I’ve never wanted a phone as much as the iPhone Duo, but at $2,000, I just can't go there — and I'm left wondering who's going to buy Apple's remarkable-looking foldable

Surprise! Apple unveiled its first foldable phone — the iPhone Duo — at its big September event last week.

The fact that we knew for months (if not years) it was coming made the “Surprise” in Apple’s “Surprise and Shine” tagline feel slightly unnecessary, but there we go.

And yes, despite the cat being so far out of the bag that it had run down the street and disappeared over the horizon, I still felt a pang of excitement at the Duo's official unveiling, of the kind I haven’t felt for an iPhone reveal in many years.

This was a big announcement, and one that I think Apple really nailed.

Yet there’s one thing stopping me from smashing the proverbial piggy bank and throwing wads of money at Apple like Fry from Futurama .

And it’s made me wonder who exactly is going to buy the iPhone Duo once it lands this October .

A flawed first attempt (Image credit: Apple) As exciting as it is, the iPhone Duo is clearly a device for early adopters.

Like the iPhone Air before it, it’s an exciting yet compromised device that lacks many of the features found on more affordable models.

You only get two cameras versus the three on the iPhone 18 Pro , for example, despite that device costing almost half the price of the iPhone Duo.

There’s no Action button, either, nor Face ID , with Touch ID making a somewhat anachronistic comeback and offering a weaker seal on your device than Apple’s facial recognition tech — a bizarre step for a company as obsessed with user security as Apple.

Of course, those Apple fans who do end up buying the iPhone Duo will clearly be willing to see past these drawbacks and, ultimately, be more concerned with the experience of using the device — and Apple has always excelled at making its products seem fun and stylish to use.

Remember the original iPhone? It came without video recording, without 3G connectivity, without third-party apps, and with subpar battery life.

Yet none of that stopped it from completely revolutionizing the smartphone industry, with Apple’s rivals quickly realizing they could never go back to the old way of doing things.

The iPhone Duo has the potential to do the same thing.