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A Design Defect Is Plaguing Many iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Units (iphonehacks.com)
Evan Selleck, writing for iPhoneHacks (edited and condensed): For many iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus owners out there in the wild, a design defect is apparently causing some huge issues. Gadget repair firm iFixit has reported about a flaw dubbed "Touch Disease", which it claims is cropping up. With it, owners of the phones are experiencing, to start, a gray bar that appears at the very top of their display. And, for many others, the display itself becomes unresponsive to touch, or less responsive overall. In the blog post, iFixit says the problem stems from issues with the touchscreen controller chip, which is soldered onto the logic board. Interestingly enough, iFixit posits that the same internal design decisions that led to "Endgate" might be causing the issue leading to Touch Disease, too: "In both the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the Touch IC chips connect to the logic board via an array of itty-bitty solder balls -- "like a plate resting on marbles," Jessa explains. Over time, as the phone flexes or twists slightly during normal use, those solder balls crack and start to lose contact with the board. "At first, there may be no defect at all. Later you might notice that the screen is sometimes unresponsive, but it is quick to come back with a hard reset," Jessa explains. "As the crack deepens into a full separation of the chip-board bond, the periods of no touch function become more frequent."
bending it wrong.
The owners are holding it wrong
Skip to 13:00:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"you're soldering it wrong"
isn't that what nvidia said?
these bga's really scare me. so fragile and so unworkable from a tech POV. I can rework square flat packs but I can't do bga's. I hate them since they are just not really repair-friendly, not to mention its not inspection-friendly.
flat packs with leads flex and bend. bga's are a fucking abortion, especially if they are at all big, in chip size.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Considering the huge price of these things (love my iPhone 6+ anyway) let's hope Apple will offer some solution.
Presumably they will offer a solution, along the lines of "bend over and buy an iPhone 7, peasant!"
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I've personally had 3 iPhone 4 & 4S's get the dreaded "wifi grayed out" issue where your wifi, bluetooth and gps stop working. It was so common that dozens of forum threads involved long discussions about it (you can still find them easily - and also on ebay devices with the problem) and even Apple had a page about it where they offered as a solution to "reset your network settings". Obviously this did nothing, as it was discovered the problem was the temperature sensor was malfunctioning and disabling the wireless module (which took down BT, GPS as well) and once your one year warranty was over you were out of luck with Apple. What's crazy is that the temperature sensor was not enabled with the shipping iOS of the iPhone 4 (possibly the iPhone 4S as well), but Apple enabled it from either iOS 5 or iOS 6 (I forget - but people not upgrading never had the problem), so they could disable it again if they wanted to. But they did not want to, my company purchased 3 iPhones for me because they were all failing the same way (after being used only in the office, sitting on a desk, occasionally debugging iOS apps), so it was good money for Apple.
Apple won't fix a widespread problem even if it is just a firmware update for them, so don't count on a solution (other than offering you the newest iPhone perhaps with a "generous 10% discount" if you are "lucky").
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Reminder to EU residents, all electronics must come with a minimum 2 year guarantee under EU rules. Each country implements it a little differently, but you have at least a 2 year warranty.
Reminder to UK residents, in the UK the Sale of Goods Act applies. An expensive, high end phone should last 6 years. If it dies after 3 years then Apple can either repair it or offer you a 50% refund, excluding any damage you did and fair wear and tear.
If they argue, mention the Sale of Goods Act (loudly, in their store) and if that fails Small Claims Court.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And soon to be a fifth, all in under two years. This last one only lasted about three weeks.
If indeed that is true I think the problem is most likely you, or more accurately something you are doing. While Apple does have issues with devices from time to time, the probability of a single person have 5 failed iPhones in two years due to (conveniently unspecified) quality problems is remote to say the least. I've known of people to break that many phones in a similarly short time span but that was a user error problem. If there was evidence of Apple having widespread quality issues I'd be the first to pile on but I just don't see the evidence for it here.
When I try a hard reset the screen only gets worse.
Consumer Reports did some tests:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/consumer-reports-tests-iphone-6-bendgate/index.htm
Apple iPhone 6 70 lbs
Apple iPhone 6 Plus 90 lbs
LG G3 130 lbs
Apple iPhone 5 130 lbs
Samsung Galaxy Note 5 150 lbs
So an iPhone 6 is about twice as easy to deform as an iPhone 5 and other manufacturer's high end phones.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
FYI: BGA = Ball Grid Array,
"Ball Grid Array rework is one of the most challenging procedures performed at assembly facilities and repair depots around the world. " ---
http://www.circuitrework.com/f...
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
Apple pay isn't on android, by definition. Unless you're talking about the competing Google Pay, which is a different competing standard. And then there's Samsung pay because they have to duplicate everything Google does.
The real question is whether your institution supports it. If your bank, etc, supports Apple Pay but not Google Pay, or vis versa, and you really want that functionality, then your answer is clear, regardless of your brand loyalty.
Also, what is this facetime equivalent you speak of, assuming you're not just talking about Skype?
Making a phone thicker adds minimal structural material. Only around the edges. More volume internally, but actual structural material increase is negligible. Stiffness of the phone increases with the cube of thickness, so a small increase in thickness = more volume = infinitesimal increase in structural material = massive increase in stiffness. And you can put more battery in that extra volume, too...
Going from an 8mm thick phone to a 10mm thick phone may increase structural materials by 5%, but you gain 73% more stiffness and 25% more internal volume.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Yep. BGAs are difficult to rework, but perhaps the real blame for this can be aimed at the EU when they forced the electronics industry to transition to lead free solder 15 years ago, while not touching other industries, like car batteries.
Solder used to be 60%tin 40% lead. Lead was a great modifier to give ductility to solder joints. By going to almost 100% tin, solder joints are now more brittle, thus micro BGAs suffer more from thermal expansion fractures and shear fractures from physical drops.
The crazy thing, is the transition, which cost the industry Billions, was based on unproven science that tin/lead solder leached in ground fill rubbish dumps. It doesn't unless you have acid. But here we are today, stuck with a EU mandated change that increases energy to manufacturer and decreases reliability (see tin asker problem as well).
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