// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
Here’s why the iPhone Duo’s hinge could be cracking the screen
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Inside Apple’s first folding iPhone, contact with the delicate inner screen could cause a stress ‘hotspot.’
Inside Apple’s first folding iPhone, contact with the delicate inner screen could cause a stress ‘hotspot.’
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Within hours of the iPhone Duo launch last Friday, people reported that the inner screen on some brand new foldable phones was already broken. The issue was similar across many photos shared on social media: some kind of issue or crack would appear in the middle of the screen above the hinge, with lines appearing on the right side of the display. On Monday, Apple acknowledged an “issue” and said it’s replacing damaged units, without going into much detail about how many broken phones have been reported so far.
Shahram Mokhtari, the lead teardown technician at iFixit, has actually taken apart the iPhone Duo and has a pretty good idea about the potential cause, telling The Verge that it’s due to an issue along the hinge, where a series of gears, springs, and joints work together to let the device close flat, while also trying to avoid creating a deeper crease by giving that screen space to bend more gently inside while it’s closed.
At the troublesome spot, it appears that the flexible inner screen is pushing up against a part of the hinge. That inner screen is already “extremely sensitive,” he says — if you took a pick or a sharp tool and poked at the edges of the screen, “you’re going to break that screen.” If you look at the pictures of damaged Duos on social media, there’s often a black spot where the damage is focused on the display, and that’s where the metal is hitting the screen, Mokhtari says.