Pre-orders for the iPhone Duo officially start this Friday, but if you want to get your hands on Apple’s foldable as soon as humanly possible, there are a few things you can do to try to minimize these inevitable delays. We already have a list of different tips and tricks that you can use to secure your pre-order, and probably the most important thing is to prepare everything.
Apple’s loose duo owners lined up their entire purchase before pre-orders open this Friday (October 16) at 8 a.m. ET / 5 a.m. PT. This doesn’t let you skip the line in any meaningful way, but it does let you go through the entire ordering process early — effectively saving your iPhone Duo order in your cart ready to check out later.
This might not seem like much, but when you’re fighting against legions of people (and scalpers) trying to secure iPhone Duos for themselves at the same time, every second you save could mean knocking days (or weeks) off your delivery estimate.
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How to prepare your iPhone Duo pre-order
There is nothing special about the way this process works. You simply go to the Apple Store website and work your way through a shopping page just as you would with any iPhone model. This means choosing things like color, storage level, carrier and AppleCare plan, while also securing trade-in quotes and organizing how you’ll pay.
The last part is probably the biggest time saver. If you don’t intend to pay for your device in full, you’ll have to jump through all the financial hoops involved in applying for a finance or leasing plan. This is something you may not be prepared for otherwise, and this way you can get approved beforehand.
Heck, even those of you who plan the entire purchase on a credit card can save yourself the stress of quickly entering all those numbers on Friday morning. Most importantly, this process also gets you through the verification stage, and as we saw with the PS5 restock fiasco of five years ago, being forced into that process can be the difference between securing a unit and not.
things to remember
There are some things that process does not do, however. The main thing to remember is that preparing for a pre-order is not the same as actually pre-ordering. You must return to the Apple Store to complete the checkout process after 8 a.m. ET on Friday, October 16. You’re also under no obligation to actually complete the purchase, and if you decide to pre-order an iPhone Duo, you simply can’t.
This preparation process also doesn’t seem to take into account whether your credit card is at or close to your credit limit. My monthly credit limit is (by choice) about $300 less than the price of an iPhone Duo, not counting the cost of carrier activation or AppleCare+. But the pre-order preparation process was happy to take my details, and American Express didn’t flag any problems during the process.
Needless to say, you should make sure that your purchase is not rejected, or much of this effort will be wasted.
If this doesn’t happen, you can always try to secure an iPhone Duo from someone else. AT&T and Xfinity Mobile are among the carriers that have announced pre-order deals for the iPhone Duo, and if your delivery estimate is too far in the future, you can always try your luck in line at your nearest Apple Store on October 23.
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