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Apple Is Still Ignoring One of the Biggest iPhone Engineering Flaws of All Time: 'Touch Disease' (slashdot.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the can't-touch-this dept.

Jason Koebler, writing for Motherboard: As Apple is preparing to ship its brand new iPhone, the company continues to ignore one of the biggest hardware defects to ever plague its smartphone line. Just two years after it was released, the touchscreens of thousands upon thousands of iPhone 6 Pluses are completely losing their functionality under normal use, which experts say is the long-term effect of the engineering flaw that gave us "bendgate." By most accounts, dead touchscreens have become an iPhone 6 Plus epidemic, and yet the company has not commented on it, leaving consumers uninformed and harming independent repair businesses. In many cases, Apple has charged hundreds of dollars to replace a broken phone with a refurbished one that is subject to the same engineering defect that caused the phone to break in the first place. A lawsuit has been filed against Apple, claiming the company "has long been aware of the defective iPhones," but continues to do nothing about it. "Notwithstanding its longstanding knowledge of this design defect, Apple routinely has refused to repair the iPhones without charge when the defect manifests," the lawsuit reads. "Many other iPhone owners have communicated with Apple's employees and agents to request that Apple remedy and/or address the Touchscreen Defect and/or resultant damage at no expense. Apple has failed and/or refused to do so." As for how many iPhones are affected by this? It's hard to tell for sure. But according to an Apple Insider report that cites anonymous Genius Bar employees at four large Apple stores, 11 percent of all iPhone-related service issues at those stores were related to Touch IC problems, and Touch IC issues made up about a third of all iPhone 6 Plus-related problems at those stores.

12 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We've come to expect engineering disaster from supposed "premium" phone companies. They have a lot less to lose than small manufacturers that would be wiped out by something on the scale of touch plague or battery fires.

  2. Another way to get people to buy new phones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would they fix this? More broken phones == more new phones sold in their mind. If it happens after 2 years, in many places that is just outside of the warranty period on your product so they are not legally obligated to _fix_ your phone anymore. (You can get more warranty, depends on the country and where you buy the phone I guess).

    It isn't good news for us, but technology has a shorter lifespan these days than in the past. (I'm quite sure my first mobile phones would still work), but then again these products were less technologically complex.

    Fixing this issue in production would arguably be the 'moral' thing to do, not necessarily the 'smartest' idea in terms of business. [Unless people turn against apple for this bullshit, but a lot of apple followers will just buy anything they release]

    1. Re:Another way to get people to buy new phones by Cloud+K · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Turning away from Apple is exactly what I've done. Between things like this, a lack of innovation (they like to spread things thin so they have at least have *something* to talk about next year) and things like the headphone jack, eventually I said "no more". Apple like to push and push and push and see how much they can possibly get away with, and sooner or later they're going to cross that line for a lot more people.

      The thing is, once they do cross that line, it snaps back, like elastic, putting them well into "I'd need a very good reason to buy Apple products again" territory. All these "just a headphone jack" kind of things add up. Each year you think "oh they've only ruined X or removed Y, that's okay, I didn't *really* need that anyway" and put up with it because new shiny thing with some amazing new feature. Except they haven't done the "amazing new feature" part for white a while now. Then you look back on all the times you've made a compromise like that or risked antennagate (had, was real) / bendgate / touch disease and basically see a mountain.

    2. Re:Another way to get people to buy new phones by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apple only started fixing the logic board problems for free after a massive amount of press coverage, 12,000 post forum thread and class-action lawsuit.

      That's what upsets people; they do the right thing eventually, but have to be forced to do by massive amounts of pressure and years of uncertainty and broken hardware. If you had bought that computer new and it had died of this, you would have either had to pay Apple for the repair and many years later claim a refund, or sit on it for years and presumably buy another machine in the mean time.

      It's the same for iPhone 6 users. Maybe eventually Apple will fix it for free, but until then they either pay or have no phone.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Sounds more like design philosophy, not flaw by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Touch screen stops working, after normal use, and a newer model is available for purchase?

    That is the Apple philosophy.

  4. And you guys thought Samsung were bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    for doing a full recall for millions of phones after 30-40 batteries started burning? Samsung are straight up honest. Apple, not so much.

  5. Who cares? by stealth_finger · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who cares if it works? It's pretty!

    --
    Wanna buy a shirt?
    https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
  6. Ignore it? They put it in as a feature. by Scragglykat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Touch disease, referred to in their internal documents as cha-ching-itis. Just two years you say... the standard length of time people will pay on an iPhone before they get a new one historically.

  7. Re:iPhone 6? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Obligatory

  8. Re:A defect is a defect by tsqr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously why call it a disease? That implies that an iPhone could get it from another iPhone, you not washing your hands, etc.

    So, you don't consider cancer or diabetes to be diseases? Non-communicable diseases cause far more deaths worldwide than communicable ones.

  9. Re:My iPod Touch 6 Has This Flaw by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just... barely works. Sometimes you have to breathe on the screen a little to get it to recognize your finger.

    Disappointing, given how expensive it was.

    This is why I miss Steve Jobs.

    The obvious problem is that your finger is defective, and Jobs wouldn't have been afraid to tell you that.

    --
    Do you have ESP?
  10. Re:My iPod Touch 6 Has This Flaw by I4ko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Also the original iPhone from 2007 if used with a screen protector film. Ultimately it was the protector being porous and trapping salt and other contaminants from the fingers that placed electrical stress over the digitizer circuitry over time blowing the opamps. It would be interesting to know how many of those that complain about a broken digitizer on the 6 have a screen protector film.

    I managed to remove mine from the old 4S just before it was going to break for good. With the film gone and frequent microfiber wipes, the original digitizer works fine to this day.