The iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable iPhone, went on sale today, and a handful of early owners are already reporting cracked inner screens. The posts, mostly on Reddit and first from buyers in China and Australia, where the phone arrived first, show damage in almost the same spot on every unit: along the hinge, where the inner display folds.
What owners are reporting
One of the most detailed accounts comes from a Reddit user in Australia who says they had the phone for about six hours and had opened it fewer than 20 times. While opening it to show a friend, they felt something around the internal hinge underneath the screen, then heard an audible crack, and the inner display broke right along the hinge. They say there were no marks on the screen’s surface or on the outside of the hinge to suggest something had been caught in it.
According to The Verge, the problem looks similar across the affected units: a fault on the inner screen along the hinge and a strange bright line, or lines, across the right side of the display. Another Reddit thread collected pictures of several damaged Duos, many of them shared from Chinese communities, and a separate post includes a video of yet another one.
How Apple is handling it
The Australian owner says the Apple Store replaced the phone with a brand-new one on the spot. Apple has not commented publicly on the reports, and there is no official word yet on what is causing the cracks or how many phones are affected.
Is it a design flaw?
It’s too early to say. Android Authority points out that the damage appearing in nearly the same place on every unit is a reason for concern, but that it clearly isn’t happening to everyone. None of the reviews published earlier this week reported anything similar, and the long fold tests run by YouTuber Tim Pan and by Joanna Stern showed a crease and some hinge wear after thousands of folds, but no cracked screen. A faulty batch, or in some cases user error, are also possible explanations, and more reports, good or bad, are likely as more people get the phone over the coming days.
What to do if you just bought one
Open and close the phone gently in the first days, and check the inner screen along the hinge. If you see a line, a crack or anything unusual, take it to an Apple Store or contact Apple Support right away. Based on the first report, Apple is swapping affected phones on the spot, and every new iPhone comes with Apple’s limited warranty. We also covered what the first fold tests revealed about the iPhone Duo’s crease.
The bottom line
A few iPhone Duo inner screens have cracked along the hinge on launch day, in what looks like the same spot each time. It’s a small number of reports so far, Apple is replacing affected units, and there’s no evidence yet of a widespread defect, but it’s worth watching over the next few weeks.
Sources: The Verge, Android Authority
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