Is iPhone Duo crashed? Innovation doesn't have to be perfect, but Apple was a bit too hasty this time.
On October 23, iPhone Duo officially went on sale. According to the on-site observation of Leikeji (ID: leitech) at the Apple Store in Tianhuan, Guangzhou, the first-sale scene of iPhone Duo was noticeably quieter. The scalpers' enthusiasm for iPhone Duo dissipated rapidly within just a few hours, they stopped purchasing the 256GB version that same afternoon, and the premium of the 512GB version dropped to around 1000 yuan.
A few days after its release, more serious issues with iPhone Duo have emerged. According to feedback from some users at home and abroad, the inner screen of their iPhone Duo has cracked, with the cracks concentrated near the hinge.
In other words, Apple's first foldable phone is very likely to have a common quality defect.
iPhone Duo Screen Cracking: Is Apple's Rush to Meet the Release Schedule to Blame?
At present, judging from posts shared by users on major social platforms at home and abroad, the screen cracking issues of iPhone Duo are highly consistent: cracks almost always appear in the hinge area at the center of the inner screen, along with a bright line in the middle of the right side of the inner screen. Users who encountered such problems basically did not use the device improperly, and many of them only opened and closed the iPhone Duo a few times before the screen malfunctioned.
(Image source: Xiaohongshu)
After the news spread across the internet, well-known teardown agency iFixit analyzed the cause of the inner screen cracking while disassembling the iPhone Duo. iFixit speculates that the screen failure of iPhone Duo may be caused by the support rod at the center position not retracting correctly when the phone is closed, or by the curved guide rail applying pressure to the screen as it rises above surrounding components during the folding process. In any case, the issue is related to the hinge.
In addition, a user claiming to be a Foxconn employee stated that amid extremely tight production capacity, Apple had temporarily lowered some yield quality inspection standards to ensure supply for the initial launch, which directly increased the probability of defective units entering the market. It is understood that the initial assembly yield of iPhone Duo was only 60%, and the foldable production line has been undergoing repeated adjustments and debugging.
In response to the screen issues of iPhone Duo, Apple has not yet issued an official response. However, Apple recently released an iPhone Duo troubleshooting document on its official website, which focuses on how to inspect the hinge, including checking for abnormal noises when opening and closing the iPhone Duo, dust inside the hinge, and whether the hinge is loose or misaligned.
9to5mac, an overseas media that focuses on Apple devices, recently sent a letter to Apple inquiring about the iPhone Duo screen issue, and the official later gave the following reply:
The early user feedback on iPhone Duo has been extremely positive, and it is exciting to see developers quickly updating their apps to take advantage of its unique form factor. We are aware of an issue affecting the internal display on a small number of iPhone Duo devices. If users encounter issues when using the iPhone Duo display, they should contact AppleCare for a replacement.
It can be seen that Apple is already fully aware of the problems existing in the inner screen of iPhone Duo, and has provided a solution that affected users can go to Apple's after-sales service to get a replacement unit. However, Apple still characterizes this issue as affecting "a small number" of devices, and has not directly explained the cause, which suggests that the company is still in the internal investigation stage. At the same time, supply chain sources say that Apple has urgently replaced a batch of spare parts for iPhone Duo.
It is no exaggeration to say that the iPhone Duo screen failure has exposed relatively serious product management problems within Apple. Although iPhone Duo is Apple's first foldable device, foldable phones have long been mature products in the industry ever since Samsung released its mass-produced foldable phone in 2019.
More critically, iPhone Duo does not adopt any groundbreaking folding solution. Huawei and Samsung have both released triple-fold phones with more complex structures, and none of them have encountered failures in the most basic components like the screen and hinge. Yet Apple handed in a failing grade on this most fundamental issue in the foldable phone sector.
(Image source: Leikeji Photography)
Another point that users find hard to accept is that the configuration of iPhone Duo is more conservative than similar Android products. Apple removed the telephoto lens from its foldable phone, sacrificing photography performance; it adopted an under-display camera, but this affects the display effect to a certain extent; its battery capacity is far lower than that of Android competitors, while the device itself is heavier.
Most notably, the starting price of iPhone Duo is as high as 15,999 yuan, and the price will immediately exceed 20,000 yuan if you choose the large-capacity version. Countless past experiences have proven that when product performance does not match the pricing, the market will give the most authentic response.
From Price Premium to Rapid Price Drop Below MSRP: iPhone Duo Cannot Sustain Its High Premium
As we mentioned at the beginning, the premium of iPhone Duo dropped rapidly on the day of its release, and scalpers' enthusiasm for this phone was even lower than that for the iPhone 18 Pro series when it went on sale. Looking back now, the appeal of iPhone Duo to ordinary users was overestimated. Meanwhile, discussions from influencers and scalpers on social platforms, along with the high public attention of iPhone Duo itself, eventually created an illusion that iPhone Duo would be in short supply.
However, immediately after the official sale of iPhone Duo, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse. On the first day of release, spot units of iPhone Duo were already available on some e-commerce platforms, and orders placed that day could even be delivered the next day. Just a few days later, the iPhone Duo's price dropped below the official suggested retail price on some e-commerce platforms, although the discount is not large and there may be regional restrictions. In any case, this situation is quite abnormal for a newly released flagship phone.
(Image source: Xiaohongshu)
This year's autumn new phone wave is obviously affected by the rising storage prices, and the prices of flagship phones have generally increased. Even during the Double 11 shopping festival, the prices of all new flagships from different brands remain quite firm. The highly anticipated iPhone Duo has seen its price drop below MSRP, which itself shows that target users are not that interested in it.
Leaving aside the screen quality issues mentioned earlier, the performance of iPhone Duo itself is really not outstanding enough. Its hardware configuration has more shortcomings than its Android competitors, and the app adaptation that Apple has always been good at is not done well this time.
Recently, Leikeji (ID: leitech) conducted a comparative test on three large foldable phones: iPhone Duo, Xiaomi 18 Fold, and Huawei Pura X Max. We found that the app adaptation of iPhone Duo is very mediocre. For example, when browsing Douyin on the inner screen of the phone, it still uses the vertical screen layout of a regular bar phone, leaving large black bars on the left and right sides, which wastes the advantages of the large screen.
(Image source: Leikeji)
WeChat, as a national-level super app, has taken a relatively active attitude in adapting to iPhone Duo, making full use of the screen area when displayed on the inner screen, but there is still a black bar on the right side that affects the viewing experience, which feels even more awkward when compared with Huawei and Xiaomi's large foldable phones. A large part of the blame for this interactive design falls on Apple, which has created a sidebar for foldable phones, moving some controls that originally belonged to the top and bottom of the screen to the sidebar.
Apple did not directly integrate iPadOS and iOS for the interactive design of iPhone Duo as the outside world expected, but redesigned a whole new set of solutions. But as it turns out, this new design brings extra trouble and inconvenience, while the adaptation progress of third-party apps is not timely enough, which makes the iPhone Duo feel like a semi-finished product when in use.
With multiple factors including insufficiently powerful hardware configuration, imperfect software adaptation, and pricing far higher than competing products, it is not surprising that iPhone Duo quickly saw its price drop below the official suggested retail price.
Apple has quite a few models that quickly saw their prices drop below MSRP due to excessively high pricing and eventually had to cut prices in disguised forms. For example, the iPhone XS/XR series released in 2018: the starting price of iPhone XR reached 6,499 yuan at that time, but it only had one rear camera, and used an LCD screen with very wide black bezels.
The iPhone XR was widely criticized after its release, and its market price quickly fell below MSRP. As sales fell short of expectations, Apple later secretly provided subsidies to distributors, and the actual price kept declining. After the iPhone 11 series was released the next year, the official pricing of iPhone XR was even lowered to the 4,000-yuan price range.
Now, iPhone Duo is repeating a similar situation. Previous supply chain leaks showed that the initial stock of iPhone Duo reached 10 million units, and recent reports say that the order volume will be increased to 15 million units, and Apple even cut the production capacity of the iPhone 18 Pro series for this purpose. But so far, if the subsequent sales of iPhone Duo are still not satisfactory, Apple will face a large amount of inventory, and it is very likely to take the path of cutting prices to clear stock again.
Innovation Does Not Need To Be Perfect, But Apple Should Not Deliver A Semi-Finished Product
Although we have complained a lot about iPhone Duo earlier, to be objective, there are still some commendable points in its technical aspects. For example, it uses a matte nano-texture technology to achieve more excellent treatment of the fold mark, and the snap-on hinge design also improves the repairability of this foldable phone.
However, overall, the semi-finished attribute of iPhone Duo is still too obvious. Especially as an ultra-high-end flagship product priced at nearly 20,000 yuan, it is obviously unkind for Apple to ask users to pay such a high "tuition fee" for it.
At present, Apple is still a beginner in the foldable phone sector, and there are many lessons it needs to learn. In our opinion, the next-generation iPhone Duo should at least solve the problems in the following aspects:
First of all, Apple must completely solve the pain points of hinge reliability and dust resistance. For complex structures where the tolerance is difficult to control, Apple must re-examine the mechanical redundancy design. A foldable phone is not a craft for people to treasure carefully; it must withstand the test of complex environments in daily use.
Secondly, Apple needs to restructure the large-screen interaction. Apple has stronger control over developers, so it should improve the underlying UI adaptive framework and speed up the adaptation of top-tier apps. At the same time, Apple should deeply integrate AI functions with multi-window features on large screens to build advantages in product experience.
In addition, the price of foldable phones needs to be reduced. The high pricing of the first-generation iPhone Duo is largely to pay for Apple's R&D costs and low initial yield. But for the second generation, as costs are amortized, the pricing of at least the large-capacity version should be lowered. After all, no matter how sharply the storage price rises, it cannot compare with the huge profit margin Apple earns from different storage configurations.
According to market data, the overall proportion of foldable phones in the entire smartphone market is still relatively low. At the same time, leading brands are continuously making efforts in the foldable phone sector, positioning foldable phones as super flagships with a higher positioning than regular flagship phones. For Apple, after the market capacity tends to be saturated, foldable phones are the key product category for it to further explore the higher-end market and capture more profits. However, the belated iPhone Duo has not handed in a sufficiently excellent answer sheet, and Apple still has a long way to go on the path of catching up with its Android rivals.