Apple needed only three days to admit that its first folding iPhone has a cracking problem. The iPhone Duo went on sale on October 23, 2026, and by October 26 the company had put out a statement acknowledging “an issue affecting the internal display on a small number of iPhone Duo units” and promising free replacements through AppleCare. In Korea, where the phone starts at 3.29 million won (about $2,480), that admission has set off a wave of returns that includes phones with nothing wrong with them.
What happened
Within hours of launch, buyers in the United States, Australia and China were posting photos, mostly on Reddit, of inner screens split along the hinge. Korean users named the episode “crackgate,” and dozens of similar posts appeared on forums such as Naver, FM Korea and Clien. Apple has not said what causes the cracking or how units still waiting to ship will differ.
Repair specialists at iFixit, working from teardown videos, patents and CT scans, built a 3D simulation of the hinge and found the damage clustering just below the point where the display cable runs over a central support bar. Their theory: the bar does not retract far enough when the phone closes, so stress piles up on one strip of screen. That is an outside analysis, not an Apple finding.
Getting a replacement is another matter. The first online allocation sold out within minutes, pre-order customers are now being told to expect delivery in late January, and Apple is not selling the Duo in its own Korean stores. Staff at Apple Myeongdong in central Seoul told the Korea JoongAng Daily they had no units to swap and were recommending refunds; at Apple Hongdae, exchanges depend on stock, and a repair for a manufacturing defect could take about a month.
Why Korean buyers are handing back working phones
The more telling story is who is returning the phone. One buyer who ordered a 256GB Duo on October 16 and received it a week later told the JoongAng Daily the phone worked fine, but “Crackgate was decisive.” Another, who pre-ordered through the e-commerce platform Coupang, asked for a refund the day it arrived, citing the price, the extra cost of AppleCare+ and the crack reports that surfaced the following evening. That buyer switched to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold8, noting that a model with twice the storage for just over 2 million won felt reasonable.
Korea makes this easy, up to a point. Apple Korea allows returns or exchanges for any reason within 14 days of receipt for phones bought from its online store, as long as they are undamaged. That window does not apply to phones bought through carriers or other retailers, which sell most Duos on installment plans and set their own rules. The two-year warranty covers manufacturing defects but not user damage, and some overseas customers say they were told their crack came from a drop.
The resale market has turned just as quickly. A week before launch, the Korea Economic Daily counted 11 listings for the 512GB model on the secondhand platforms Joonggonara and Bunjang averaging 559,000 won above the 3.59 million won retail price. By October 27, 256GB units were being offered on the neighborhood marketplace Danggeun in Gangnam for 3.1 million to 3.3 million won, at or below what Apple charges.
The Samsung subplot
Samsung released its first foldable seven years before Apple, and it has not been gracious about the newcomer’s debut. The company ran an ad showing a sliced green apple failing to fold back together before revealing the Galaxy Z Fold8, which it describes as 1.6 millimeters thinner and 53 grams lighter than “the new kid.” Analysts quoted by SBS add that Korean display and parts suppliers could benefit if Apple needs a large volume of replacement screens, making this a rare product crisis in which the home team wins either way.
Hong Yong-taek, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Seoul National University, told SBS the unusually fast admission signals a push for quick exchanges and tighter quality control. Whether that is enough depends on whether the phones arriving in January fold any better than the ones that shipped in October.