30 Percent ⭐

It's been a big year for new Apple hardware and not just for the company, but for me as well. But the iPhone Duo? Well. These are the times that try men's souls. Not to mention their wallets.

At least one publication claims that about one-third of iPhone Duo buyers have returned their expensive new purchase within Apple's 14-day "no questions asked" window, while another report hints at why this is happening: Hinge reliability issues, the tiny outside screen, the awkward and heavy form factor, the lack of Face ID, and the lackluster camera system are key among the reasons. And a third report notes that Apple's late entry into the foldable phone market is the problem: Where the company usually solves problems with its slow approach, this time it's simply repeating the same mistakes as Android foldables, just years later.

OK, sure. All of that makes at least some sense. But to me, the central issue with the iPhone Duo is tied to my editorial The Right Tool for the Job and whether a hybrid device like this can not only replace two other devices--in this case, a traditional iPhone and an iPad Mini--but do so without compromise.

It's an age-old debate. And though some of this is subjective, with early adopters and dedicated Apple fans perhaps more willing to put up with problems that are blockers for others, much of it is objective. And objectively, the iPhone Duo falls flat in many ways, perhaps too many ways, despite its little delighters, like the animation that accompanies opening and closing the internal display.

That effect, which Apple fans coo over and others simply roll their eyes, is also part of the problem, honestly. This is exactly the type of thing Apple focuses on too often, and it can be summed up pithily as favoring form over function. Like a magician focusing your eyes on one hand so they can fool you with the other, Apple is hoping you will love a functionally pointless effect and ignore the device's many issues.

I preordered an iPhone Duo and, if all goes well, it should arrive during the first week of December while we're home in Pennsylvania. That's good timing as it's earlier than the late January arrival dates that many Duo customers now face, a non-starter for me since we'll be in Mexico for the first four months or so of next year. But it also gives me time to think about this purchase. And that's both good and bad. The last thing I need is time to think.

But now I can't stop.

The issues with the iPhone Duo, most listed above, are real and any one of them might be a blocker. The combination of them, however, is even more daunting, and raises even more issues.

A year ago, I really wanted to get an iPhone Air because of its incredibly thin form factor, but the weight of its shortcomings--a single lens camera system, the poor battery life, the one speaker, and so on--was just too much, and so I opted for the safe and familiar iPhone 17 Pro Max and am still using it today.

Considered using the same...