Shipments of the iPhone Duo have started arriving to customers, and a small number of early owners are already reporting display failures with their units. As MacRumors first reported, some affected phones have developed cracks or light lines along the inner screen, with the damage near the hinge.
Reports of display failures have come from Australia, the US, Canada and China. An Australian owner said his display cracked after less than 20 drops, despite no visible damage beforehand. Apple has replaced the device, but it’s still far too early to know if these reports point to a broader hardware problem or simply a handful of defective units.
The location of the damage is consistent in all reports
What interests me more is that some of the reported failures seem to be around a similar point near the hinge. One Reddit user suggested that the inner screen could be clamped around that area. People in the comments also floated other possibilities, including assembly tolerances or a faulty hinge component, especially since at least one reported failure occurred while the phone was being opened instead of closed.
MacRumors also notes that some reviewers have repeatedly folded the Duo without running into display problems, so there is no indication yet that any unit is vulnerable.
Collapsibles have always been heavy hardware
I’m not entirely surprised to see some first-generation iPhone duos running into trouble. Samsung, one of the pioneers of modern foldables, has spent years refining its hinges, display structure and durability over successive Galaxy Z Fold generations. Even after all this, display failures have still been reported on the Galaxy Z Fold 2, Fold 3, Fold 4, and as recently as the Z Fold 7.
For now, a few defective iPhone Duos aren’t enough to call this a design flaw. The situation becomes more worrisome if additional faults always appear on the same part of the hinge. Apple has yet to publicly address these specific display failure reports. Until it does, or significantly more cases surface, there simply isn’t enough evidence to know whether we’re looking at an early batch of defective phones or something more fundamental.