About 200 Chinese engineers worked hard and finally succeeded in producing a foldable iPhone In order not to start the production of the device from scratch, the engineers took the body of a foldable smartphone called Motorola Razr from 2019 and implanted the iPhone components into it | watch
Apple’s first foldable devices aren’t expected to hit the market until at least 2024, but a Chinese YouTuber has invested quite a bit of time and effort into giving the world a first look at how a foldable iPhone might look and work.
According to the review on the TGspot website, the complex project included disassembling several iPhone X devices, and reassembling the components inside the case of the foldable Razr device from Motorola. The road there was not easy, with quite a few breakdowns and accidents along the way, and also an unsuccessful attempt to assemble the foldable iPhone inside the case of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip device. Certain components also required unique 3D printing.
According to their reports, it seems that the most problematic component of this project was the screen. According to them, they used and destroyed 37 screens until they arrived at a solution that works properly. Most of the times the screen simply broke when folded and sometimes even crashed completely while trying to assemble and fold it in the new body.
In the video you can see their entire production process and the many trials they went through. They seem to have had many breaking moments including a situation where they just finished the budget they had for this project.
But the end result, as you can see in the video, is a fully usable foldable iPhone that runs iOS as normal. Of course, additional software adjustments will be required to ensure full compatibility with the folding screen, but at least you can see the great potential of this configuration, especially when taking selfies.
The foldable iPhone created during the experiment was named iPhone V. It is not clear whether the talented creator intends to sell it, or assemble a few more.