iPhone Duo: inner screens crack within hours, and Apple acknowledges a problem with “a small number” of units

He felt something at the hinge, then heard a crack. About six hours after taking his iPhone Duo out of the box, and after fewer than twenty openings, an Australian buyer watched the inner screen of his phone break, with no sign of impact on the panel or the outer hinge, according to his account reported by TechSpot. The Apple Store swapped the device on the spot. His case has become the emblem of an affair social media has already dubbed “CrackGate”.

The first photos appeared on launch day, October 23, on Reddit and the MacRumors forums, from the United States, Australia and China. Another owner says the panel gave way before he had finished the initial setup. According to MacRumors, most cracks sit in the lower half of the screen, along the fold, and some users describe a sticking sensation, sometimes a popping noise, just before the damage. It often takes the form of a line of bright pixels running out from the fold.

Apple says “a small number” of units, with no figure

On Monday, October 26, Apple finally responded. “We are aware of an issue impacting the inner display on a small number of iPhone Duo units,” the company said in a statement picked up by 9to5Mac and MacRumors. Affected buyers should “contact AppleCare for a replacement.” AppleCare+ is not required, and those who bought their phone from a carrier should go directly to Apple, 9to5Mac says. The company adds that early user reaction has been “incredibly positive.”

What the statement leaves out matters as much: no cause, no number of devices, no planned fix. Apple did tell Bloomberg, according to Cult of Mac, that defective units fail quickly, which suggests that phones working after several days are not affected. In stores, replacements are being made, but stock is limited and some customers are waiting, according to MacRumors. One owner quoted by TechSpot was offered an express replacement by phone, with a hold for the phone’s full price and no delivery date.

The genuine also has to be told from the fake. MacRumors understands that some images of cracks circulating online are AI-generated, and 9to5Mac notes fabricated posts among testimonies that appear genuine. Some photos also seem to come from demo units in China, according to TechSpot, and the circumstances behind most are unclear. That makes the scale of the problem harder still to gauge: some Reddit users say their Duo works perfectly.

The hinge is in the frame, but no culprit is named

On Sunday, October 25, iFixit published its teardown, using CT scans and patents to build a 3D model of the hinge. The breaks cluster, the site says, “near the transition from the gap for the crossing flex cable to the central hinge support.” Several leads: a central bar that may not retract enough as the phone closes, or curved rails that may lift above the hinge plates, one of them sitting right where the damage is. iFixit does not settle the matter. It also lists a trapped particle, excess pressure, repeated bending, a manufacturing defect, or a wiring fault that would produce the same symptoms.

« The fact that so many Duos are showing screen damage in the same spot, though, is worth investigating. »

Shahram Mokhtari, lead teardown technician at iFixit, in a video published October 25 (quoted by Cult of Mac)

The site nonetheless gives the Duo a provisional repairability score of 5 out of 10, against 4 for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and the Pixel 11 Pro Fold: “the most repairable foldable smartphone we’ve seen so far, and it’s still going to be a bear to repair.” The inner screen and the hinge are the weak points. On the plus side, the hinge lets in less dust than Samsung’s and Google’s, a result iFixit called “encouraging,” even if some dust still reaches the moving parts.

Dust, as it happens, is what sank the device for YouTuber JerryRigEverything, according to MacRumors. In his test, dust got in through several points and overwhelmed the magnets that hold the phone shut. A bend test then left a permanent green line across the screen, which stopped responding. “I’ve been testing these folding phones since the first generation seven years ago – most do survive,” said Zack Nelson, who runs the channel. “The iPhone Duo did not.” It is a deliberately harsh test, whose conditions MacRumors does not detail, and nothing shows that it reproduces the everyday cracks.

What it costs, and what is unknown for Africa

Without coverage, replacing the inner screen costs €1,149 in France, according to Journal du Geek, which notes that breakage in normal use may also fall under the two-year legal guarantee of conformity, depending on the circumstances. In the United States, out-of-warranty repairs range from $49 to $1,499, according to Apple’s prices cited by TechSpot. By way of comparison, “Bendgate” (iPhone 6) and “Antennagate” (iPhone 4) affected every unit of the range, Cult of Mac recalls; nothing so far suggests the same here.

For buyers in West Africa, who can only import the Duo through resellers, Apple’s statement says nothing: it does not specify whether replacement applies outside the countries of official sale. Orders, meanwhile, are clogged: some deliveries are reportedly pushed back into 2027, according to TechSpot, which cites manufacturing problems and low yields. Whether the flaw lies in design, manufacturing or use will have to wait until Apple says so, or until other teardowns confirm it.