Apple Pencil support is not there yet, and that will probably make a difference.
There’s App development that has to happen so that when you open the screen, the apps look good and they’re not just, you know, maybe in the center of the screen.
There’s things that they’ve done that have made the phone more useful, but some app developers have to catch up with that in their own apps.
Again, all of this is just based on what I’ve read and what I’ve watched in reviews, but still no experience with the device whatsoever.
I do want to get to an Apple Store and hold one in my hand.
People say it’s a chunk of a phone.
It’s very heavy in your hand.
Yeah, I imagine it’s really two iPhones at the same time, so it’s going to feel pretty heavy.
But I really want to get to a store and hold it myself and open it and see what it’s like.
And I don’t know, there’s, you know, people are like, Are you going to buy one?
Are you going to buy one?
Because I buy all the Apple stuff, but not this one.
One, I can’t afford it.
Two, I think there’s too many compromises at this point for how I use my phone.
And I use an iPad Pro at work, and I don’t think the iPhone Duo, even in the open mode, would be big enough for what I use my iPad for at work.
So at the moment, I’ll just live through other people vicariously.
I will get to an Apple Store and hold it in my hand so I know exactly what it feels like.
But for the moment, I think the reviews are out.
It still seems like a really interesting product, as I’ve said already.
If someone wanted to hand one to me and say, I know you love Apple, here’s one for you, I would not say no.
That is all I have for today.
If you have comments, suggestions, or questions, you can send them to technologybytes@marigfamily.com.
As always, I want to thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast, and I look forward to the next time we are together, taking another bite of technology.
