WATCH: Chinese man builds world’s first “foldable iPhone”, explains how he did it

A Chinese YouTuber has posted a video claiming to have made the world’s first “foldable iPhone”. He worked for a long time to make the device using internal iPhone components and the foldable hinge of the Motorola Razr. The guy posted the whole process to his YouTube channel, which finally shows off an iPhone that can be folded in half.

In the video, the YouTuber walks through the process of taking parts from various devices and assembling them again to make their own custom phones. He removed the internal components from the iPhone X and pushed them inside a foldable Motorola Razr chassis. Although the video is in Chinese, there are English subtitles. The process is extremely difficult and time consuming.

According to Apple Insider, This YouTuber aimed to create a “foldable iPhone” while preserving as many parts as possible from the original devices. As part of the design criterion, it should be soft enough to bend while maintaining tactile functionality. The video shows the engineer’s step-by-step process for removing dozens of iPhone screens. He cut out the case of a donor device, and rebuilt it as a foldable phone using a hinge. The man tested a variety of hinge types from phones like the Galaxy Z Flip, but chose the Motorola Razr’s hinge for its “small” display crease.

According to the report, iOS continued to function normally on the foldable phone and touch functionality was unaffected.

However, the software was optimized (called jailbreaking) to work properly in the foldable set-up, the website further said.