What happened
Apple has begun restricting how many iPhone Duo units a single customer can buy. According to 9to5Mac, the limit is two per customer in the United States, the United Kingdom and other markets. It arrived after estimated delivery dates moved into January of next year only minutes after pre-orders opened.
Engadget reported that it tested the limit itself. Its staff tried to put more than two units in a cart on Apple's online stores in the US, the UK, Japan and Spain, and each site returned a warning. 9to5Mac said it ran the same test in those markets and got the same result.
The notice reads: "A maximum of 2 iPhone Duo can be purchased per customer. Please adjust the total quantity of iPhone Duo in your order before checking out." The site also indicates that the cap holds whichever configuration a buyer chooses, so a shopper cannot get around it by mixing different models.
Why Apple appears to be acting
Apple has not been quoted in the source material explaining the change. 9to5Mac wrote that the company is almost certainly acting to reduce scalping. That is when people buy large quantities of a hard-to-get product so they can resell it at a steep markup.
The site said it had already seen dozens of iPhone Duo units listed on eBay by resellers, and some asking prices were above $5,000. Those listings appeared while Apple's own delivery estimates stretched out for months, which leaves ordinary buyers with little supply.
A familiar playbook
Limiting purchases of a scarce iPhone is not new for Apple. 9to5Mac noted that the company has done so in China on several occasions, with caps on walk-in purchases at retail stores as well as on online orders. In the US, the first example it cited was the iPhone 5 in 2012.
The report also pointed out how hard it is to stop large-scale resale operations. Organized groups, it said, can use many virtual credit card numbers, email addresses and delivery addresses to slip past per-customer limits. Others pay individuals to place orders for them. A simple quantity cap on a shopping cart does not stop that kind of effort by itself.
Even so, 9to5Mac described the move as a welcome attempt to shrink the problem. It added that Apple may also be using behind-the-scenes checks to spot and reject more sophisticated bulk orders, though the source did not say whether that is the case.
What buyers can expect
The source material indicates the launch is still being sorted out. 9to5Mac said some customers have seen their estimated delivery dates improve. Other coverage collected alongside the report included a Verizon announcement that it had opened iPhone Duo pre-orders, and a Daring Fireball post listing estimated arrival dates for readers who pre-ordered. A Yahoo Finance headline said Apple had given a major update on the folding phone after it sold out in minutes.
For people who have not yet ordered, 9to5Mac suggested a walk-in purchase at an Apple store may be worth trying if one is nearby, though it advised against going on the first day. The outlet also noted that Apple has announced a special event for October 28, but the source does not connect that event to the iPhone Duo supply situation.
