But if you really want to see a foldable iPhone, perhaps a couple of years before Apple does it, here’s your chance. Someone in China actually modded an iPhone X into a foldable smartphone.
And as anyone would guess, the process wasn’t easy, in-fact the first prototype took around 300 days to engineer. Before you go on about making a foldable iPhone, you have to create a bendable screen. Although the iPhone X’s display isn’t foldable in any way, the engineering team was able achieve some degrees of movement by removing the glass cover and the 3D Touch Layer. The entire display unit is very well integrated, and the modding team burned though many phones before they were able to achieve a perfect separation. The iPhone X’s length also had to be increased to fit in the folding mechanism. The modding team used the Motorola Razr’s reliable folding mechanism as the hinge on their foldable iPhone.
And the Many Limitations..
The team also had to rearrange the iPhone X’s internals to fit it into the foldable unit. This also led to the removal of some features, for example the modding team had to remove the haptics motor to find the perfect alignment. The foldable iPhone’s battery was also significantly reduced from the original, now featuring only a 1000mAh unit. Even the display on the final iteration was very unreliable. The iPhone X’s screen is not designed to fold, even though the modding team achieved some flex by removing a few layers, the screen is still prone to damage by repeated movements. Despite these limitations, the final result is still extremely impressive. The team’s foldable phone, the iPhone V is a great first iteration. While it is in no way a usable daily driver at this point, the team can somewhat get there with perhaps a few more iterations.
