Apple’s first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, only officially went on sale yesterday, 10/23, and screen-cracking cases have already appeared surprisingly quickly. Not only have people on overseas Reddit and MacRumors forums been posting photos of cracked screens, with the damage almost always concentrated near the hinge on the inner screen, but an actual Australian victim also came forward to share that the iPhone Duo’s screen cracked after fewer than 20 folds and unfolds after he got it. Fortunately, Apple directly replaced it with a new unit.
iPhone Duo reportedly suffers screen cracking on launch day! An Australian user opened and closed it fewer than 20 times before the inner screen cracked along the hinge.
According to foreign media MacRumors According to a report, an Australian iPhone Duo user shared on Reddit that he had had the phone for only about 6 hours, during which he had opened and closed it fewer than 20 times, so he had not used it very frequently. However, just as he was showing the phone to a friend, while opening the screen, he felt that something seemed wrong at the inner hinge—the area underneath the screen. Then, as he continued opening it further, he heard a very distinct cracking sound, and the inner screen cracked directly along the hinge:
Image source: Reddit
He particularly emphasized that before this, there were no scratches or damage on the inner screen surface or the external hinge, and there was no visible sign of any foreign object being stuck.
Later he took the phone to an Apple Store, and Apple replaced it with a new one on the spot. MacRumors speculates that Apple will likely take back such faulty units to analyze the cause of the damage as a reference for improving production going forward.
iPhone Duo screen cracked within 6 hours of ownership
byu/Midnight_Slump iniPhoneDuo
This unit in Australia isn’t the only case either. After it went on sale, multiple photos and videos of screen damage began appearing on Reddit’s iPhone Duo discussion forum and the MacRumors forums; the damage was almost always located on the crease of the inner display, and in most cases a row of abnormally bright pixel lines appeared on one side of the screen:
Image source: Reddit
There are also many photos from China, where netizens captured multiple demo units that appear to have screen damage, likewise concentrated around the hinge:
Image source: Reddit
However, it is unclear what caused the screens to crack based on the photos in these posts, so there is no way to directly determine that all these iPhone Duos broke under normal use.
Here are the several cases I mentioned earlier
byu/Bitter_Offer7123 iniPhoneDuo
Some users may worry whether this is a design issue. Based on the information currently available, it is not yet possible to draw a conclusion.
On the first day the iPhone Duo went on sale, a large number of users received their phones, so a certain proportion of defective units was inevitable—especially since this is the first foldable iPhone. The backgrounds in most of the photos of the Chinese demo units above are unclear, so the possibility of human-caused damage cannot be ruled out either.
Before launch, many YouTubers and tech channels stress-tested the screen. For example, Yingshi Jufeng used special equipment to test the foldable iPhone Duo over 10,000 times, and the screen had no issues at all—it still worked normally:
Australian users, however, were simply given replacement units, which looks more like standard warranty handling and does not mean Apple has confirmed a systemic product defect; the MacRumors report also does not mention an official response from Apple. If you have already bought it, hinge failures under normal use are covered by a one-year warranty.
Source: KOCPC Chinese