7 years after the first Galaxy Fold of Samsung, Apple has launched its long-awaited iPhone folding. And as happened to the South Korean company in 2019, there are an undetermined number of users, although not small, who have found that the durability of the folding screen is reducing to a few hours. And this is the most expensive iPhone that Apple has released so far, with a price in Spain ranging from 2,339 euros with 256 GB up to 3,839 euros with 2 TB of storage.
According to The Verge, complaints about broken screens began to appear on the Reddit forum throughout this weekend after Apple put the device on sale last Friday. The reported damages They are similar and appear next to the hinge, from which bright lines run across the bottom of the right side of the screen. This medium and others have named the controversy as ‘Crackgate’.
An Australian user has reported what happened to his phone in these terms:
‘I had had my iPhone Duo for about six hours and probably I had opened it less than 20 times. I was showing it to a friend and, when I opened it, I noticed something in the internal hinge area, under the screen. When I continued to open it, I heard a crack and the screen broke right along the hinge. There were no marks or damage to the surface of the inner screen or outer hinge to indicate that anything had become trapped or damaged.’
iPhone Duo screen cracked within 6 hours of ownership
by u/Midnight_Slump in iPhoneDuo
According to him, an Apple Store replaced the device with ‘a brand new one on the spot’. Other users have shared photographs and videos of similar failures, although there is no count to determine their extent.
The youtuber CuriousHagi He reproduced the breakage during some resistance tests and took the phone apart to investigate. Found a hinge link thinner than those above and belowbroken by a small notch, in addition to marks that suggest that the mechanism could have get stuck against the support plate.
The specialists of iFixit propose an explanation that could fit with the previous one. A central piece of the hinge may not lower enough when closing the phone, causing the screen to rest on it and concentrate too much pressure in one point.. An accordion-folded cable runs nearby that connects the two halves, although it does not have to be the reason for the problem.
iFixit Teardown Also Reveals how Apple hides the center fold. The nanotextured layer of the screen disperses light and softens reflections, making that gap less visible, but without physically eliminating it.
The breaks contrast with other resistance tests that have been carried out. Last week Tim Pan completed 11,500 openings and closingsincluding 1,000 at subzero temperatures, without breaking the screen, although the crease became much more visible. For her part, the journalist Joanna Stern reached 32,640 cycles in another test without appreciating significant deterioration.