iPhone Duo pre-orders sell out in minutes, and Apple's US store now quotes 25 January deliveryiPhone Duo pre-orders sell out in minutes, and Apple's US store now quotes 25 January delivery

iPhone Duo pre-orders opened on Friday 16 October, and within about half an hour Apple's US online store was quoting delivery on 25 January 2027 for every model.

The date applies to both colours, Night Sky and Star White, and to all four storage sizes, according to MacRumors, 9to5Mac, The Mac Observer and Macworld, each of which checked Apple's store itself. 9to5Mac says some buyers saw 29 January. Apple's store page lists the unlocked phone at 1,999 dollars for 256GB, 2,199 dollars for 512GB, 2,599 dollars for 1TB and 3,199 dollars for 2TB. The phone still launches on Friday 23 October. Apple has said nothing about supply or the dates.

How fast did the dates slip?

Very fast, though the outlets saw slightly different mornings. Macworld's live blog says the order page opened at 8:07am Eastern. Unlocked 256GB models first showed 1 to 8 December, then 8 to 15 December, and by 8:21am every model showed 15 to 22 December. By about 8:37am the estimate had reached 25 January, for every colour, capacity and carrier option. Macworld says it never saw an October or November date from Apple.

The Mac Observer has a different account of the first minutes. It reports that buyers who ordered the moment the store opened kept the original 23 October delivery, and that the January date appeared by 5:30am Pacific, which is 8:30am Eastern. Both can be true for different buyers on a page that was changing by the minute, and neither outlet says how many orders went through before the slip.

Outside Apple's US store

The other dates come from Macworld's checks and readers, and nobody else has reported them yet:

• UK: the Star White 256GB model showed 14 to 21 December on Apple's store.
• Germany: mid-December, according to Macworld's sister site Macwelt.
• T-Mobile: late October, at 8:50am Eastern.
• AT&T and Verizon: November, for their own subscribers.
• Best Buy: still listing 23 October, but only with a new or replaced AT&T or Verizon line.

In stores, MacRumors says some Apple Stores may have walk-in stock on 23 October but expects very little. Apple's store page tells buyers to check back on Saturday 24 October to reserve a pickup, which Macworld reads as small daily deliveries to each store.

A day-one iOS 27.1 update

Whenever it arrives, the phone will want an update first. MacRumors reported on 13 October that the Duo ships with iOS 27.1 build 24A94232, and that Apple released a newer build, 24A94425, on 12 October. Apple has not said what the newer build fixes. MacRumors does not say how it learned the shipping build.

Our take

Macworld calls this the furthest iPhone pre-order slip it has seen, and it should not surprise anyone. Weeks ago an unconfirmed Chinese report put iPhone Duo assembly yields only just above 60 per cent, and 9to5Mac now cites a Nikkei Asia report of only a few hundred units a day. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman had already warned that stock would stay limited even as Apple filled its stores with demo units. Today's dates are the first real measure of how limited.

What a shipping estimate cannot tell us is why. A January date fits huge demand, a tiny first batch, or both, and Apple has not said how many phones it had. The estimate is also cautious by design: Apple usually quotes a date it expects to beat, and Macworld expects some orders to arrive a week or two early. The number that matters is JP Morgan's forecast of 8.5 million iPhone Duo sales in the December quarter. If new orders cannot be filled before late January, much of that has to come from orders already placed, and Apple's results in January will show whether it did.

For anyone who has not ordered, APPDOOK thinks the carriers are worth checking before Apple's own store, since T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon were quoting earlier dates this morning. Those dates come with a contract and may not hold. Also keep an eye on Apple's pickup page from 24 October, because a store allocation can arrive well before a January delivery.

Do not chase the resale market. 9to5Mac counted dozens of pre-orders on eBay at up to 5,200 dollars, and anything offering a Duo sooner than Apple can is the territory where a fake iPhone Duo pre-order page was already serving an iPhone exploit. Buy from Apple, a carrier or a known retailer, or wait.