iPhone Duo Cracks Put Its Hinge Under Scrutiny
iPhone Duo Cracks Put Its Hinge Under Scrutiny
The iPhone Duo went on sale with the usual first-day excitement — and an unwelcome test of Apple’s first foldable’s durability. Even before the official launch, several owners had posted images and videos of inner displays splitting at or near the hinge, often accompanied by bright lines on one side of the screen.
One Australian owner said the failure came after roughly six hours with the phone and fewer than 20 openings. “As I continued opening it, I heard an audible crack, and the screen broke right along the hinge,” the user wrote, adding that there were no marks on either the inner display or outer hinge suggesting an object had been trapped there. Apple reportedly replaced that handset immediately, but did not respond to a request for comment.
The common location of the cracks has shifted attention from isolated mishaps to the Duo’s folding hardware. Reports across social media and the device’s Reddit community describe hinges catching or failing, sometimes only hours after purchase, with the break appearing in the same area.
YouTuber CuriousHagi attempted to recreate the damage in durability testing, then dismantled the phone. His teardown found a complicated system built around a gear-like central hinge and several linking pieces. The suspected culprit was a middle link thinner than those above and below it; it snapped at a small notch, the point where it appeared weakest.
He also found marks where the hinge met the support plate, suggesting a point at which the mechanism may bind. That is not proof of a manufacturing-wide defect, and the number of affected phones remains unclear. But the early accounts and teardown reach the same uncomfortable conclusion: the Duo’s most important engineering feature may also be its most fragile.
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