Snap, Crackle…iPhone Duo?

The iPhone Duo shipped to real people today! Hooray! Check out the newly minted iPhone Duo subreddit. It's filled with posts from happy Day One owners, as well as ones from people whose screens broke almost instantly.

If you're not a fan of Reddit, no problem…just hit whatever social media app you've chosen as the least morally objectionable. To the disappointment of Apple in general and specifically dozens of employees working in Apple Worldwide Communications who had plans for the weekend, photos of broken Duos aren't hard to find.

These busted Duos are all broken in the same way: vertically along the crease, with a thick horizontal bar about two-fifths of the way up on the right side. Doesn't this consistency imply an underlying design or manufacturing defect?

Let's not leap to any conclusions. The Duo has been out for just one day. We know that this is an "Oops!" We don't know whether it's an "Oops!" at the level of "I used baking soda instead of baking powder, and I'm worried that my cookies are going to come out all flat and slumpy" or if it's more like "I used rat poison instead of flour, and I'm worried that I might have murdered a couple of dozen people at the church bake sale."

But, yeah, this does seem bad to me. Here's what's on my mind, while I settle into my seat and the orchestra strikes up the overture:

• If screen damage is happening this frequently on Day One, then they're not likely to be freak occurrences. By contrast, I've seen one and only one post about the screen's center crease deepening after just a few folds, which I regard as a sign of bad luck instead of bad engineering (for now).
• The problem doesn't manifest through abuse or extraordinary circumstances. The users just…unfolded the screen. This is an action that the majority of iPhone Duo owners are likely to perform. Indeed, the signature difference between the Duo and every iPhone that came before it is that you can fold the screen in half without breaking it. Apple has been promoting this feature heavily; it was likely a key factor in purchase decisions.
• It's not a subtle issue affecting performance or stability. It's a visibly broken screen. Owners can't just shrug and learn to live with it. Potential buyers can't see these pictures on social media and in the news without having their consumer zeal dampened. And it's the sort of photo and story that people love to share, isn't it?
• The worst-case scenario is that Apple discovers a fundamental design defect. If so, every iPhone Duo that Apple's already shipped is borked, and every current owner is right to worry that a broken display is just a matter of time.
• The best-case is probably that the design is 100% good but there was a manufacturing error (such as a screw in the hinge that wasn't tightened down to spec). Send some Pinkerton men to slap a few factory managers around a little and the problem's solved. But where would that leave all of the iPhone Duos that have already been manufactured?
• Either way, Apple can't permanently put this to rest by issuing a platform-wide software update.

Even if this somehow turns out to be an issue that only affects hundreds of Duos, instead of potentially thousands, or hundreds of thousands, it cuts directly to the core fear of anybody who's thinking of buying a folding phone: durability. When Apple released the iPhone Air, Greg Joswiak and other Apple execs made a habit, when speaking to the press one-on-one, of handing over an Air and daring them to try to bend or break it. Fears were mitigated. These stories about iPhone Duos breaking on Day One are Fears Manifested.

So we're all in for an exciting ride over the next few weeks.

The second biggest unknown after "What the hell is going on with these things?" is "How is Apple going to address this?"

We won't know the answer to Question Two until Apple has figured out the answer to Question One. Until then, I hope those folks in Apple Worldwide Communications are studying the 2010 "Antennagate" Disaster PR Response Guidebook closely. So long as they do the complete opposite of everything it says, they'll probably come out of this OK. IE, don't deny that the defect exists despite the obvious evidence. Don't pin the blame on users who are obviously so dumb that they don't even know how to fold a phone correctly. Don't roll your eyes in disbelief that any sensible person (or a journalist, even) would believe that this total-waste-of-everybody's-time is an actual "thing."

I hope Apple is open and forthright. If an iPhone Duo owner is worried (and they will be), they want to hear Apple say "No matter what happens, we're going to take care of our customers." Not "Wow! It sure sucks to be you!"

As eager as I am to remind everybody once again that we don't know what the situation is yet…geez, I wouldn't want to have any of my money tied up in a "zero-revisions" iPhone Duo right now. If I'd already bought one and had it in my hands right now, I'd probably return it for a refund before the two-week window closed. I can afford to buy a pen with a fresh design gimmick that might cause it to fail before the end of its expected lifetime. But not a $2000 phone, surely.

If the ship date on my pre-order were a couple of months off? I'd probably let it ride. I suppose the folks who pre-ordered late (say, six minutes after Apple started taking orders) and were given delivery dates in November and December now have a right to feel like the real winners. They can decide to Keep, or Cancel, from a place of informed, rational decision-making…not from a place of fear and uncertainty. By the time their iPhone Duo is about to ship, Apple's likely to have plenty of answers. They might even have some solutions.

Tim Cook recently said that he stepped down before the launch of the iPhone Duo because he wanted John Ternus to have a strong tailwind during the first month as CEO. Instead, Ternus might have been given a chance to really show what he's made of. That's not a bad thing at all.

(And I'm glad I'm not him!)