The iPhone Duo launch is the most disappointing Apple release I have ever seen

I’ve talked about the iPhone Duo a fair bit since its launch, even though I don’t really think that it’s a device worth talking about that much. I just want to discuss one final time why Apple has left me so disappointed with this release.

A foldable iPhone at last! This was something that the entire smartphone industry had been waiting for for many, many years. It was also something that Apple’s customer base had been waiting for for many, many years.

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How, and why, did the company make this momentous occasion such an underwhelming and downright disappointing event?

Apple’s eight-year delay doesn’t make sense anymore

Why did Apple wait so long to enter the foldable smartphone market? It was because the company was obsessed with two things, it wanted to make a foldable iPhone that had no visible crease and it wanted its foldable to be a rugged piece of kit.

The iPhone Duo is neither of those two things. Apple waited eight years for what then, exactly?

The crease is most definitely visible on the iPhone Duo even with the matte “nano-texture” screen protector layer on top of the internal display. Within a few hours the crease deepens, just like any other foldable phone.

However, hilariously, over sustained use, the iPhone Duo’s crease becomes more noticeable than the crease on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8. So the thing that Apple was so particular about? No, it loses to its direct rival phone. Cool. Good job, Apple.



And then, of course, there is “Crackgate” as the internet has decided to dub it. Apple’s hinge design for the iPhone Duo has problems and the company reportedly lowered its quality control standards to secure more inventory for the launch.

That, to put it politely, was a pretty nonsensical decision, in my opinion. This was supposed to be Apple’s heroic foray into the foldable segment. Instead, we’ve got people showing off broken iPhone Duos from every region the phone was launched in.

It’s become such a common occurrence that some customers are actively canceling their orders, deciding — smartly — to wait until the iPhone Duo 2. Thankfully, at least others who received functional iPhone Duos are having a blast, but there really isn’t any guarantee that their phones will remain intact a few months from now.

So, to recount, the iPhone Duo fails at both things that kept Apple from releasing a foldable iPhone for eight years.

The iPhone Duo is a rushed product and it shows

It’s not even just the hardware problems that make the iPhone Duo such a difficult phone to recommend. The Duo just doesn’t feel like a finished product.

Why would Apple rush it to the market when it knew that there wasn’t enough inventory and that people would be kept waiting for months? Do you want to turn people off of the iPhone Duo and opt for a competitor?

And the app support is just abysmal. If iOS requires all developers to optimize their apps for the iPhone Duo’s aspect ratio, should Apple not have waited until this had been done?

This is the phone that Apple fans have waited eight years for? A phone that can’t even open apps normally?

I’m just so disappointed. The Apple Vision Pro, the iPhone Air, and the $999 monitor stand had better launches than this. At least the monitor stand was a complete and functional product.

I had actually been considering switching to Apple next year. The “Apple ecosystem” and the exclusive operating systems seemed almost alluring. I wanted to dive into the company’s “walled garden” and see what the fuss was all about first-hand.

But the iPhone Duo and the weird cult-like behavior Apple’s employees showed during interviews where they refused to even name Samsung has just really soured my opinion of the company.

I’m glad that Apple is finally making foldables. The iPhone Duo 2 will probably be a much better phone as well.

But I’m just done with the iPhone Duo. It was supposed to be a major global event. Instead, it’s easily the most disappointing Apple release I have ever seen. How did they mess it up this badly?

The iPhone Duo has problems:

• iPhone Duos are breaking because Apple rushed it
• The iPhone Duo started breaking shortly after release
• And then the iPhone Duo kept breaking

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