Apple scraps a shorter Apple Pencil for the iPhone Duo as analysts size up the $1,999 foldable

Apple developed a shorter Apple Pencil to launch alongside the iPhone Duo and then scrapped it, citing "technical problems ahead of mass production," MacRumors reported on September 20. The foldable will ship supporting the existing USB-C Apple Pencil instead. Pre-orders open October 16 and the device launches October 23.

The Duo itself was unveiled at Apple's "Surprise and Shine" event on September 9, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro. It is a book-style device with a 5.4-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch inner display with a minimal crease, built on a titanium frame with a custom hinge, an A20 Pro chip and IP68 rating. Pricing starts at $1,999 for the 256-gigabyte model and rises to $3,199 for two terabytes, making it the most expensive iPhone Apple has ever sold.

This is the first launch cycle run by John Ternus, who succeeded Tim Cook as CEO on September 1, and the framing around it is deliberately large: Yahoo Finance calls the Duo the biggest change to the iPhone's design in nearly 20 years. The near-term numbers are more modest. The same reporting expects only about 6 million Duo units and notes the global foldable market could account for less than 3% of smartphone sales in 2026.

On share, the specific projection on record comes from Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies, who expects Apple to take 20% to 25% of the foldable market in 2026, rising to 35% to 40% in 2027. That is a meaningful position in a category that is still small, not a claim on the phone market. For AAPL, trading near $337.14 and roughly flat on the session, the Duo is a product-cycle story rather than a revenue event this year, and the things worth watching are pre-order demand from October 16, whether the $3,199 top configuration finds buyers, and the first hard sell-through data after October 23.