Apple may have done a good job hiding the crease on its first foldable iPhone, but it hasn’t made it disappear completely. Early hands-on videos of the iPhone Duo show that the crease is still visible from certain angles, although it becomes much harder to spot when looking directly at the display.
Videos filmed at Apple Park give us the first proper look at how Apple’s approach holds up in real-world use. From the right angle, the fold running down the centre of the inner display is clearly visible. That’s not particularly surprising for a foldable, where the screen has to repeatedly bend and unfold, but it does put some context around Apple’s efforts to minimise it.
Viewed head-on, however, the crease is almost impossible to see with the naked eye. In fact, the early footage suggests the Duo may have a slight advantage over Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, which also uses a titanium plate underneath the display assembly to help reduce stress and flatten the crease.
Apple’s other trick is the surface of the inner screen. The Duo uses a matte nano-texture finish that reflects less light, making the crease less obvious than it would be on a more reflective display. There’s also a scratch-resistant coating over the nano-texture surface, adding some protection to the finish.
It’s worth remembering that these are still early hands-on impressions. The crease could become more noticeable over time as the display goes through more fold-and-unfold cycles, so the long-term result won’t be clear until the phone has been used extensively.
Still, Apple appears to have achieved much of what it set out to do. The physical crease hasn’t gone away, and realistically, a display that repeatedly folds can’t simply eliminate that physical point of stress – but the combination of the display construction and matte surface makes it far less distracting when you’re actually looking at the screen.
So, if you were hoping Apple’s first foldable would be completely crease-free, that’s not quite what you’re getting. But based on these early videos, the iPhone Duo’s crease looks considerably less intrusive than you might expect, and potentially a little less noticeable than Samsung’s latest effort.
