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Consumer Reports: New iPhones Not As Bendy As Believed
An anonymous reader writes: Over the past several days, we've been hearing reports about some amount of users noticing that their brand new iPhone 6 Plus is bending in their pockets. The pictures and videos shown so far have kicked off an investigation, and Consumer Reports has done one of the more scientific tests so far. They found that the iPhone 6 Plus takes 90 pounds of pressure before it permanently deforms. The normal iPhone 6 took even less: 70 lbs. They tested other phones as well: HTC One (M8): 70 lbs, LG G3: 130 lbs, iPhone 5: 130 lbs, Samsung Galaxy Note 3: 150 lbs. The Verge also did a report on how Apple torture-tests its devices before shipping them. Apple's standard is about 55 lbs of pressure, though it does so thousands of times before looking for bends. One analysis suggests that Apple's testing procedure only puts pressure on the middle of the phone, which doesn't sufficiently evaluate the weakened area where holes have been created for volume buttons. Consumer Reports' test presses on the middle of the device as well.
<tt>Consumer Reports: The iPhone users wearing skinny jeans aren't really as skinny as they believed.</tt>
The World is Yours.
There should be a minimum charge (like another $199) and a replacement phone be provided. I once had an iPhone that cracked near the camera lens and apple replaced it for free because it was a known defect. Has anyone had an experience where apple didn't replace the phone? I didn't have AppleCare either.
As is the case a lot (not all) of the time with Apple. They're worth a lot in click-bait, so what you do is try to find something outrageous to say about a popular product, put adverts on the page to generate you cash, and try and profit from the massive public interest in yet another Apple product...
Or maybe I'm getting too cynical in my old age.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
i guess its shorthand for pounds per square inch of pressure. This is quite normal at least in america
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Wait, wait, wait...
iPhone 5: 130lbs. force to deform
iPhone 6+: 90 lbs. force to deform -> 30% less force
iPhone 6: 70 lbs. force to deform -> 46% less force
A reduction in resistance to deformation of nearly one third to one half over previous models and they are supposedly "not as bendy as believed"? WTF? That's a recall class problem in my book.
More likely, pound is short for pound force, so they're talking about a force, not pressure.
90 pounds is probably nothing when you consider the phone is being sold in the American market, where being sat on by an average member of the public should probably be measured in tons.
I doubt it. More likely they rigidly support the ends of the device and apply the spec'd force to the center.
Read it again. People are accustomed to treating their iPhones in a certain way (storage-wise), but the 6 bends at nearly HALF the pressure of the 5. That's the crux of the problem. The 6 is a step backwards in strength. The larger size in part of it, since there's more leverage potential, but LG and Samsung seem to have solved that problem. No, it's not made of cheese, as some users seem to have reported, but it will bend under circumstances that the 5 would not.
Who thinks it's okay to sit on their phone? Why do people think they ought to be able to? It literally makes no sense. It's an electronic device with a glass screen. If I handed someone a sheet of glass and said, "put this in your back pocket and sit on it!" they'd refuse.
But a phone? Oh, absolutely! Shit, wait, no! It broke?!?!
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
One analysis? Every documented case of the issue shows that the bending occurs at a specific weakpoint that is not in the middle of the device. What fucking idiot would test for this weakness by only bending the device in the middle?
Consumer Reports' test presses on the middle of the device as well. Oh joy, a whole team of professional fucking idiots.
The battery usually extends through the mid-line of the phone as well. Test it where the top of the battery is, that's going to be much nearer to the weakest point.
They have a video. That's exactly what they do: they place the phone on two blocks of wood, and then have a machine apply a set amount of pounds of force to a bar placed across the middle of the phone.
About all their test tells you is that you shouldn't take Consumer Reports tests seriously if this is the kind of testing they're going to do. Especially because the people bending the phones weren't bending them straight in the middle, they were bending them right below the volume buttons. Which is also where their test phone's case actually breaks, even though the bend is down where they placed the bar.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Obviously, the consumer reports testing was completely scientific, after all, they are known to be on the side of the consumer, right? It is nothing less than astonishing that the HTC One happened to tie the iPhone 6 exactly. And of course, this video must have been faked.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Also true for if a 250lb man puts it in his back pocket... unless he also happens to put a ball bearing in his back pocket and then applies all his weight to that one precise spot.
Really... a person's weight != the force placed on a specific spot on an object a person has in their pocket. The entire reason we sit down is to distribute the force along our hips and thighs.
You might have a point if people were standing on their iPhones while they were suspended between two bricks.
Of course, what worried me (and this is where you can get a legit comparison) is that a six year old kid or a medium size dog CAN generate 150lb of force pretty easily.
Here's one data point for you: I've carried an un-protected iPod Touch 4g in my back pocket since around 2010 -- no scratches, no bends. The thing is about the same thickness as the iPhone 6 (0.26 in thick vs iPhone 0.27 in), and only a slightly smaller form factor. I've only come close to putting 50lbs of force on a single point a few times (landing on a pointy rock) -- result was that it got some stuck pixels for a few days that eventually returned to normal.
Our precious HTC bends before the iPhone 6+ where is the outrage. ... Oh sorry android is sacred in this crowd. Come on slashdoters we are such google sheep.
Strawman. At least some of the reports of bending were from people claiming they put the phones in their front pockets.
Well hello, Counter Strawman.
In reality the 6 plus works fine in front pockets - I know. I've been using it for days and there's not even a hint of bending from having the phone in your pockets.
Furthermore that was the point of the tests consumer reviews did, under normal packet use these things are not going to bend - especially in front pockets.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It doesn't take much pressure at all to bend/break an iPhone 6 Plus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Applying a point of pressure in the middle tests general structural integrity. It won't test any specific cutout areas that well (like the volume buttons), but as a general stress test, it does quite well, especially as the testers do continual repeated tests, not just one test in the center. They're testing for materials fatigue and deformation due to torque, as well as impact. Good general test.
But I agree; they should also be testing potential weak points to see how they perform. I'd expect them to do significantly better, as the structure is much more rigid but with the same tensile strength near the edges (less leverage).
but the 6 bends at nearly HALF the pressure of the 5
Neither figure matters if the pressure actually put on the phone in your pocket is 1/10th of 55 lbs.
To phrase it differently since you seem to have a personality tailor-made for being "misled by statistics", if the only force a device undergoes is 10-20lbs, why does it matter if a device can sustain a million pounds of force, or 30,
Remember that in realty Apple's has reports of just six actual phones being bent.
I have a 6plus and have been using it in my pocket. After sitting or leaning over or whatever, there is zero bend or even flex to the thing. To actually bend it would take enough force I'd be concerned about my own structural integrity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This video is a real public service.
Apple's claims about this only happening to nine phones, out of 10 million, are extremely dubious.
This is the second time this guy has done this with a new iPhone.
If they only test the phone on the middle, what's the point?
A) Most people with phones in the back pocket would have strain excerpted roughly from the middle, not some offset point.
B) With the 6 Plus the distance from the center to the volume buttons is so small I doubt there would be any change in the results. Forces distributed across the device find the weakest point even if it is offset.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
but /. articles initiate a lot of static in the information band.
So, if the phones are bending in real world situations, they are by definition defective
Except they aren't.
Apple sold 10 *million* phones over the weekend. Of those, Apple says they have six complaints. And we haven't seen that many pictures from real owners.
So the reality is that the iPhone 6 is not defective, a few have undergone more extreme forces than is reasonable. In the end a large flat object can be broken, that's just physics and no amount of design will change that.
If you plan to put ANY phone through more extreme forces than normal, get an Otterbox and call it a day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
The guy from Unbox Therapy, angry at the accusations that his original video was somehow staged, just posted a new video yesterday. In the new video, he unwraps a brand new iPhone 6+ on the street in Toronto with a handful of random witnesses watching, and again - by placing his thumbs on the back of the phone and applying moderate pressure- IMMEDIATELY produces a 25-30 degree bend in the unit, with the crease forming again at the bottom of the volume control cutouts.
In the new video, the iPhone deformed so badly the screen separated from the body.
He then attempted to bend a Moto X (2014 model) with visibly considerable force applied to it, and couldn't.
Is this really important? You decide. A lot of people - men, particularly - have carried their smartphones in the pockets of their jeans. If you're a big guy, and you have a tiny iPhone 5S in your back pocket and sit down in your car on a 3 hour road trip, the iPhone 5S won't deform because it's thicker, and much shorter in length, therefore providing a much shorter lever for your rump to apply force to. The iPhone 6+ however, being both thinner and significantly taller, provides a much longer lever for your 200+ pounds of man ass to press against the back of the car seat, making it quite conceivable that the iPhone 6+ WOULD have a bending problem in actual consumer use.
This issue has gotten enough viral traction and major media attention that it isn't going to go away. Worse yet for Apple is that unlike Antennagate, this problem won't be solved with a rubber bumper case costing Apple 20 cents manufacturing cost - NO, bent iPhone 6+ units still within their return period or covered by AppleCare are going to cost the company $200+ per unit, according to recent teardown parts costing estimates.
When, as educated tech consumers, are people going to stop confusing "smaller and thinner" as being "more advanced" ? All we are doing here, people, is sacrificing durability and battery life.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Torque is what matters.
If you test bending in the middle, you put 70 pounds force (approximately 300 newtons) in the middle, and support the ends firmly. That means that if the weakest point is in the middle, the torque on that point is (2 x 150 newtons x 80 mm), as the length of the lever arm to the support at the edge is about 80 mm. We'll ignore the fact that the test support is really a little bit inside that, and assume that the subject is supported right at the edge. Note also that the force is 150 newtons, which is half of the 70 pounds force used to break the phone, because the force is opposed evenly by two supports. Their equal force is then summed, which is why our total torque has that "2" scalar, giving us a total of 24 newton-meters of torque.
If we bend off-center, such as half-way towards one of the ends, the forces on the test supports are no longer equal. Our lever arms are now 120 and 40 mm, and the force would be unevenly distributed as well. The force is distributed inversely to the length of the lever arms, so the short arm, being 25% of the length, now supports 75% of the load, which is 225 newtons. The long arm supports 25%, which is 75 newtons. This gives us a total torque of (225 newtons * 40mm + 75 newtons * 120mm), for a total of only 18 newton-meters of torque.
Since testing off-center actually applies less torque to the test subject, the question then becomes one of whether the weak point is really 25% weaker than the rest of the beam.
However, we can also compute the torque on the supposed weak point during the center test. In that case, the lever arms can be computed as though they behave as a typical lever, scaling the force. they apply. The longer lever would be a class 3 lever, which would reduce the effective force of the test to 100 newtons. On the other hand, the shorter arm would behave as a class 2 lever, increasing the force to 300 newtons. The total torque on the weak point during a center test, then, is (100 newtons * 120mm + 300 newtons * 40mm), which is again 24 newton-meters.
If the weak point were really weaker than anywhere else in the phone, it would break during the center-loaded test. Looking at the pictures from Consumer Reports, though, that's exactly what happened. On both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the most significant damage is at the edge of the volume buttons closest to the center.
However, it's worth noting that the Consumer Reports test was conducted until the screen detached, even if that happened after the phone itself was permanently deformed. Looking at other pictures of bent phones, their screens have not separated from the cases, so they likely used less force to deform. Bending to separation, though, provides a consistent point of comparison to other phones, which may have internal damage even if their cases return to normal.
Disclaimer: I am not a physicist, and not a test engineer. If my math or methodology is incorrect, please feel free to tell me why.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Apple needs to get their ruggedness act together. Meanwhile, here's a real phone, the Caterpillar B15.
Cat B15 tested by users. Dragged behind car. Used to play basketball. (As the ball, not as a computer game.) Dropped off bridge. Run through cement mixer. Frozen in bucket of ice. Run over by car. No problem.
Cat B15 tested by Caterpillar. Dropped into pool of water. Scooped out with heavy equipment. Run over by front end loader. (One of Cat's smaller front end loaders.) No problem.
It's an Android phone. The B15 runs Android 4.2; the new B15Q runs Android 4.4. Price around $300. Available in the US at Home Depot. Unlocked; pick any GSM carrier. T-Mobile works. No annoying carrier-provided apps. Caterpillar preloads apps for ordering Caterpillar heavy equipment parts and renting heavy equipment.
If you have one of these in a pocket, you will break before it will. I carry one of these horseback riding.
Have gnu, will travel.
How mush pressure does it take accounting for body heat? How must does it change for a person who is sweating ? Is this a parameter they test for as well?? How about say rubbing? If a person had the phone in there back pocket it surly is rubbing up and down as a person walks. Or a poor mix of whatever the iphone is made of? don't know I don't own a iphone. Plastic? Bad mixture to save money? metal? mixture changed to save money? Shit most of the stainless steel we get from communist country's is magnetic. Stainless steel is not magnetic.
Jack of all trades,master of none
" This is confirmation, not as bendable as believed!"
Correct, it's even more bendable. The iPhone 5 could take nearly double the force.
Which means the phone got weaker structurally with the upgrade.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
.
While the iPhone 5, the LG G3, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 are much better in this regard (all >= 130 pounds), with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 at the top of the tests with 150 pounds.
No, it isn't. To properly calculate 'bendability' you have to calculate force moments around the points where it actually bends. If you take a look at the bendgate photos, you'll see that it bends and breaks at the lower end of the volume buttons. This point is about one third down, and the phone is 157mm long, so you have the bending force acting on a lever about 105mm long. Since the torque is proportional to the square of the lever, a much smaller force would be necessary to bend it there than in the middle. Since both consumer reports and Apple apply the force in the middle of the phone, they'll show you a larger force necessary to bend it.
Unfortunately, in your pocket the phone will eventually hit a place where the smaller force will be applied in the "right" spot and it will bend.
I wouldn't ever carry a bare phone or one with just a silicone bumper in a front pocket
I have for years without issue.
And that includes the iPhone plus.
Theres simply not enough force to even come close to flexing the phone, much less bending...
Back pockets are I think more worrisome but even there - the Plus (as the tests show) is pretty damn rigid.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So just get the iPhone 5 then. If you want a bendalbe phone, get the iPhone 6 Plus.
Choice is good.
What the test shows is that most phones will resist a reasonable amount of bending when the load is applied uniformly at the centre. They all do pretty well. That's great.
The issue with the iPhone 6 Plus is that it has a weak corner, if you watch the 'bendgate' video you can clearly see that the bend line is not straight across the phone, but at an angle near to the weak spot.
A properly designed test would have clamped each phone flat with a corner sticking out unsupported and force applied until it suffered plastic deformation (stays bent). Each phone could have all four corners tested and the weakest result is the 'winner'. In such a test the iPhone 6 Plus would clearly fail at its weak point much more readily than any of the others.
Bad science.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
A better test might be to place the phone on thick foam, then roll a soft bar over it, applying a constant force. Then rotate the phone one degree, and repeat. Continue repeating until you reach 180 degrees.
But a phone is also likely going to experience bending in both directions, which can lead to metal fatigue, as well as twisting and bending at the same time.
True, that would then find other potential weakspots. There are many tests you could postulate that would be better than the one they did.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
What fucking idiot would test for this weakness by only bending the device in the middle?
Someone who just bought an iPhone 6 Plus, perhaps?
People who buy into the whole Apple lifestyle thing tend to be quite resistant to admitting flaws in Apple's products. There are bound to be a few of that sort working at Consumer Reports.
So it's a hype?
Who would have thought that!
I don't really understand why Consumer Report doesn't know the difference between force and mass. You measure force in Newtons (N) and mass in kilograms (kg) or, even less scientific because it's not a SI unit, pounds (lb).
-- Cheers!
The reason the iPhone 6 bends so easily in *manual* stress tests is because your fingers natural wrap the metal case and pull it away from the screen. When this happens, the screen itself plays no part in the rigidity of the phone and the metal backing bends like putty (as can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... )
If the Consumer Reports test had moved the blocks either side of the phone to the edges of the screen, the phone would have deformed with far less force (as all force would've been acting on the paper-thin metal). This matters because the stress applied to phones when in your pocket are uneven and focused on the phone edges.
Apple should have designed the phone in such a way that the metal directly attached itself to the glass and both reinforced each other.
The actual number of people who reported a problem to Apple? 9.
The actual number of people who reported a problem to the place where they had purchased the phone? Unknown. Most people go back to the point of purchase with problems not the manufacturer.
The probability that Apple is under reporting the issue? High.
Have you instrumented your ass, because you have nothing, at all, to back up that assertion.
Wrong.
Came looking for this: http://www.willitblend.com/
Left feeling disappointed.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"The Verge also did a report on how Apple torture-tests its devices before shipping them. Apple's standard is about 55 lbs of pressure" Oh, now I understand the issue. It has to do with how we define a 'torture' test. For Apple and/or the Verge, apparently it's applying the weight of a 6 year old child to your phone. Guess we can all hand our phones to the kids and grandkids while driving/sitting.
So it's a hype?
Who would have thought that!
Ironically this is all about Public relations and nothing about the truth, and nobody thinks its apple can tell the truth anymore.. Apples standard to simply lie about everything from taxies to white plastic to antennas to how there devices should be used.If finally catching up with them.
I look forward to the truth coming out.
I wonder how much it cost them to get the results they wanted, and have them published.
If you think CR is still impartial, you are in the wrong century..
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
Who thinks it's okay to sit on their phone?
I do. Of course I set it to vibrate first, then tell those around me that I can't find it and ask them to call my phone.
I haven't seen one bent to the point of damage, but I've held the regular iPhone 6 and I can flex it with one hand. It VASTLY more flexible than my nexus5.
Stop sitting on your phone, fatass! :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Where did this word "bendy" come from? It sounds like a Gumby pal. Isn't it "bendable" or "flexible" or "pliable"?
Somebody is trying to make English bendy.
Table-ized A.I.
in your pocket the phone will eventually hit a place where the smaller force will be applied in the "right" spot and it will bend.
You're putting it in your pocket wrong.
Burn.
consumer reports broke the whole antenna-gate thing specifically so that noone would suspect that they were really paid Apple shills.
What's it like to be an idiot?
They denied many people had them but eventually fixed it anyway with a free bumper.
That didn't *fix* anything though. As was widely reported at the time, ALL phones lose signal dramatically with a death grip, iPhone or no, even with a case.
I never used a case or bumper with the "Antenna phone" and need had an issue dropping calls.
The free bumper was just PR.
I imagine somewhere in Apple's labs they are testing strengthened cases
Possibly, but I think that will only come into play with the iPhone 6s. I'm sure they will consider it more strongly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Android phones bend too.
As anyone could have found with Google before they tried to make this a thing about Apple.
Just be aware and it'll be fine, with any phone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
even if they are under-reporting by 99%, you're still talking ~1000 or so people. Which out of 10 million in the first weekend of sales is not bad.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It's just the Danegeld, but over the internet.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Remember that in realty Apple's has reports of just six actual phones being bent.
Riiiight....becuase Apple has never lied about product defects and never, ever deleted a forum post that pointed them out.
No sig today...
In the end a large flat object can be broken, that's just physics and no amount of design will change that.
If you bother to look at the videos you'll see they all seem to bend right where the volume buttons are. That's called a "weak point" and a certain amount of design will change that (and without violating the laws of physics!)
No sig today...
Maybe you wear baggy pants with elastic waistband.
Hipsters prefer the "two pin plug" look.
No sig today...
But don't you think it's kind of crappy that the iPhone 6 is so flimsy, especially for the price?
If it were flimsy, perhaps , but in reality it's not - some Android phones are worse, and if you pick one up you can tell "flimsy" does not describe it at all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Anyone who sits on their phone gets what they deserve.
Yup -- I've always counted myself lucky that I've never had a corner drop -- for me, the iDevices aren't a problem for bending so much as they are for corner impact for the front glass -- I see a lot of devices with the crazed cracks reaching out from a corner of the device. Much more of an issue than any bending that may occur.