You can watch an iPhone Duo being folded thousands of times live, thanks to a custom-built machine that repeatedly opens and closes Apple’s first foldable iPhone to find out just how much punishment its hinge and display can withstand.
CNET is putting the device through an extended durability test using its Fold-a-Phone machine at a lab in Louisville, Kentucky. The rig continues opening and closing the phone around the clock, with the experiment broadcast on YouTube during weekday livestreams.
Anyone curious can watch the folding test on CNET. Its weekday live sessions are scheduled for 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. ET (6 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the U.K.), and viewers can ask CNET editors questions in the accompanying chat.
The machine is designed to complete roughly 20,000 folds per day. The test had already passed 200,000 folds by November 3, and CNET plans to keep going until the phone fails. It is a fairly unusual spectacle: a $1,999 iPhone being mechanically folded again and again, with the results unfolding in public.
The experiment comes amid reports of some early iPhone Duo displays cracking near the hinge. Apple has acknowledged a small number of affected devices and advised customers with problems to contact AppleCare, although the test does not establish whether those reported faults will appear in other units.
A laboratory machine can reveal how one phone handles repeated folding, but it cannot recreate every kind of wear a device might experience in a pocket or bag. Dirt, drops, pressure, and differences between individual units all matter too.
Still, for anyone wondering how long the iPhone Duo’s folding mechanism might last, the stream offers an entertaining way to follow the experiment as the fold count rises. And unlike a typical durability video, there is no need to wait for the final result to see the test in action.
