After reports that Apple was facing hinge production issues on the iPhone Fold, a new rumor claims that the company's first foldable phone is hitting a entirely different issue at the pre-assembly stage.The leaker known as Fixed Focus Digital contradicted last week's hinge rumor on Weibo claiming that the issue is due to surface-mount technology (SMT) during pre-assembly. Per their claim, production yields are slow to ramp up.If you're unaware, SMT refers to the process of mounting components of a device onto the circuit board per ABL Circuits.Fixed Focus doesn't outright say that the expected September launch will be delayed but they did say that the "situation is not looking optimistic" (machine translated).Several comments blamed Apple's manufacturing process, but in a response FFD said that the issue is in the "upstream process" that Apple's contractor is allegedly working hard to resolve. They blamed Apple's quality control requirements as being "too strict."The previous report from separate leaker Instant Digital claimed that Apple's high standards were part of the issue regarding the iPhone Fold's hinge which was allegedly consistently failing to meet their stringent demands. In a follow up post, they did say that the hinge issue was unlikely to affect the September launch.Production issues abound but delay is questionable