The iPhone Duo is never late. Nor is it early. It arrived precisely when it was meant to. Yeah, it's November in several hours, so I'm officially in my rewatching-the-extended-versions-of-"The Lord of the Rings"-trilogy regimen. Hence the adapted, Apple-ized quote in italics I started with.
Of course, the iPhone Duo is terribly late. The foldable party started in 2019, when Samsung and Huawei dared to push the mobile industry in a completely new direction. Apple didn't exactly kick rocks for seven years, as its current $5.092 trillion market cap is a vast improvement over the $1.30 trillion market cap from 2019.
Ask any big shot Apple shareholder, they'll admit they prefer this course of events over a gadget that folds in two.
But smartphone aficionados? Yeah, I bet they're furious with Apple for being seven years late. Then, to top it off (because misery loves company), the first foldable iPhone may've triggered what'll go down in history as Crackgate.
Yeah, some iPhone Duo units are apparently extremely fragile to the point where they break without you doing anything wrong:
I'm calling it "Crackgate" despite that it might be a bit too early for that. Of course, Apple would probably never ever tell us the exact number of affected iPhone Duo units. These may be just several hundred (or more), but… These aren't isolated cases that three, four, or even ten extremely unlucky owners have to deal with.
The iPhone Duo's problems (the lower right part of its display breaks and shows a thick, horrendous line) are on all social media. We've got angry reviewers, devastated owners who've saved the $2,000 asking price for many months, we've got shocked users (and gleeful Apple haters) all pouring out their emotions in videos, posts, rants and memes online. Yes, the iPhone Duo has made a meme of itself; whoever said there's no bad publicity ought to sit down and keep quiet.
But I'm not concerned about Apple's public image. Once you make it to the top three most valuable companies, the importance of being liked goes down the priority list with the speed of an oil tanker that's had an intimate encounter with a drone.
What I care about is the foldable game: as in, I want more foldables, cheaper foldables, better foldables, foldables with great cameras, et cetera. So was 2026 the perfect time for Apple to launch the iPhone Duo?
The Oppo Find N5 is an extremely tough foldable, for example. But it's not a first-gen device. | Image by PhoneArena
The iPhone Duo had no option but to arrive in 2026 in the suboptimal shape that it did. Yes, many units have had their displays broken (again, without owners doing anything wrong!) in the first hours and days after the October 23 launch.
There were instances of bulging hinges and gross, flickering purple lines and blocks on the inner screen. Not the best start for your brand-new product, right?
Yeah, but next year is 2027 and the original iPhone was launched in 2007. You see where I'm getting at, right? Next year, the iPhone will celebrate its 20th anniversary. And as mighty as this pocket gadget may be, I'm sure it would rather not be accompanied by a first-gen foldable that breaks upon looking at it. The iPhone Duo 2 has a tough task in front of it: not only to fix its predecessor's problems, but also to come with a substantial hardware upgrade that would make us forget about this fiasco.
A bigger battery? Better cameras? I've got some ideas, but a rehashed iPhone Duo that simply "doesn't break" will be extremely insufficient.
So Apple has precisely one year (the clock is ticking) to figure out what it did wrong and how the iPhone Duo 2, which I'm sure we'll see in 2027, will be spectacular. Otherwise, Apple should pack its bags and leave the foldable party. If it can't catch up, well, it doesn't deserve to try to keep up.
Sebastian is one of PhoneArena’s senior opinionators. A veteran news writer with almost 20 years of experience in media and technology, he not only covers all the hot news about Galaxies and iPhones, but often provides hot takes on industry trends. He’s fascinated with camera-focused flagships from the likes of Oppo and Vivo, as well as foldable phones.
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