Hours after the iPhone Duo launched last Friday, people reported that the interior screens of some new foldable phones were already broken. The problem was similar in many photos shared on social media: some sort of glitch or crack appeared in the middle of the screen above the hinge, with lines appearing on the right side of the screen. On Monday, Apple acknowledged a “problem” and said it was replacing the damaged units, without going into detail about the number of broken phones reported so far.
So what is really going on?
Shahram Mokhtari, the lead teardown tech at iFixit, actually took apart the iPhone Duo and has a pretty good idea of the potential cause, telling The edge that this is due to a problem at the hinge, where a series of gears, springs and joints work together to allow the device to 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.
In the problematic area, it appears that the flexible inner screen is pressing against part of the hinge. That interior screen is already “extremely sensitive,” he says: If you take a pickaxe or sharp tool and poke the edges of the screen, “you’re going to break that screen.” If you look at photos of damaged Duos on social media, there’s often a black spot where the damage is concentrated on the screen, and that’s where the metal hits the screen, Mokhtari says.
You can see a visual representation of what Mokhtari is talking about in iFixit Duo’s written and video teardowns, which reveal where the hinge transitions, as the center hinge bracket leaves room for a crossover flex cable, creating multiple edges that could ultimately be the culprit. The damage iFixit found is at a point where the center support bar doesn’t always descend far enough while the screen bends, possibly creating a stress “hot spot” between the flat bar and the curved screen inside a closed iPhone Duo.
Apple says the problem affects a “small number” of Duo units, and Mokhtari says: “In terms of numbers, we don’t know. Apple certainly has all the data here. And I suspect they know more than they’re telling us as well.” But he notes that because the foldable displays are so delicate, a “number” of them will fail, as will a number of the hinges, because they are also “extremely complicated and delicate.” And while Apple isn’t recalling the Duos, “If in three months we’re still seeing the same type of failure, then it’s a more widespread problem, and that could lead to a recall,” says Mokhtari.
Mokhtari points out that since this is the first generation of the iPhone Duo, it’s the first time Apple engineers have gotten data on the hinge, and he says that “I guarantee you” that Apple will rethink what’s at fault here for its next-generation foldable. He also notes that, generally speaking, “phones seem to be in people’s hands and people are using them, and they’re not having any problems.”
Gn tech
