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iPhone 4 Screens Break 82% More Than 3GS
A surprising number of readers have submitted linkage to a story discussing a recently released study that
proclaims that iPhone 4 glass breaks way more often than the 3GS's. Although the chart that I found more surprising was the one that said almost 9% of iPhone 3GS screens crack after a year.
Probably due to the fact that people slam the phone down 82% more of the time, because of the antenna reception issue.
Just saying..
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
What the fuck do iPhone owners do with their phones? Crack open coconuts with them? I've been using cellular phones since they came in bags and ran off nicads and lead-acid batteries, and I have never managed to break a screen. I mean, sure, cell phones are portable electronics and thus delicate to a degree, but exercise a modicum of care and they should last a while.
I think iPhone owners are one or more of the following: a. careless individuals who regularly drop their phones onto concrete, b. people who frequently beat on their phones out of frustration with Market policies and/or AT&T's network, or c. suckers that got sold an mechanically inferior product.
There are other pigeonholes, but that'll get you started.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This is good unbiased, peer reviewed, wholesome and all-American goodness coming from a company that sells warrantees.
Good times
86% more glass damage given 100% more glass.
And who else would have any statistics that you would trust better? The manufacturer?
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You take it the wrong way. iPhone screen break reports are underestimated because of people like you who buys screen protector and cases. The average user shouldn't need to buy anything extra so that its phone continue to work after 1 year with regular usage.
I just read an article that states warranty companies are 82% more likely to write biased reviews about products they sell warranties for. Coincidence? Nah, it couldn't be.
Unless the glass is breaking all by itself, I'm going to go with "people who spent too much money on a phone don't know how to take proper care of them."
Fact is, I spent like $100 (and renewed my contract with tmobile) to get a samsung vibrant. The first thing I did was slap a protective case around it and put on a screen protector. Following that, a visit to eBay showed me some nicer things to protect the phone and I also got one of those belt holders for the phone. Why?
1. I spend what I consider to be a lot of money for a phone.
2. Things I spend money on, I try to take care of
3. Keeping a phone in your pocket will cause problems starting with dust and ending with who knows what else
4. In spite of all the care I want to give it, things fall, slide off, whatever.
If I had an iPhone (and people who know me know the LOOONG list of reasons why I will never own an iPhone) I would do the same thing to it -- protect the shit out of it. It's frikken expensive and needs to be protected.
People need to get over complaining about how durable something is or isn't and start simply being careful for a change.
If my spec's weren't cracked I might have seen what you did there.
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
Preferably someone who isn't standing to make a buck from the claim, which rules out the insurance company AND the manufacturer. Maybe someone like Consumer Reports?
The data from the study shows a 42% increase in water damage for the iPhone 4 over the 3GS. From this data we can conclude, with some certainty, that the two bodies of data are fundamentally different and any conclusions drawn on simple differences are only partially caused by differences in the devices themselves.
"Although to me the chart that I found more surprising was the one that said almost 9% of iPhone 3GS screens crack after a year."
Try ~6%.
First, the graph I believe this statement is citing is the "Reported iPhone Accident Rate" Which has an end data point of just under 8%. This is perhaps "almost 8%", but is not close to 9%.
Second, that graph is all accidents. The chart just down from that labeled "iPhone 3gs" (in a ring-style pie chart) shows the accident breakdown. 76% of the accidents are a cracked screen.
If we combine these: 8% * 76% = 8 * .76 = 6.08% or about 6% of the overall iPhone 3gs accidents were cracked case accidents. (Probably a little less from the initial data point).
It's still an interesting number, but it's 50% different from the statement in the article. That's roughly 1 in 20 screens cracked in a year. That doesn't seem too bad to me, considering how some people treat their phone.
Also, the double rate on the new phone merely suggests that twice as much glass (front and back) breaks twice as often? Or did they only count screen and not case damage?
Math is hard, let's go editing!
Note the complete statistical fail: the iPhone 4 has *two* glass screens - that means that all the fucktards that used to just scuff the hell out of the metal back are now dropping and breaking their back glass.
How is that a "statistical" fail?
The iPhone 4 only has one screen. The glass back is not a screen. The article is quite specific about this.
As to you other point, that may be true, because I've noticed over the years that only people who eventually die buy life insurance. &_&
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The only information re: screen breakage on that page is that 76% of accidents are screen breakage, and that 7.8% of 3GS owners report accidents during their first year.
By my math, that means about 5.9% of screens are breaking on the 3GS.
No. I wear my glasses on my face and the other two objects are not meant to be ON your persons 24/7 and in near constant use.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
So, you don't put glasses in a case; carry violins in a case; transport laptops in a case?
If I was wanting to hold my laptop up to my ear half the time, I wouldn't want to be constantly putting it in and out of a case!
Phones need to be used quickly and easily at a moment's notice. They should be designed such that they don't need cases.
If it needs a case the design is poor. My Droid goes naked.
Glass is really remarkably strong when it comes out of the furnace. The tensile strength is amazing, it can bend enough to absorb some shocks. It's a great material before it gets to the real world.
But, once it does, it immediately develops microcracks in the surface, and each of these could be the beginning of a fracture that goes through the bulk of the glass. So, what to do?
I don't know if they've taken the hint from the semiconductor industry (look up 'strained silicon') but they did a similar thing with glass. By bombarding the surface of the glass with larger atoms, they create significant stress in the surface, so that any microcracks are immediately pushed shut. But, this is only true down to the level that these atoms diffuse into the surface...not far at all!
So, if you create a significant scratch (and this might just be 100 microns) you are through this surface, and have a potentially catastrophic failure waiting to happen.
A screen-protecting film of plastic would be a good investment.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Q. How do I keep my iPhone screen from breaking?
A. Stop throwing your phone at your cat.
Q. What if I don't have a cat?
A. Then stop throwing it at your bf/gf.
Q. What if I don't have a boyfriend or a girlfriend?
A. Get an iPhone 4.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
And they get their information from?
Is there a place to report breakage on their site?
Square Trade loses money for every screen break.
Nobody has better stats than Square Trade, because Apple takes one look at it and says user abuse, and does not bother counting it. Same for the carriers.
Nobody is keeping statistics EXCEPT the third party insurance providers. This is largely true in medicine as well. Unless there is a contagious factor, the only nationwide stats you will find on injuries (broken arms) is from insurance carriers. Why you choose to denigrate that fact when Apple is involved but not for heart attacks is sort of, well, suspicious.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Of course the iPhone has two pieces of glass to break instead of one, so, for the careless consumer who has insurance because they want to break the phone and get a new one every few months, this provides twice the opportunity to break the phone.
My orginal iPhone suffered a couple traumatic events, and the back is dented. This may in fact have broken the iPhone 4. Many of us are not used to protecting the back of our devices. Therefore initial breakage is bound to be much more.
From the insurance industry point fo view such numbers are literal gold. Make the phone sound less reliable, more people buy their $99 dollar insurance. Make the phone sound less reliable, and you can charge $99 for a $200 phone, that, according to their own numbers, only have a 8 in one hundred chance of breaking, probably much less if all iPhone owners are included. From a hones person point of view, there is probably the iPhone 4 is probably no more like to break than the other phones, when used carefully. In particular the extrapolation sound like pure and simple markting hyperbole.
Before this I did not realize what squaretrade did, and now that I see this deceptive report, I certainly will do everything I can to not use them. Not to say that some people don't need insurance. But if one didn't need for the old iPhone, one likely does not need it now.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
So, perhaps this is user error - for not putting an adequate case on 'em.
The problem is Apple recently removed full cover cases for the iphone 4 as apple engineers recently discovered if dirt or grit gets stuck between the protective case and the back of the phone the glass on the back has an increased probability of cracking. So with antenna-gate just starting to cool we now have case-gate were it doesn't matter how you hold the iphone 4 it breaks. You would think Apple would use gorilla glass like many brands including dell with do with their recent full screen mobile handsets. Well I am sorry to inform you Apple just used generic hardened glass on the back and the front to save a few bucks having to pay Dow Corning a license fee.
We USED to understand that things meant to be hand held and carried with you everywhere needed to be more durable than that. It's bad enough the screen is so fragile, but adding extra fragile glass just because is just plain stupid. Why don't they just add some nitrogen tri-iodide to make sure the device is destroyed if it's ever jostled off of the velvet pillow it's apparently supposed to be kept on?
What if iPhones are simply used more because iPhone is a more mature device with better and/or more services. I know my kids love to play with my wife's iPhone because they can easily find all kinds of uses and apps for it. (Hell will come when the bill does, though.)
Table-ized A.I.
I do not trust Consumer Reports. They have already been proven to lie when it suits them.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Square Trade loses money for every screen break.
Right, which gives them all the incentive in the world to get money from as many of the other 91% as they can.
Proof of that claim? If you're talking about the Suzuki Samurai case then no, that isn't proof.
--srj/mmv
That's why most phone cases don't require you to take them off to use the phone.
What you say about being designed not to need a case (basically to come with a rugged case already enclosing it) is a fine ideal. But fundamentally, phone manufacturer's design what will sell. And thinness, lightness and shininess are selling points for all phones.
These numbers are being reported by an insurance company whose product is (relatively) expensive, and must be actively sought out by iPhone purchasers. This is likely to be a group self-selecting for increased probability of breaking their phones, so the stats are probably higher than for the iPhone-owning public at large.
Yeah. It also crashes/reboots often when you try to use it with a microsd card in it, or attempt to use it as a mass storage device. Bluetooth tethering only works once per powercycle. The clit mouse likes to stop moving sometimes. I *hate* my pearl, but I also refuse to pay $300+ for another locked down handset from Verizon.
www.isoHunt.com
Yep, it was insurance adjusters that linked the location of waterworks inlet pipes to cholera epidemics in London.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I don't even know what this "study" is trying to conclude.
Our data shows that iPhone 4 owners are reporting accidents 68% more frequently than iPhone 3gs owners. 4.7% of iPhone 4 owners reported an accident to SquareTrade in the first 4 months of ownership, almost 70% higher than iPhone 3gs owners, 2.8% of whom had an accident over the same time period.
OK, so what does that data mean? It looks like all the data shows is that, for whatever reason, there are a lot of "accidents" involving iPhone 4s. So, what does that mean? Does that mean people drop them more often? Would that be considered a "design flaw"? Are people dropping them just as often, but this model breaks more easily?
I don't see any conclusions that can be drawn about this device just given the percentage of people who manage to screw it up. Maybe the conclusion to draw is that iPhone 4 owners are more careless or stupid than owners of previous models, makes as much sense as any other conclusion.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
... Is this the same Gorilla Glass that's in my Cowon S9? Because I *sat* on it once (oops) and it broke the AMOLED screen (cry) but not the gorilla glass on top. I've seen the videos of someone attacking it with forks and coins and stuff too. That shit is seriously tough. So did Apple buy the generic brand of it or what? How the hell are people cracking it without destroying the rest of the damn phone?
In particular the toughened stuff is that it is fairly brittle. So yes, it may well be stronger than plastic, but when it fails, it does so in a more catastrophic fashion.
You can see this with knives. Most knives are steel, of course. However with a little research you discover you can buy more advanced, harder knives. Ceramic knives that more or less never go dull. They are the real deal too, I own a couple. You can't believe their sharpness, the hold their edge forever, food washes right off them, etc. Brilliant things. So why then are they not used all over? I mean they are pricey, but not much more than a forged steel knife.
Reason is they are brittle. They are indeed much harder than steel, however they don't flex. So you apply pressure to them and they are unmoving until a certain point, when they shatter. A steel knife can bend and flex a bit, and be just fine. Mean that ultimately, a steel knife is much more resilient. They may lose their edge easier and so on, but they can do tough jobs ceramics can't (ceramic knives are for slicing, not for something lick carving meat on the bone).
Same sort of shit here. A good polycarbonate will scratch easier than a toughened glass, and is less strong, you can flex it just by pushing hard enough. However it has a lot of give. It can take some reasonably hard impacts and survive, whereas the glass will hold strong up to a given point, and then fail badly.
Max strength isn't always the most desirable characteristic. Surviving stresses can be as much about moving with them as resisting them.
What part of "Unless there is a contagious factor" don't you understand?
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"In SquareTrade's previous study comparing smart phone reliability from November 2008, we found iPhones to be far more reliable than Blackberrys and Palm Treos. We will be updating this report soon, and we'll have data on the latest Android phone models. It may yet be seen that even with the double glass, the iPhone has an overall failure rate that is still better than the competition."
They really were holding it wrong?
They've been very big on form over function for some time now. Doesn't mean their devices aren't functional, it just means that they worry about how they look more than anything else and they don't give much thought to if it interferes with working. For example if you look you discover time capsules have a bad habit of dying early, all around the same time. Further research shows this is because they overheat. They cannot take the heat of the integrated powersupply. Well external power would be perfectly doable, most devices have it. However Apple just had to have the sleek, all in one, unit. A fan was not acceptable either, of course. Thus form took precedence over good design and there were functional problems in the end.
Same shit on the iPhone 4. It isn't like they didn't put function in the device. It is a high end smart phone, no question. However they had to make it pretty, that was requirement #1, and some functionality suffered because of it.
I really dislike that way of doing things. I'm fine with good looking electronics, things shouldn't have to be ugly but function need to be primary. Make sure everything works first and if the design interferes with that, change it. Make shit work first, look good second.
I've got the T-Mobile version and it will lock-up once a month or so. I've not had the problem with Bluetooth or the mem card. Maybe I'm lucky. I do hate the long boot time. It makes XP seem quick.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I saw a friend day who had a new iPhone 4 and I noticed his screen was broke... He said he had not had it three days before he broke it and it was gonna cost $200 to fix.... Now I read this and it makes total sense.
Are you really trying to link an event that happened 150 years ago to modern epidemiology? Doctors in the 1850's still practiced trepanation to cure a variety of ills...I think a lot has changed since then, including the role of doctors in collecting medical statistics.
Like the grandparent poster said, a lot of today's injury statistics come from the insurance companies.
So, you don't put glasses in a case; carry violins in a case; transport laptops in a case?
I don't wear glasses, but from what I've seen any of the higher end (as in not some $9.99 wallyworld specials) tend to come with a protective case for when they are not in use. The iPhone does not come with such a case, nor was it really designed to be not in use.
I am also not a musician, but I suspect the same is true with the violin. And that is something that spends way more of its life in storage/transport than your glasses or iDevice.
And while most laptops do not come with cases, I believe most people buy them because the handle/strap makes it a lot easier to carry a bulky (compared to a phone) device along with various bits like the a/c adapter, some USB drives, etc. They have padding, but that does little to protect the precious screen (which may not even be covered by glass!).
Cell phones get abused, simple as that. You have people who would not normally use anything more advanced than a TV remote that have high end smartphones these days. And such people, and not a shot at them just saying, often don't have the mindset of treating high end portable electronics with a bit more care. To them something that you can throw in your purse or pocket should be able to take massive amounts of abuse.
And by in large I would say that modern cell phones do! Phones get dropped, dropped in water, left on the roofs of cars and then the person drives away, abused by family pets, etc. And many keep going right along.
I personally think a full case is best since even under the best care you know your just gonna drop your phone at some point. My BB case cost me all of $10 and it was worth every penny. I'm and oldschool geek so by nature I'm pretty careful with my electronics but I don't ever worry about accidentally dropping my phone.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
My 3G is as good as the day I bought it, going on 2 years ago now (or more - I'm well, well outside of contract). Battery is just fine. No scratches, bumps, breaks or damage. But then, I don;t treat it like crap, sit on it in my back pocket, put it in with my keys etc.
Doesn't have a case either.
Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.
but based on this report they can now charge you 87% more if you own a iphone 4
I am awaiting the announcement of an Apple Special Event on this problem soon.
At the event Mr. Jobs will bash with a hammer the screens of competing cell phones from RIM, Motorola, Sony, Nokia, etc. The results of this vigorous laboratory testing will be presented with a pie-chart to show that the iPhone screen is more resistant to hammer blows as long as you hold the hammer carefully with a finger or two and not grip it with your whole hand.
I don't know about perishing; it's far more likely that the owners simply wanted the next version and tossed the original aside. You're right that it's meant to be a fashion accessory rather than a lasting investment, though.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Well, Is glass exactly the best option for a device that will be inevitably dropped. I like my iPhone 4 but I immediately bought the case Apple should have design around so I could be more careless with this thing
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Shocking news ... metal covered glass breaks easier than the one surrounded with thick plastic.
Look at the 3G/3GS, and compare it to the first iPhone (on which I saw some broken screens) and the iPhone 4....
I think the new design looks spectacular, still I would 100x prefer my 3GS with the 4's features than the actual 4.
I actually think, that a iPhone 4 with the plastic bumper is still more vulnerable to side impacts than a 3G/GS without a protector.
Just my 2c ...
An other factor : if you have big hands, you can much more easily drop small objects. The 4 felt tiny compared to my in-case (actual brand of the case) covered 3GS. Every time I hold a 3GS without the cover I have the feeling that I am about to drop, it is so slim and shiny/slippery.
Note the complete statistical fail: the iPhone 4 has *two* glass screens - that means that all the fucktards that used to just scuff the hell out of the metal back are now dropping and breaking their back glass.
In that case, switching from metal to glass backing was an incredibly stupid design decision. Still Apple's fault.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"While our data doesn't identify which broken screens resulted from dirt trapped behind a slide case, at least a quarter of the broken glass claims involved the back screen."
"Back screen"? "At least a quarter"?
I'm with Mr Anonymous Coward on this, even if he did use the word "fucktard"
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
I think you touched on a really important point there. Phones are pretty much the only devices on the planet where people attempt to use them while they are still in cases.
That said, most of this has more to do with the fact that you are carrying them around all day whether you are using it or not. This makes the expected accident rate much higher than with, for example, a musical instrument, in which you use it only for a short time in a controlled environment (theoretically, I say as I recall a time in which my old trombone got a nasty slide dent from a flying can of soda).
Secondarily, no device likes to be sat upon, and since phones don't generally provide any useful hardware for attaching a belt clip without first wrapping them in a case, this greatly increases the need for a case. In effect, a lot of people use cases for phones for precisely the same reason that they use cases for laptops---the only difference, of course, being that you don't have to suddenly answer your laptop. And this, in turn, is why so many phones are used while in cases. It's not because they are fragile, but rather because you can't feasibly carry them in a safe way without a case, and because it's easier to quickly get your phone ready to use if you don't have to take it out of that case.
What does this mean? Cellular phones should have standardized hardware for mounting a belt clip... say, a T-nut inset into the back.... Just my $0.02.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Oh, I also noticed the other day when fiddling with my phone that it supports SkipJack and single DES encryption, making me wonder why the UAE went after RIM to get their keys. It seems to me RIM could just tell the handset to downgrade crypto to skipjack or something.
www.isoHunt.com
Glass breaks, who woulda knew. Really people the dam phone is made of glass,on both sides. Not a very bright idea ya ask me
Jack of all trades,master of none
Gorilla Glass was invented in 1962 so what license fee would Apple have to pay if they decide to have another foundry manufacture the exact same formulation? It's not like anything invented in 1962 would still enjoy patent protection. The only way Apple would have to pay any such licensing fee is if they wanted to use the trademark - but if they did choose Dow Corning(TM) Gorilla Glass(TM) they probably would not even have to pay that just to mention "hey our phones are now ruggedized with Gorilla Glass" - Dow would be happy to get the free PR in addition to selling Apple the components, I'm sure.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
People who live in glass houses... :-)
Shouldn't throw iPhones.
You're holding it wrong.
what they really need is to switch to gorilla glass that corning makes
See, you're not holding it right.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
You do understand what percentage means, right?
so what technology would this so called glass foundry use, Dow Corning does improve the technology covering Gorilla Glass and thus has patented some those manufacturing methods (gorilla glass is the marketing term not the type or grade of the final product as that varies depending on its use). You may be able to produce similar glass but the methods (heating cooling times, chemical combinations etc) used are "not public knowlege".
Out of all my friends, Iphones (3GS's) tend to have a 40% break rate (sample is 9, 4 have broken, two dead and two broken screens but still functional) which is farily high considering that I know people with HTC desires, Nokia E71's and Motorola Milestones some of whom treat their phones like crap and they are still working fine (one of the Milestones has no chrome left around the screen bezel).
Iphones are quiet fragile due to the fact that they do not use tensile materials in the screens construction, treating your phone with a modicum of care is prudent I agree but you shouldn't need to handle the thing with kid gloves which is what the Iphone requires unless you want to be out A$1000 for a new one.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I guess part of the problem is that the new iPhone has two bits fo glass. One for the front and one for the back. .... crack.
To add to that, you take less car of the back, so you put it down on the table and there is a scew you didn't notice
Apple has had quality problems all the way back to the original Macintosh. Ask yourself why Apple doesn't offer AppleCare for the iPod Touch? Why are there businesses that make decent revenue off of repairing things like crappy headphone jacks?
Why can't Apple use tempered glass on their iphones?
Ask yourself why Apple doesn't offer AppleCare for the iPod Touch?
I meant to say the iPod Touch 3G.
i like their iphones
There have been reports that when a grain of sand gets trapped under a case (sliding case), that it can scratch the back glass, and be compressed enough to cause a tiny crack to form which spreads, and the whole back shatters.
Of course who knows if these reports are true.
http://www.iphonehacks.com/2010/10/apple-investigating-potential-issue-with-slide-on-cases-and-iphone-4-causing-cracked-glass-back-panel.html
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You can just use a chip or porcelain. Flick it at the glass and watch the fun.
They do tend to slide off surfaces a lot easier than the previous models. I once put mine on a mouse pad that was on top of my pc case (which is almost perfectly level) and it slid off after about 10 minutes; probably due to slight vibration. It's happened to me several times now when I place it somewhere I would never expect it to fall.
I'm sure this has nothing to do with people breaking their iPhone 4 on purpose because the antenna is bad and they want a different model phone or heard they're redesigning the iPhone 4 in September
FTFA: "With just 4 months of data, it's clear that the iPhone 4 is significantly more prone to physical damage than its predecessor."
Actually that's not what that means. What is clear is people are breaking the iPhone 4 more than they did the 3GS. Could be any number of factors, doesn't necessarily mean iPhone 4 screen worse than 3GS. I think squaretrade needs a Jump to Conclusions mat. It's pretty scary though that a company that offers warranties makes unscientific assumptions about the products they're warrantying, I'd expect a better conclusion than this from SquareTrade "Research"
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
The thing I find most scary about that design is the kooky idea of making the back of device in glass as well as the front. It seems like a total case of over-design, doubling the number of components prone to accidental damage for absolutely no functional reason.
Any handheld device will acquire a few scratches and bumps under normal wear, no matter how carefully you look after it. A case in point: the back of my iPod Classic has lots of scratches, while the front is completely unblemished. That's just from putting it down on the non-slip rubber-lined compartment of my car while I'm driving. I would be fucking pissed off if any of those scratches caused the case to fall apart.
It's called Fruit Ninja
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From an insurer's perspective, the reasons for the damage rate are unimportant unless they can economically prove intentional damage.
Personally, I prefer hard to break screens. That generally means small, but that's acceptable to me.
So, it sucks worse than previous iPhones, but is still better than other consumer electronics, so therefore ignore the doubling of failures... Got it.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
coming soon
You're sure it's not just suicidal? Sounds like time for an intervention.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
I am quite sure Apple keep very precise statistics of all breakages reported to them, whether they agree to fix them or not, though of course they won't share them. As to consumer reports (for example), they could easily do a survey of iPhone owners, and I'd trust them a hell of a lot more than someone whose interest is in inflating figures like this to sell insurance.
As to medicine, the fact that insurance providers hold all the power in the US is an anomaly. In most other first world countries, insurers don't run the health system, and proper statistics on all types of injuries are compiled by a central body and doctors themselves, not by a party with a monetary interest. Just because it is done that way in the US doesn't mean it is normal or efficient. Here's an example:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overall/hssh0405.pdf
The only source less likely to provide reliable statistics on breakages is Apple, and I wouldn't trust these statistics from anyone with a monetary interest in the results - it's too easy to lie by tweaking the figures you choose to present.
This way of presenting the statistics seems a bit too sensationalist.
From TFA: "Accident rates up 68%"
Sure sounds serious, no? They could have written: "Accident rates rises 1.9%"
Not that interesting all of a sudden, but it's the same numbers.
Then the source of the title of this post: "iPhone 4 broken screen rate up by 82%"
Reading the fine print reveals that "3.9% of iPhone 4 owners reported a cracked screen within 4 months, as opposed to just 2.1% of iPhone 3gs owners."
From 2.1% to 3.9%. Again not that interesting, but no numbers for a headline.
What would be interesting is how accident rates compare between smarphone makers. This is just massaging numbers to get a headline.
Apple seem to have banned hard cases that the iPhone 4 slides into. There is speculation that this is because if these are slid on/off when there is any hard grit in or on either case or phone when it's fitted or removed, that the grit could score the glass and create a long scratch that will crack under stress. Have a look, there aren't any slider cases in my local Apple store.
I vote for a probable D) A disproportionate number of iPhones compared to other smart phones are owned by teenagers
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
They do tend to slide off surfaces a lot easier than the previous models.
Even easier? My iPhone 3G was already ridiculously slippery. Once it'd started sliding a bit in your hand, there was almost nothing you could do to prevent it from hitting the pavement.
In comparison, I love the sturdiness of my Milestone. I know it's unreasonably locked down for an Android phone, but the really big upside is that it's practically indestructible. Steel everywhere, with some rubbery coating so it doesn't slip at all, no matter what surface it's on, and the screen won't even scratch if you try. (There's a youtube video where someone goes wild with a set of keys.) I regularly sit on it when I have it in my back pocket. My 1.5 year old son throws it around the room. Still not the tiniest scratch.
Perhaps the fucktards are the designers who create frequently dropped devices such as handheld phones out of not one but two pieces of glass. Or the fucktards who buy these devices and then promptly enclose them in rubber / plastic / leather sheathes thereby negating many of the reasons for buying the thing in the first place (e.g. thinness, design aesthetics).
You just compared _occurrences_ with _amount of damage once something occurs_.
Would you like an apple with that orange?
Keep in mind, enclosing it in a case also causes problems. see: http://www.lanewsmonitor.com/news/Report--Scratch-causing-iPhone-4-Cases-Pulled-From-Apple-Store-1286831911/
Disclaimer: I'm a happy iPhone owner without insurance.
"Square Trade loses money for every screen break."
I'm sure this is not how they look at it. As an insurance company (in other words a bookmaker) they make or lose money based on whether they have set the right or wrong odds on screen breaks and other problems. They would certainly not count single screen breaks and go "damn, we lost money on this one".
Instead they would simply raise their premiums if screen breaks occurred more regularly than they had initially thought. As someone with what I would call a healthy distrust in insurance companies, I don't think they'd release this information unless they had something to gain by releasing it.
My guess is that it is one of the following two options:
1. They are getting stick for increasing insurance premiums and they feel the need to justify themselves so as not to lose customers.
2. They want to convince people that they really should get insurance, since the iPhone screen is so very likely to break.
Either way, I'm sceptical.
Oh.. btw, why do you think the parent makes a difference for Apple over heart attacks? Strawman?
But Apple would cover such an issue under their service plan.
That is if you don't shatter the glass. No way it will break on it's own. It's gorilla glass. Would take more than a dust particle to actually crack.
Apple "took one look" at my wife's iPhone 3G with shattered screen and replaced it. No questions asked. You are making an unsubstantiated negative claim about a company, I wonder what your bias is. Actually, I don't have to wonder.
Much easier. I went from a 3G to the 4 and if there was even the slightest angle in the surface the 4 would slide off of it. It fell or was dropped probably three times in the first day. Immediately bought a bumper for it -- I figured if I waited the six weeks for the Apple provided freebie to ship the display would've already shattered. The bumper provides enough friction that it hasn't been an issue since.
Well if that is not proof to you then I really have no idea what could possibly come with more incriminating evidence than that.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
That would be pretty stupid, since ATT won't insure iPhones and the warranty doesn't cover a cracked screen. Actually they will take your money to insure an iPhone but they don't cover them so you are paying for nothing ROFL.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Unless there is a contagious factor, the only nationwide stats you will find on injuries (broken arms) is from insurance carriers.
This is perhaps technically true insofar as the US government is an "insurance carrier", but it is not meaningfully true in that while the US government does national collection of statistics within its "insurance" programs for their covered populations, it also does so more generally through the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, which gathers injury statistics from a variety of sources (directly from hospitals who record this in discharge and emergency department records, and via public survey methods.
I can attest to one contributor. People not buying a case when they purchase the phone because they're going several weeks unprotected waiting for their free iPhone 4 case from Apple.
grep -iw skynet
careful, dude, fanbois are touchy, and not just Apple fanbois. Give a negative opinion and you're likely to be modded down no matter if it's MS, Apple, Linux, or even Sony.
BTW, I agree with your comment. I keep my phone in my pocket, and even though it's a small phone (I chose it for that reason) it wouldn't fit well with a case.
Free Martian Whores!
A phone shouldn't be fragile. I wore glasses for decades, they stayed on my face. A violin and laptop and glasses aren't something you carry in your pocket, either. Phones should be durable, and IMO any phone that isn't designed with the idea that it's going to be droped sooner or later is a bad design.
Free Martian Whores!
Gorilla Glass' patent ran out in 1982. It isn't a licence issue, it just costs a little more to manufacture it. From wikipedia:
Free Martian Whores!
Compared to the 3GS, iPhone4 screens are under the load of ~4X as many pixels/cm^2. So an 82% increase in breakage rate means, in reality, the screens are more than TWICE as strong as the previous model! /steve
Man. What ever happened to phone holsters? Those things worked great and it was super easy to get your phone out.
Any time you're flinging something up at your head out of your pocket, you should consider that once in a while you're going to drop it. So yes, the manufacturer needs to design them better, but the user needs to actually be conscious of what he/she is doing with the product. It is not the manufacturer's responsibility to instill common sense in the user.