I agree with you that no one should have to buy a $1,000 phone and have to keep it no matter what if they don’t like it.
But that’s a different conversation from knowingly buying two phones at the same time, using them for days, and then returning the one you don’t want.
I bought an iPhone Air fully expecting to keep it, but after using it for a weekend I knew it wasn’t the phone for me, so I returned it and got a regular 17 yesterday. The difference is I bought the first phone in good faith thinking I would keep it, but then I was able to correct my mistake. It’s the first time I’ve ever returned a iPhone, and I’ve bought many over the years.
I would bet a large amount of money Apple as a company would not want every customer doing this. You might find a random employee who says this to you, but there is no way the company would fully endorse this behavior, as it’s wasteful and renders phones “used” just because someone wanted to try them out.
This is absolutely the type of behavior that causes companies to crack down and make return policies more restrictive and unfair to customers.