Apple makes the hinge, not the screen, the centerpiece of its first foldable

Apple has built its first foldable around a component nobody sees. The iPhone Duo, unveiled 9 September and on sale from 23 October at a starting price of US$1,999, is defined less by its 7.6-inch inner display than by the mechanism underneath it — a hinge Apple says is engineered from more than 100 components, wrapped in a 3D-printed titanium cover, and designed to hold the panel flat rather than let it sag into the crease that has dogged the category since its first generation. That emphasis shifts the competitive contest in foldables to what has always been the manufacturing challenge: precision metal parts, not panel size.