Apple retail staff must warn against walk-in iPhone Duo purchases

Some Apple store employees have been asked to warn customers against visiting to buy an iPhone Duo without a pre-order on Friday, October 23.

Apple Store employees said MacRumors that they have been informed that there will likely be no ‌iPhone Duo‌ stock available for walk-in purchases on launch day. Staff were tasked with discouraging customers who had not pre-ordered from coming in expecting to purchase the device, warning them that they would be disappointed.

Apple’s online store asks customers to check again on Saturday, October 24 for pickup availability. Pickup reservations were briefly available when pre-orders opened before the option was disabled.

The October 24 message does not guarantee that stock will be available that day, and it remains unclear how firm the warning shared with employees is and whether it applies globally. If the guidelines are firm and largely sustainable, they close a potential avenue for customers hoping to circumvent the system’s long online waiting times, at least in the stores affected.

Warnings about a forced launch began long before Apple announced the ‌iPhone Duo‌. At the beginning of September, Nikkei Asia reported that production had only reached a few hundred devices per day at the end of August. Further production problems emerged in late September.

Earlier this month, BloombergMark Gurman of , said that Apple at one point believed that production constraints could push the start of sales to November. The company then built up enough inventory to launch on October 23, although supply remained very limited.

The extent of the shortage became clear when pre-orders opened earlier this week. Shipping estimates surpassed launch day within minutes, and within 30 minutes, every setup on Apple’s US online store was showing shipping estimates for January 25th. The device is now effectively sold out for Christmas via Apple’s online store.

Apple later described the request as “simply extraordinary” in a statement to the Financial Timesadding that it was working to get the devices to customers as quickly as possible. Apple has not publicly said whether any stores will have stock for walk-in purchases on launch day.

The ‌iPhone Duo‌ starts at $1,999 in the US, with the first pre-order deliveries scheduled for October 23.