iFixit’s teardown of the iPhone Duo is up, revealing some interesting (and some worrisome) details about what it calls the most repairable foldable phone yet. Here are the details.
You know the drill: new iPhone, now iFixit teardown
iFixit’s much-anticipated teardown of the iPhone Duo is now live. Among the many interesting findings of its disassembly process, perhaps the most positively surprising one is its repairability score: the iPhone Duo gets a 5 out of 10, which iFixit says is the highest score it has ever given a foldable smartphone.
Granted, this is a provisional score, pending the availability of replacement parts, but it’s still an encouraging result for Apple’s first foldable.
As usual, the teardown is very detailed, and I encourage you to watch the video below and read iFixit’s in-depth blog post here.
Unsurprisingly, much of the teardown focuses on the hinge, which is the biggest news of this iPhone. As iFixit notes, Apple’s patents had already been offering clues about its design for years. Still, now that it’s here, the teardown reveals an even more intricate and fascinating mechanism than those filings suggested.
iFixit’s teardown starts with its now-traditional fluorescent dust test, which lets the team track how dust particles enter the device as they disassemble it.
The iPhone Duo has an IP68 rating, which means it’s dust-tight and can withstand submersion in water up to 6 meters deep for 30 minutes.
Right off the bat, they notice that the hinge starts making crunchy sounds after the dust test. As the teardown progresses, though, they find that relatively little dust has made its way into the hinge, especially compared to other foldable phones they’ve tested.
The hinge itself features an intricate combination of gears, springs, and interconnected metal joints, along with a waterdrop design that makes room for the display to bend without folding too sharply. This waterdrop design is rather commonplace for foldable phones by now, though Apple’s implementation adds some interesting engineering tricks of its own.
Apple also uses curved guides to control how the joints move, to reduce the stress placed on the display as the phone opens and closes.
About those screen failures
Speaking of stress, however, iFixit has found some possible culprits for the early screen failures reported by iPhone Duo owners, many of whom have described hearing a crunch while folding or unfolding the device, followed by bright lines appearing across the inner display.
Interestingly, many of the reported failures appear to occur around the same area of the display, near the transition between the opening for the cable connecting the two halves and the central hinge support.
Using CT scans, teardown footage, and Apple’s patents, iFixit built a 3D model of the hinge to investigate the possible causes of the damage.
One possibility is that a central support bar isn’t retracting properly as the phone closes, potentially putting excessive pressure on the display. Another involves the curved rails that guide the hinge’s movement, which rise above the surrounding components during folding and could, in theory, interfere with the screen if they fail to move as intended.
iFixit also points out that several structural edges and components converge around the affected area, potentially concentrating stress on the delicate display layers.
iFixit’s teardown doesn’t definitively establish what’s causing the failures, but the similarities between the reported damage and the hinge’s internal geometry give the team some promising leads for further investigation.
Other interesting tidbits
iFixit’s teardown also takes a closer look at the iPhone Duo’s matte nano-texture display, which Apple explains helps disguise the crease by scattering reflected light. Under a microscope, the team found a surface covered in tiny rounded bumps that diffuse reflections, making the crease less noticeable.
Another interesting discovery came from examining the display’s pixels under a microscope. iFixit noticed that some of the subpixels are oval-shaped and oriented in different directions, rather than following a uniform pattern.
iFixit noted that an Apple patent suggests that this arrangement could help reduce diffraction artifacts, potentially making the crease even less noticeable. The teardown blog post offers a fascinating look at the pattern and how Apple may be using it to make reflections less distracting.
And speaking of pixels, iFixit also examined the area above the inner display’s selfie camera. Much like the under-display infrared camera on the iPhone 18 Pro, the Duo uses a modified pixel pattern with larger gaps that allow light to reach the camera underneath. In this area, the pixels also become rounder and more regularly arranged.
Lastly on the display, iFixit notes that the bezel surrounding the inner screen can be removed without breaking, thanks to Apple’s use of clips rather than relying entirely on adhesive. The outer display is also surprisingly easy to remove, which is particularly good news, given that several internal repairs require removing it first.
Moving on to the batteries, iFixit shows how Apple has positioned the two cells, one beneath the back glass and the other beneath the outer display (which means that replacing both requires opening up both halves of the phone). The larger battery has a capacity of 11.567 Wh, while the smaller one is rated at 7.506 Wh, for a combined 19.073 Wh.
iFixit also praises Apple’s use of electrically releasable adhesive on both batteries, allowing them to be removed without forceful prying. The team called it the best battery-removal experience it has seen in a foldable smartphone.
The teardown also explores the iPhone Duo’s new logic board design, the display’s multiple layers and how they move independently to accommodate folding, and you can watch it in full below:
For iFixit’s in-depth blog post about the iPhone Duo teardown, follow this link.
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