If there's anything more idiotic than spending $2,000 on an iPhone Duo, it's getting up at 4:00 AM to go buy it. I did both of those things, and am so relieved to say I'm glad.

It was the pre-order failure that really sold me. I'd spent weeks figuring out the finances to buy an iPhone Duo and had set up the pre-order perfectly, but it went wrong.

I had got onto the online Apple Store unusually quickly, and pressed that Buy button unusually smugly, but it didn't work. Instead of buying the phone, it reset my entire pre-order so that it just forgot the crucial trade-in, it forgot the financing I'd set up.

You know how fast the iPhone Duo shipping date slipped back. By the time I'd re-done everything, it was showing a date when I'm going to be away on a research trip.

And then by the time I'd figured out whether I could do anything about that, I didn't have to. Because now the delivery date was next year.

I don't know how Apple does this and I do not understand how it did it to me, but I was truly grumpy about all this. And then for the following week, every day brought a new reason to doubt that Apple Stores would have any stock at all on October 23.

People queue outside a grand, brightly lit Apple Store with tall columns and arched windows on a rainy city street, standing behind black railings and rope barriers

Queuing outside Apple Birmingham in the UK.

We even said this on the AppleInsider Podcast, it was so certain that you shouldn't go to an Apple Store because it was so clear that you wouldn't get an iPhone Duo. I may specifically have said you shouldn't go to Apple Birmingham in the UK, but let me gloss over that.

So, I set that 4:00 AM alarm clock. At 5:00, I left home to go to that store and found 30 people ahead of me.

That's just enough that you think there might be a chance, but you also think there won't be.

If I hadn't got into so many great conversations, if I hadn't also been recognized from the AppleInsider Podcast, I tell myself I'd have been sensible and gone back home to bed instead of staying. But actually I think the truth is that I would have stayed no matter how many people were there.

And the people who did give up, they missed out. The store was due to open at 08:00 but well before 07:00 the staff were outside taking reservations. I knew then that I'd got the phone, I just had to wait for my slot.

So I got to walk away and have breakfast, but still get into conversations with other buyers.

It is without question ridiculous to be happy to be giving Apple all of this money. Especially when even then, even in the queue, I had some doubts.

We've spoken to other stores since. Most got about 40, with the giant flagships maybe hitting 100 for sale beyond pre-order pickup. I was close.

Doubting the purchase

No question, I can't say it enough, the money was and remains the big thing. But beyond that, I'd heard the iPhone Duo was heavy, and I'd heard that when it was closed it was really small.

I was coming from an iPhone 16 Pro Max and have often thought that once I'd gone Max, I'd never go smaller. But here I was, going even smaller than an iPhone Pro model.

Two smartphones on a white surface, one folded with a square shape and one tall and rectangular, both showing colorful app icons on their home screens

I never thought I'd go smaller than a Max size (right) but I've taken to the smaller iPhone Duo (left) very well and very quickly.

Plus I worried that the iPhone Duo was going to be a tricky shape. I've watched Apple's videos closely and a lot of those happy extras acting away madly have also seemed to be holding it awkwardly.

Then I think Face ID is superb and this iPhone Duo doesn't have that. It also doesn't have an Action Button, although I was more okay with that.

Glad I got it

This will seem a ridiculous thing to say, but when asked first whether I like the iPhone Duo and then why, I say the same thing. Yes. And that I adore reading on it.

You could buy at least ten Kindle Paperwhite devices for this money, but they wouldn't be this good. The screen, the sharpness, everything: this is the best e-reader I've ever used.

That's whether I'm reading on the dinky outer screen or the wide inner one. I like how with this or anything else, you can switch between open and closed without thinking, without having to do anything.

I also like how I can read books on the iPhone Duo in portrait and my finger rests under the camera bump. The moment I did that, my concerns about the shape ceased.

Two e-readers side by side on a light surface, one darker Kindle-style device and one bright smartphone-like device, both displaying pages of text for reading

Rear: Kindle Paperwhite. Fore: iPhone Duo.

I got some of the concern back when I was running a writing workshop using this instead of my iPad Pro in a Magic Keyboard case, though. The camera bump makes it all wobble too much on a table to be used for writing on.

There is that incredibly expensive Apple case that would solve it and I'm sure there are others. But for now I just prop it up on various books or lean it on my Stream Deck when I want to type.

Then I'm surprised to say that even though I agree that the iPhone Duo is heavy, I actually like it. Maybe this will change over time but for now, it feels solid where I've previously thought foldables must feel flimsy. So for now, it's a reassuring weight.

The only criticism I have of the hardware is that it's difficult to find the USB-C charging port. Perhaps because I have the midnight blue one, everything around the edges is dark and I am having to rotate the whole thing around and around to find it.

Close-up of a smartphone held sideways, showing side buttons and several colorful app icons on the screen, including photos, messages, calendar, and other standard apps

It seems easy in bright daylight, but finding that USB-C charging port is sometimes difficult.

It's a similar thing with the volume buttons. So far I keep having to search to find them.

And that Touch ID button doesn't bother me as much as I feared, except for one thing. When you have the iPhone Duo closed and facing you, the Touch ID button is not where my finger expects it to be.

With the two edges closed, the Touch ID button is on the second edge, the one to the back. I am very often pressing where it isn't.

And sometimes I've ended up pressing the Camera Control button instead.

But then the cameras are great. I know the front-facing and under-display one isn't as good as on my last iPhone, but I ran a Zoom event using it and couldn't see a material difference.

Practical and impractical uses

That Zoom session was real, practical work that I needed to do and for me that was officially the reason I bought this. I had specific work and use cases for it, I had a need, or at least a perceived need.

In the end, again so far as I can tell just a few days in, I think the iPhone Duo has met all of those use cases. I've read on it, for instance, plus I've read from it in a workshop, I've written a couple of thousand words on it both with an external keyboard and on the screen.

Smartphone with a bright white screen lying diagonally across a black computer keyboard on a white surface, showing a text entry interface and rear camera lenses

I have been typing on the iPhone Duo using an external keyboard that is about eight times as wide as the closed phone.

I've used it in my piano practice where it just shows me an image of the latest piece I'm mangling beyond recognition. And on the first night, I watched "Coyote vs Acme" on it.

That was actually the first, if brief, disappointment with the phone. Not the film, but the way it was displayed.

I don't know if this is a default or I had tapped something I shouldn't, but the film filled the iPhone Duo's screen and it was clear I was missing bits of the movie.

With some random tapping and swiping, I got it so that the film was showing in full with small black bars over the top.

Actually, I'm still getting used to where the controls have been moved to. In some cases, in some apps, controls have also been collapsed into menus, but I find them eventually.

Sometimes I will switch from open to closed just to see where controls move to. It's as if my fingers automatically find some of them more easily in one configuration than the other.

Smartphone lying on a surface, screen split between colorful home screen app icons on the left and a Good Sudoku game interface with Daily, Play, Improve options on the right

I'm using split screen on the iPhone Duo so much more than I expected.

My fingers did not, though, find it obvious how you arrange two apps on the screen at once. It took swiping up from lower down than I expected, from the edge of the device.

But then once I was doing that, I seem to have rarely stopped. Having PCalc on one side while a restaurant online bill was on the other, for instance, sold me on split screens immediately.

Black rectangular analog desk clock with large white numbers and hands, showing around 10:09, resting on a light-colored surface with soft shadows

Of course I'm using this is a clock, too.

I've also found it useful to tap between the two apps to pin them together. That's something I knew about but didn't especially imagine I'd use, and yet here I am using it.

And I mean that literally. Right here, right now. It's a cliche to end any article about a device or an app by saying ta-daaa, this was entirely written on it.

But ta-daaa. I wrote this on my iPhone Duo using an external keyboard with notes on one side, this text on the other. I'm not saying that writing stretches the iPhone Duo, but nothing in the process slowed me down or felt any different to writing on my Mac.

And that workshop I ran the day after I bought this is a repeating one. Next month, I will just bring the iPhone Duo because I do not need my iPad any more.

Perhaps I could sell the iPad.