Apple may have found a way around the one problem that has shadowed its foldable phone plans for years: the crease. TrendForce said the company solved the issue with a hi-tech adhesive approach rather than relying on the glass alone, opening the door to a folding iPhone that looks closer to the smooth display users expect.
Rumors of a folding iPhone have been circulating since at least 2015, but Apple’s delay was long linked to the visible line that appears in most foldable screens. TrendForce said the company used a variety of approaches to reduce or eliminate the crease, including a variable-thickness design paired with chemical strengthening. In that setup, the folding area can be thinned at the bending axis to improve bendability while the non-folding regions stay thicker for impact resistance.
The report said optically clear adhesive, or OCA, stays liquid enough to fill microscopic gaps that would otherwise show up as the crease. TrendForce said the line forms because repeated folding creates fatigue stress in the glass, and that the adhesive helps spread that stress while allowing the glass to be thinner and easier to bend. The analysis, seen by 9to5Mac, leans on Apple patents as evidence that the company has been working through the problem for some time.
That matters now because the crease has been the defining flaw in foldable phones, even as the market has pushed toward slimmer and more polished devices. Apple has been under pressure to move carefully on the product, and the latest report suggests the company may finally have a technical answer to a problem that has delayed its entry for a decade. For readers following the company’s next hardware move, the question is no longer whether Apple has looked at a foldable iPhone, but whether the fix described in the patents is strong enough to survive the real-world wear of daily use.
The report does not say when Apple will ship such a phone, and it does not put the crease issue entirely to rest. But it does show why the company has been so cautious: in foldables, the smallest line on the screen can become the biggest reason not to buy.
