As is now tradition for any new foldable phone, repair specialists at iFixit have torn open Apple's iPhone Duo and laid its internals bare on a table — and the findings may explain scattered reports of broken screens and cracking hinges on the device.
The device earned a 5 out of 10 repairability score, the best iFixit has given any foldable so far, though the group notes that bar remains low across the category. The internal screen's matte, nano-texture cover not only cuts glare but, under a microscope, reveals oval-shaped subpixels arranged at various angles, which iFixit believes are designed to scatter light and help mask the crease that runs down the middle of the folding display.
Easy fixes, and one expensive one
The outer nano-texture layer can be replaced without swapping the OLED panel underneath, a rare bit of good news for owners of a device where most display repairs remain, in iFixit's words, "an expensive nightmare." Dust did work its way into the USB-C port, speaker grilles and hinge during testing — making the hinge "a bit crunchy" — though iFixit found noticeably less dust intrusion than on rivals like Samsung's Z Fold8 or the Pixel 11 Pro Fold.
A theory for the broken-screen reports
Some iPhone Duo owners have reported an "audible crack" and screen damage after normal use, and iFixit's teardown offers a plausible explanation: the hinge mechanism is unusually complex, and part of it may sometimes fail to descend properly. An accordion-style cable passes directly over that spot, near the edge of the battery, which could concentrate pressure exactly where the damage has been reported. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the theory.
The findings arrive as foldable phones remain a small but closely watched corner of the smartphone market, where manufacturers are still working out basic durability questions years after the category's debut — and where Apple, as the newest major entrant, is under particular scrutiny for whether it can out-engineer problems that have dogged its rivals for years.