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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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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'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 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.
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
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
You're holding it wrong.
See, you're not holding it right.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
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.
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.
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!
What is all this apologetics?
Are you telling me that it's Squaretrade's fault that iPhone 4 has twice as much glass and is twice as likely to break?
I don't see you arguing that the numbers they provided are wrong, so how are they being deceptive? They simply reported that in the 4 months since iPhone 4 came out, almost twice as many suffer breakages as 3GS, which is numbers from their own customers. I totally fail to see how this is deceptive.
Do you mean they should have reported a lower (and false) number just because iPhone 4 is ... more fragile?
Why are Apple users often so irrational?
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.
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?