// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
Not everyone is loving their new iPhone Duo
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For most new relationships, two weeks probably isn’t enough time to decide if you’re ready for long-term commitment. But two weeks with a new phone? You probably know. The iPhone Duo launched just over two weeks ago, and that’s been enough time for a subset of day-one buyers who aren’t loving the phone to make a decision: It’s time to end things. Also, they wanted their $2,000 back.
This is to be expected, to an extent; the Duo just isn’t a phone for everyone. It’s an early adopter device — we called it “a messy, expensive good time” — and on top of that, the hinge appears to be suffering some first-gen growing pains. Despite all that, Apple seems to be selling Duos just fine, with new online orders projected to ship in January.
As Apple’s customary 14-day return window came to a close, I reached out to a few people to learn more about why they brought their new Duos back. Some of it felt familiar — the outer screen is small, the cameras aren’t great — but other reasons were a little more surprising. Like the fact that the Duo’s whole proposition as a two-in-one device is sometimes a con, not a pro.
“If I can have an iPad in my pocket, that would be great.” So thought Ben Seligson, a content creator, photographer, and now former iPhone Duo owner. After spending some time with the phone, he discovered that having a phone that’s also your iPad wasn’t always ideal. With two separate devices, Seligson told me, “Usually I’d throw a YouTube video on the iPad or throw a podcast up. And then I start cooking dinner and leave my iPad in one spot, but I’d have my phone in my pocket if I got a text, or I needed to set a timer or something like that.” With the Duo, the phone was also the iPad on the counter, so a quick reply became much more of an interruption.
“It didn’t feel like the same phone everyone’s had for the last 10 years.”