A YouTuber dissected an iPhone Duo and thinks he found the cause of crackgate

Skip to main contentA weak spot in the hinge may be failing and cracking iPhone Duo screens.A weak spot in the hinge may be failing and cracking iPhone Duo screens.by Oct 25, 2026, 8:16 PM UTCImage: u/Bitter_Offer7123Terrence O'Brien is the Verge’s weekend editor. He’s covered the tech industry for over 18 years and knows a thing or two about synths.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.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Terrence O'BrienThe Verge DailyA free daily digest of the news that matters most.