As iPhone Duo Cracked Screen Reports Surface, a New Teardown Shows a Possible Culprit

With official reviews out in the world, you might assume there’s little left to say about the iPhone Duo that hasn’t already been said. But this is a long-awaited Apple product we’re talking about, and ongoing scrutiny of this show-stealer of a device is not just desirable, it’s pretty much mandatory.

This is because, while we’ve loved using the device so far and think Apple’s first attempt at a foldable is admirable, some early iPhone Duo owners have reported problems with the screen.

We’re currently conducting our own testing on the screen, folding the iPhone Duo 900 times per hour with a custom-made machine to see how long its hinge will last. At the time of writing, it had passed 20,000 folds without issue, but other people with a Duo haven’t been so lucky. Most commonly, people have reported issues with display cracks and lines of faulty pixels appearing along the hinge, according to MacRumors and Reddit.

More from CNET

As quickly as the faults have come to light, repairability experts at iFixit think they might already have discovered the culprit. Using teardown footage, patents and CT scans it collected while breaking down the iPhone Duo to ascertain its repairability score, iFixit built a 3D hinge model to identify where things could be going wrong.

What it found was that the breaks seemed to be occurring in the same place: just below the cable that connects the two screens, in a spot where a bunch of different connectors all meet.

“All those edges meeting in this spot mean lots of possible culprits,” said iFixit in a blog post. “That center pivot looks different from the rest of the hinge. Could it be getting stuck? Could something else be getting stuck?

“Here’s one possible answer. In our closing simulation… the center support bar fails to drop far enough. The screen’s curved fold comes down onto it, creating a small stress hotspot near the reported break location.”

iFixit has created an interactive CT scan that allows you to play around with the Duo and see how the hinge supports, cable, and nearby components fit beneath the display.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to request for comment about the faults, but anyone experiencing issues with their iPhone Duo should be protected under warranty at this stage. Apple will charge $999 for inner screen replacement at a later date — whether that makes an AppleCare subscription a worthwhile investment is a choice only you can make.

The “most repairable foldable”

Any reports of screen problems are obviously bad news for Apple, but the company does also have reason to be proud of itself.

iFixit has declared the iPhone Duo “the most repairable foldable smartphone we’ve ever taken apart.” The phone has scored a 5/10 repairability rating, which might not be as impressive as the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max’s scores of 7/10, but still makes Apple the industry leader in terms of foldable repairaibility.

In its teardown, iFixit called out the trim surrounding the Duo’s screen as being particularly easy to pull away in contrast to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8’s trim, which “crumbled” as it was removed. The flat layout of the Duo’s components also garnered praise from iFixit. Being able to access things like the cameras and logic board without having to take the whole device apart makes for a simpler repair if one of those individual components requires replacement.

iFixit also praised Apple’s electrically releasable adhesive, which can be used to easily remove the battery by passing a low voltage through it. This is an innovative repair technology that Apple pioneered and is also used across its other devices. It allows the cells to be removed without any bending or prying that could result in a puncture risk to the battery.

Finally, a key part of making tech more repairable is ensuring that the companies making the products also make instruction manuals and official parts accessible to people — whether they’re doing the repairs themselves at home, or taking them to a third-party repair shop. iFixit is still awaiting official parts from Apple, but it praised the company for publishing its repair manual so quickly.

Major points were deducted for the hinge and inner display — both of which would be difficult and time consuming to repair.

“For a first attempt, Apple has done well,” said iFixit. “The easy battery removal alone is something we’d like to see on every foldable. But of course we’ll hold Apple accountable for making replacement parts available, and here’s hoping that the next generation of the Duo features a more affordable inner display and a more accessible hinge repair.”