A survey of 9to5Mac Readers who were lucky enough to receive their iPhone Duo in the first few days show that 30% of them returned it for a refund.
While this could be considered bad news for the future of the device, I personally don’t find it surprising or worrying…
Following a report from The edge Regarding iPhone Duo buyers who chose to return the device for a refund within Apple’s 14-day “no questions asked” period, we thought it would be interesting to get an idea of how many people were able to do so.
9to5Mac readers were still likely to have swiped their fingers over the pre-order button for the best chance of receiving an early delivery, with the first of them having reached the end of the 14-day window. We are asking those of you who fall into this category to let us know if you kept or returned the device.
With almost 6,000 votes in total, the results showed that almost a third of you returned your Duo.
For any other device, this would be a disastrous rate of return. For the Duo, on the other hand, I don’t think it’s very surprising.
As we noted yesterday, Apple described the iPhone Duo as “the most transformative change to the iPhone since the original.” The magnitude of this change manifests itself in a variety of ways, from the weight of the device to the change in the aspect ratio of the front screen and a whole new way of using an iPhone.
Add to that the extremely high price, and I always suspected that a significant number of iPhone Duo buyers would view it as an experience rather than a committed purchase. Our own Ryan Christoffel is an example of this “try and see” attitude. A week later, he came to the interim conclusion that it probably wasn’t for him.
For those who decided to return it, several readers shared their reasons.
“I returned it – I can’t get back to Touch ID.”
“I returned it. Cameras are essential to me.”
“I want to like it, but I just can’t. It’s distracting and the exterior screen is way too small.”
“I flipped it. Not for me. I don’t want to open the phone every time I want a bigger screen and Apple has made the outer screen much less usable than it should be with that stupid permanent dock. I also use my phones left-handed.”
“While on vacation in Morocco, we spent a night camping in the Sahara Desert. I was extremely careful with the phone and tried to avoid using it in the sand. However, on the second day, when I opened it inside the tent, I heard a crunching sound coming from the hinge. Sand had somehow gotten inside. I tried everything I could to clean it, but nothing worked. The interior screen still worked perfectly, but the phone no longer opened completely. Even worse, when I tried to close it, I had to force it shut.
For me personally, it couldn’t be my only phone, given the priority I give to the device as a camera, but I still want it. Given the continued extended delivery times – with random checks pointing to late January shipping – I don’t think Apple has much to worry about here.
FTC: We use automatic, revenue-generating affiliate links. More.
Gn tech
