iPhone Duo Crackgate
Juli Clover (forum):
Some iPhone Duos are already experiencing hinge issues that cause display cracks, based on photos shared on Reddit and the MacRumors forums. Almost all of the display faults are right along the hinge, and most result in a line of bright pixels across one side of the screen.
Juli Clover (iFixit, Hacker News):
iFixit commented on some of the display failures people have been seeing, suggesting they could be caused by pressure, a trapped particle, repeated bending, or a manufacturing defect. It may not be that the display has physically snapped, because a wiring problem can cause the same effect.
Where most of the faulty units are experiencing issues, the hinge has a different shape. The failure spot is also near where the accordion cable passes by and where several edges meet, which could be leading to a concentration of stress in that spot.
Social media and the iPhone Duo subreddit are filled with reports of Apple’s foldable failing quickly and in spectacular fashion. Some users report having the phone for only a few hours before the hinge seems to catch on something, then audibly crack and break the screen. Tellingly, the cracks all seem to happen in the same place.
YouTuber CuriousHagi was able to reproduce the cracked screen during some durability testing of the iPhone Duo. Then he pulled it apart to try and find the culprit. What he found is that the Duo’s hinge is quite complex, consisting of a gear-like central hinge and two different types of linking hinges.
The piece that broke is one of the links in the middle of the phone that happens to be thinner than the links below or above it, and it snapped at a small notch where it would be weakest. He also found marks where the hinge met the support plate, indicating where it may have gotten caught.
In these cases, customers reported hearing a crunching sound when unfolding the phone, followed by a large crack forming along the center crease. Some users also experienced a white patch or other display malfunction on the right side of the screen.
[…]
Apple acknowledged the issue in a statement, saying it was “aware of an issue impacting the inner display on a small number of iPhone Duo units.”
It is our understanding that some of the images of alleged cracking are AI-generated, which makes it harder to determine the actual scope of the problem.
Many of the iPhone Duos experiencing issues cracked in the same place on the lower half of the inner display. The crack is along the hinge, and users say there is a stuck feeling and sometimes a popping noise just before the damage appears.
Previously:
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I had a need to purchase one on the 16th, mostly due to timing, and the earliest I could get one if ordering a month later ending up with a promised delivery date of...? It took 3 minutes to order, but with the nearest Apple Store being ~120 miles away I chose having it delivered. Three minutes, and my promised date is November 2-9, or pretty much next week.
Let's say I was one of the lucky ones (10 minutes later the shipping date was January 25). But, let's say I'm ultimately not that lucky... because I'm one of those (few? hard to say) who receives one with this issue. It clearly falls under a "standard" warranty. Does the fact I have Apple Care+ change anything? Will I be able to call on day #1 of discovering the issue and get a replacement without driving ~120 miles? Or, if I chose to drive that ~120 miles (of course, I pay for the gas), can I just walk into the Apple Store on day #2 and have them hand me an immediate replacement?
I'm not sweating this.... after all, I understood that my US$2200 investment for a version 1.0 device should be made with caution. One thing that is missing in every single one of the reported cases? The actual amount of damaged version 1 devices compared to undamaged ones. I don't expect to know this. I also do not expect to wait months for a replacement.
Calling this "Crackgate" isn't right. (And yes, this is the first time I read the term.) It evokes memories of "Antennagate" (hope I spelled it correctly) and the iPhone 4. You know, the one that Steve Jobs actually said something like "you are holding it wrong". That was due to a single hardware issue that impacted 100% of those models - and it wasn't something that existed in the 4 prior models. This? Name me a single iPhone model with a hinge. (Crickets chirping.) It's not systemic. And as long as Apple does right by me - preferably deliver a working iPhone Duo next week, but if there's this known issue for an unknown percentage and I received one replace it in a timely way - I'm good. No "gate" - or should I say, conspiracy (remember the first "gate"? It was prefixed with "water") going on here.
I'll follow up with the results if (when?) I receive mine here next week.
This one in particular is curious. I've seen a small number of repeating set of photos of the issue going around the internets, and social media in particular, usually from low grade tech "influencers", who all magically "got" the same issue and "took" a photo at the exact spot and angle. Some are using LLM generated photos to fake the issue, then neglecting to cover up the fake when they close the device and the photo/wallpaper moves to the outer screen. Many idiots out there.
So an issue obviously exists, but the prevalence of it so far seems dubious.
