Apple’s long-awaited Duo foldable phone, unveiled at the company’s Surprise and Shine event on Wednesday, contains many surprises, including a key hinge designed and built with the help of AI and 3D printing.
This new phone represents Apple’s first foray into the foldable phone genre, a category of devices that has great consumer enthusiasm but whose form factor hasn’t always lived up to the hype. As expected from a product that by design experiences twice the wear and tear of traditional devices, most foldable devices experience significant degradation and are not as durable as other smartphones.
Apple claims to have built innovative protection features into the Duo’s design to ensure the phone doesn’t fall prey to the wear and tear inherent in foldables. That includes hinges, said Johnny Suluge, the company’s chief hardware officer.
“During manufacturing, we use AI algorithms to precisely match each individual hinge with the optimal housing to ensure perfect alignment. Additionally, a confocal laser scans the topology of every single unit step by step and 3D prints up to 25 microlayers of custom photopolymer to eliminate residual waviness,” Srouji said at Wednesday’s event.
Srouji also shared that Apple gave the foldable phone a “custom nano-textured finish that significantly reduces glare and reflections,” as well as a multi-layer lamination strategy designed to make the device more durable. Of course, it remains to be seen whether these protections will be enough to keep the duo in top physical condition in the long term.
