The notion that one ought to help their enemy when he or she is knocked down on the pavement has been dead for centuries. Maybe this philosophy was alive back in the good ol' King Arthur times, but we do things differently in 2026. Nowadays, practicality commands that you should seize the opportunity to finish off your opponent. Or at least have a good laugh at their expense.
The same rules apply to the smartphone industry.
No mercy from Samsung
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is having a blast. | Image by PhoneArena
Samsung, for example, went berserk on Apple in the most painful moment: the iPhone Duo (the first foldable iPhone) has triggered Crackgate:
Did Samsung say, "Oh, gee, how unlucky. Fret not, maybe you'll get it right next time"? Absolutely not; instead, Sammy went WWE-style on the iPhone Duo. With the only difference that the damage was real and not staged. The things that companies make for the lulz!
What else, besides a slap in the face, would you call this:
Things are getting out of hand. | Image by Rjey
Yes, that's a truck that moves across the city and has an image of a cracked iPhone Duo on its digital billboard side. It's one thing to mock your opponent in the digital space (that's also happened, you just wait and see), but analog feud is so much more stylish and personal.
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Some say Samsung is risking too much, because not everybody lives online and people will not get it; some would think there's something wrong with Samsung's ad itself. OK, some could miss the profound meaning behind the project, but that's a risk I think Sammy shouldn't lose any sleep about.
Meanwhile, we have several Samsung ads that brag about how the Galaxy Z Fold 8 (the iPhone Duo's direct competitor) can fold and unfold all day long; in another video, the Z Fold 8 literally slices the iPhone Duo to pieces. Ah, sportsmanship!
Does the iPhone Duo deserve this?
Yes and no. | Image by The Internet
The context matters here… greatly. If this was 2019, 2020 or 2021—no. First-gen devices deserve a bit of mercy. Maybe Samsung wouldn't dare to raise its voice since its first foldables weren't precisely great either.
But in 2026? Seven years after the foldable revolution that Samsung and Huawei kicked off in 2019? Yeah, Apple fully deserves to be roasted both online and offline. They had enough time to sort things out. Those seven years since 2019 are stripping the iPhone Duo of its first-gen device excuses up to a point.
Crackgate, however, isn't the worst of the worst hiccups that I can imagine, though. Samsung also has its fair share of epic fails.
Exploding Galaxy phones
I'd rather have my iPhone Duo display cracked by just breathing too close to it than having to deal with a fire extinguisher. Yeah, I'm referring to the Galaxy Note 7 scandal.
This happened ten years ago and I, personally, regard it as the biggest smartphone disaster ever. That's because Galaxy Note 7 units actually caught fire. Their batteries overheated and ignited, sometimes while charging and sometimes without being plugged in. Yes, people suffered burns. In the US alone, Samsung reported almost 100 overheating incidents and numerous reports of burns and property damages.
Things turned to a fiasco once some replacement phones caught fire, too. Samsung had to recall the entire line instead of looking for a fix.
The problem was traced to defective lithium-ion batteries that could short-circuit, with two separate manufacturing flaws affecting batteries from two suppliers. The disaster was so serious that even to this day, I see the Galaxy Note 7 among the strictly forbidden items on a plane.
So, yeah, the issues with some iPhone Duo units are real (and hilarious, and nasty, and pathetic), but Samsung should never forget how some Galaxies were causing literal fires. I'd take the fragile display over the pocket fireworks any day of the week.
In the long run, I don't think Crackgate will stick with Apple. Just look at Samsung: the company is doing just fine.
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Sebastian is one of PhoneArena’s senior opinionators. A veteran news writer with almost 20 years of experience in media and technology, he not only covers all the hot news about Galaxies and iPhones, but often provides hot takes on industry trends. He’s fascinated with camera-focused flagships from the likes of Oppo and Vivo, as well as foldable phones.
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