A Korean YouTuber who cracked an iPhone Duo’s inner screen during stress testing says he found a snapped hinge link inside when he took the phone apart. CuriousHagi published the teardown on YouTube on 25 October, two days after owners began reporting folding screens that cracked along the hinge, as The Verge reported.
His finding is one creator’s view from one phone, broken on purpose, and he says himself that the true cause is still unknown. Apple has not commented publicly, and 9to5Mac says “the scale of the issue remains unclear”.
In brief
- CuriousHagi found a snapped middle hinge link, thinner than the links above and below it, in an iPhone Duo he cracked under stress.
- 9to5Mac says it has seen “about ten unique instances” of owners’ inner screens cracking along the hinge.
- Apple’s hinge support page says there are no software remedies and lists inner display replacement as the fix.
What CuriousHagi found inside
He first cracked the screen in a durability video posted on 24 October. Recounting it, he says he bent the phone backward while “deliberately stressing it”, and it then “got stuck on something and wouldn’t open past a certain angle”, he says, and pushing harder cracked the inner screen. In his three-minute follow-up he notes that “apparently units that were being used normally are breaking in the same spot too”.
When he opened the phone, the hinge behind the crack “turned out to be snapped”. He describes the hinge as a gear-type hinge with two kinds of link-type hinges. The broken part is the middle link among those meshing with the upper support plate. It is thinner than the links above and below it, and it broke at a notch, its weakest point.
He also found a vertical line on the upper support plate that “seems to have been made during manufacturing”, with heavy crush marks along it on the broken side. His suggestion is that the parts “ended up meshing wrong” and could not withstand the force of opening, so the weakest point gave way, and the force of it snapping struck the lower display, where he found impact marks in the same spot.
He stops short of a verdict. “There was nothing that could have caught on the broken hinge,” he says, and the dent “doesn’t look like the starting point of the problem, so the real cause is something else”. He says more testing is planned. His advice to owners who feel strong resistance at a certain angle is to stop forcing the phone open and consider visiting an Apple service centre.
The owner reports that came first
The reports began on launch day, 23 October, when MacRumors gathered photos shared on Reddit and its own forums. One owner in Australia said: “Had my iPhone Duo for about six hours and had probably opened it fewer than 20 times… I heard an audible crack, and the screen broke right along the hinge.” The Apple Store replaced the phone right away, MacRumors said. It also noted that some early reviewers’ folding tests showed no problems, and that some images from China showed demo units with unknown histories, where user damage could be a factor.
By 25 October 9to5Mac said: “We’ve seen about ten unique instances so far.” In each case the inner screen cracks down the centre line of the hinge, leaving a horizontal block of pixels stuck glowing white. A couple of owners said theirs cracked during first setup. Most got a straight replacement at an Apple Store. 9to5Mac said carrier customers may have fared worse; one was told “they must have dropped the phone” and would have to pay.
The iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable iPhone, starts at $1,999, and fixing its inner screen costs $999 without AppleCare+, according to Apple’s estimates. It went on sale worldwide on 23 October, including at Apple Covent Garden in London, according to Apple Newsroom, after Apple opened app submissions for the device earlier in the month and committed up to $100m to US titanium for it.
What Apple’s own pages say
Apple’s newsroom has no statement on the cracks; its latest iPhone Duo item is the launch post. 9to5Mac says it has asked Apple for comment, and that “officially, Apple has not given any guidance on how users are expected to handle the phone”.
Apple’s hinge troubleshooting page for the iPhone Duo, published on launch day, lists symptoms including a device that “won’t open or close completely” and a “bent or broken hinge”. It says: “There aren’t diagnostics or software remedies for hinge issues.” The repair step it gives is to “replace the inner display assembly”.
On cost, Apple’s UK repair page says its limited warranty covers “manufacturing issues for one year” but “doesn’t cover accidental damage”. Apple’s UK and US stores both allow returns within 14 calendar days. In the UK, Apple’s consumer-law page says buyers may also claim a free repair from the seller for goods that fail to conform with the contract of sale, for six years from delivery in England and Wales and five in Scotland. Its UK warranty says those rights sit alongside the one-year cover.
Why a single snapped link settles little
A teardown of one deliberately stressed phone can show how a hinge broke, but not why owners’ phones are cracking in ordinary use. CuriousHagi’s own account points away from a simple answer: the crush marks may be a symptom, and the starting point is still unknown. Ten or so reports also say little about how common the problem is. Until Apple or other repairers explain more, the thin middle link is a lead, not a finding.
Why the warranty question matters more than the cause
For owners, the practical issue is who pays. Apple’s warranty excludes accidental damage, and the carrier customer told they must have dropped the phone shows how a cracked fold can be read either way. Apple’s estimated $999 inner-screen repair makes that judgement expensive. UK buyers have a longer route through consumer law, but it runs through the seller, not Apple.
For more on Apple hardware, see TSN’s Consumer Devices coverage. CuriousHagi went looking for the cause and found a broken link, along with his own warning that it is not the whole answer.
Sources
- CuriousHagi (궁금하기), “iPhone Duo display issue: cause found” (Korean title), YouTube, 25 October 2026: youtube.com
- CuriousHagi, “iPhone Duo durability is strange” (Korean title), YouTube, 24 October 2026: youtube.com
- Apple Support, “iPhone Duo Troubleshooting Hinge Issues”, 23 October 2026: support.apple.com
- Apple Support, “iPhone Duo Repair Manual”, 23 October 2026: support.apple.com
- Apple Newsroom, “iPhone Duo arrives at Apple Store locations worldwide”, 23 October 2026: apple.com
- Apple, Service and Repair for iPhone (UK): support.apple.com
- Apple, Apple One (1) Year Limited Warranty (UK and Ireland): apple.com
- Apple, Apple Products and Consumer Laws in the United Kingdom: apple.com
- Apple Store UK, Returns and Refunds help: apple.com
- Apple Store US, Returns and Refunds Policy: apple.com
- The Verge, Terrence O’Brien, “A YouTuber dissected an iPhone Duo and thinks he found the cause of crackgate”, 25 October 2026: theverge.com
- 9to5Mac, Benjamin Mayo, “Some iPhone Duo displays are cracking, seemingly all in the same way”, 25 October 2026: 9to5mac.com
- MacRumors, Juli Clover, “Crackgate? iPhone Duo Owners Report Screens Breaking Along the Hinge”, 23 October 2026: macrumors.com
Related stories
- Fixing the iPhone Duo’s Inner Screen Will Cost $999 Without AppleCare+
- iPhone Duo apps: Apple opens submissions before 23 October launch
- Apple Commits Up to $100m to US Titanium for the iPhone Duo, Expands Qnity Deal
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