Apple's first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Duo, goes on sale Friday, and the company's marketing chief says shoppers who show up at stores may be in luck. Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of marketing, discussed demand and in-store availability in a new interview with TechRadar.
The device's pre-order period was described as messy, leaving many would-be buyers hoping to pick one up in person instead. Joswiak suggested that Apple anticipated that. "We didn't ship them all away during the pre-order, we have them available at the stores, we're excited," Joswiak said, adding: "I'm sure we'll have some happy customers."
Joswiak also pointed to the response from the previous week's pre-order window. "I think you saw the pre-order demand last week was extraordinary," the executive said. "People got it. They understood what we were doing."
The comments line up with a statement Apple gave 9to5Mac earlier this week. In it, the company confirmed that stores would carry "limited" iPhone Duo availability for walk-in customers. Joswiak's remarks effectively reinforce that some shoppers will leave with a device on launch day.
Walk-in availability applies in a specific list of markets: the United States, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Macao, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom. In Italy, most stores will also have units.
Apple has not said how many iPhone Duo units each location will have beyond describing the supply as limited. Customers hoping to buy without a pre-order will therefore be relying on what individual stores have available.
Joswiak is scheduled to be at Apple's Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York for the launch. Other Apple executives are likely to attend as well, including CEO John Ternus.
