Some Apple Retail employees have been told to warn customers not to come in to purchase an iPhone Duo without a pre-order on Friday, October 23.
Apple Store employees said so MacRumors who have been informed that there will likely be no stock of iPhone Duo available for purchases on launch day. Staff have been asked to discourage customers without pre-orders from turning up expecting to buy the device, warning them they will be disappointed.
Apple’s online store is telling customers to check back on Saturday, October 24 for pickup availability. Pickup reservations were available for a short time when pre-orders opened before the option was disabled.
The Oct. 24 message does not guarantee that the shares will be available that day, and it is unclear how firm the warning shared with employees is and whether it applies globally. If the guidelines are firm and widely disseminated, they will close a potential avenue for customers hoping to bypass the device’s long online wait times, at least in the affected stores.
Warnings about a limited launch began well before Apple announced the iPhone Duo. In early September, Nikkei Asia reported that production had reached only a few hundred devices per day as of late August. Further production problems emerged in late September.
Earlier this month, BloombergMark Gurman said Apple at one point believed manufacturing constraints might push the start of sales to November. The company subsequently assembled enough supplies to proceed with the October 23 launch, although supply remained very limited.
The extent of the shortage became apparent when pre-orders opened earlier this week. Delivery estimates went beyond launch day within minutes, and within 30 minutes, all configurations in Apple’s US online store were showing January 25 shipping estimates. The device is now actually sold out for Christmas via Apple’s online store.
Apple later described the demand as “nothing short of extraordinary” in a statement to Financial timesadding that work was being done to get the devices to customers as quickly as possible. Apple has not said publicly whether any stores will have stock for walk-in purchases on launch day.
The iPhone Duo starts at $1,999 in the US, with the first pre-order deliveries scheduled for October 23.
