Internal Documents Show Apple Knew the iPhone 6 Would Bend (vice.com)

In 2014, multiple users reported that their iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets were bending under pressure, such as when they were kept in a pocket. As a byproduct of this issue, the touchscreen's internal hardware was also susceptible to losing its connection to the phone's logic board. It turns out, Apple was aware that this could happen. Motherboard: Apple's internal tests found that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are significantly more likely to bend than the iPhone 5S, according to information made public in a recent court filing obtained by Motherboard. Publicly, Apple has never said that the phones have a bending problem, and maintains that position, despite these models commonly being plagued with "touch disease," a flaw that causes the touchscreen to work intermittently that the repair community say is a result of bending associated with normal use. The information is contained in internal Apple documents filed under seal in a class-action lawsuit that alleges Apple misled customers about touch disease. The documents remain under seal, but US District Court judge Lucy Koh made some of the information from them public in a recent opinion in the case. The company found that the iPhone 6 is 3.3 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s, and the iPhone 6 Plus is 7.2 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s, according to the documents. Koh wrote that "one of the major concerns Apple identified prior to launching the iPhones was that they were 'likely to bend more easily when compared to previous generations.'"

Comments

I had a bent iPhone 6

[Anonymous Coward]

The weird thing was Apple replaced the whole screen and it was still bent. It went haywire after that and hit a full refurb phone. Great phone the iPhone 6.

Re:I had a bent iPhone 6

[DickBreath]

Using Samsung's bendable screen technology, Apple can now make pre-bent replacement screens for your bent iPhones.

So no need to replace the phone. Just repair it by installing a new, working, pre-bent screen into your bent phone.

Apple innovative thinking at work. And it's by design. The new design is in fashion. Soon all new phones will be bent. Don't believe me? Just look at how many Android phones are copying that horrible abomination called "the notch", now that Apple is getting rid of it.

Re: I had a bent iPhone 6

[Anonymous Coward]

No.. the weird thing is that anyone could even consider buying something from Apple... especially their iPhones.

They like their customers to bend over and they were obviously totally content to release iPhone models with very low quality... they somehow created an image of quality but in reality they plummeted quality ASAP and people still blindly buy their stuff without thinking and without actually trying to look past the whole. .. look the phone has an Apple logo!

I refuse to accept that all their sales are a result of careful considerations on the customers part.. truly the world hopefully does not have this many drooling morons?

Re: I had a bent iPhone 6

[Anonymous Coward]

There are advantages and disadvantages for both iPhone and any Android phone. Some people find what they like and what they want, so it is their choice. I have had both phones and I can see why people like iPhone as well as Android. Bending is not a serious issue at all because you can prevent it with a phone case. Also, I prefer iPhone in a sense of homogeneous development. Andriod is usually what you get for what you pay. The cheaper it is, the more troublesomes you get from the hardware.

Re: I had a bent iPhone 6

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news desktop support suicides grow and automatic driving cars kill people...

Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh, anything will bend.

Re:Meaningless

[TexasDiaz]

Yeah, that's the precise reason why I didn't buy a large-screen phone. I said to myself, "dude, that's going to bend if I put it in my pocket and bend over." And people are surprised somehow by this? That's people being dumbasses for the sake of being dumbasses.

Re:Meaningless

[PmanAce]

Unless you are overweight with rolls of fat, how does bending over cause the upper part of your leg to bend (where the front pockets are)?

Re:Meaningless

[PmanAce]

Maybe you are bending it wrong? Get it? ;)

Re:Meaningless

[ArchieBunker]

From guys wearing nut hugger jeans and women putting the phone in their back pocket

Re:Meaningless

[HornWumpus]

People that fat can just store their phones in a fold. Sucks when they forget which fold and lose it though.

Re:Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you are overweight with rolls of fat, how does bending over cause the upper part of your leg to bend (where the front pockets are)?

Ummm ... because that's where your fucking hip joint is located?

Re:Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you are overweight with rolls of fat, how does bending over cause the upper part of your leg to bend (where the front pockets are)?

People with the bent phone issue were putting in their back pocket, sitting on it, and then complaining that the phone was bent.

Re:Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you are overweight with rolls of fat, how does bending over cause the upper part of your leg to bend (where the front pockets are)?

Ummm ... because that's where your fucking hip joint is located?

You must have some seriously defective pants or your body does not conform to normal human standards. I've never had a pair of pants where anything sitting in a front pocket is located over my hips and not further down my leg (almost halfway to my knee).

Re:Meaningless

[jon3k]

It's a non-issue. Yes, their internal reports said it was more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s. So? Can you only make a new phone if it's less likely to bend? What's acceptable levels of manufacturing? If the 5s had a 1:1,000 chance to bend and the 6 Plus had a 1:950 chance, but got a thinner, lighter device ... so? Who cares?

Re:Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

Putting such a costly item in your back pocket always seemed to be an asinine thing to do.

Re:Meaningless

[Hognoxious]

Some of us wear a belt.

Re:Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you are overweight with rolls of fat, how does bending over cause the upper part of your leg to bend (where the front pockets are)?

Ummm ... because that's where your fucking hip joint is located?

You must have some seriously defective pants or your body does not conform to normal human standards. I've never had a pair of pants where anything sitting in a front pocket is located over my hips and not further down my leg (almost halfway to my knee).

The waist of your jeans aren't supposed to be hanging midway down your thighs.

Re:Meaningless

[superdave80]

(where the front pockets are)

I know you are on /. so you probably don't hang around a lot of women, but have you seriously not noticed that nearly every woman wearing pants puts them in their BACK pocets?

Re:Meaningless

[rogoshen1]

Could make the same kind of snark; front pants pockets are almost vestigial at this point. They're designed for maybe holding a tube of chap-stick, not something practical like a phone.

Re:Meaningless

[Raenex]

It's a non-issue.

That Consumer Reports test was flawed, because they tested pressure in the middle when the phones were clearly being bent at a particular point higher up.

It was a design flaw: "under a particular type of flexing, the phone is prone to bend mainly because a metal insert meant to reinforce instead spins in an axis too close to the critical point"

But that must be Fake News, since Snopes still cites the Consumer Reports test, right? https://www.snopes.com/news/20...

Re:Meaningless

[sexconker]

Are you retarded?

Wear pants.
Sit down.
Look at there the opening to the pocket is.
Imagine a large phone in that pocket.
How high does the phone sit? Does it even fit all the way in the pocket? (If you wear women's clothing, such as women's clothing or skinny jeans, it will not.)
How much tension is the phone placed under when sitting or leaning forward? (If you wear regular men's jeans, it's still quite a bit.)

Re:Meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

"Get it? ;)"

Of course you do ;)

Re:Meaningless

[jon3k]

Final paragraph from snopes:

Overall, what Consumer Reports found was that while all of the phones they tested would eventually bend or break with the application of enough force, âoeit took significant force to do this kind of damage to all these phonesâ and every model tested (including the iPhone 6) should hold up fine under ordinary, everyday use.

Turns out you can break any phone if you try hard enough. Who knew!

Re:Meaningless

[omnichad]

Or not wearing cargo pants with knee-length pockets.

Re:Meaningless

[omnichad]

7.2 times more likely is more like 1:1000 vs. 1:140. Not a minor difference.

Re:Meaningless

[Raenex]

Overall, what Consumer Reports found

The first sentence of my post: "That Consumer Reports test was flawed, because they tested pressure in the middle when the phones were clearly being bent at a particular point higher up."

Turns out you can break any phone if you try hard enough. Who knew!

Jobs is dead, but the reality distortion field lives on!

Re:Meaningless

[jon3k]

The first sentence of my post: "That Consumer Reports test was flawed, because they tested pressure in the middle when the phones were clearly being bent at a particular point higher up."

Claim: The iPhone 6 Plus will bend easily if placed in a pocket.
MOSTLY FALSE

I really don't care about your analysis over Consumer Reports or Snopes.

Re:Meaningless

[jon3k]

7.2 times more likely is more like 1:1000 vs. 1:140. Not a minor difference.

And if it was 20x more likely? My laptop is probably 20x easier to bend than a Panasonic Toughbook. Is my laptop brittle? Who determines what's adequate? Was the 5s just over-engineered? Considering that the other phones Consumer Reports tested bent as easy, or easier, than the iPhone 6 Plus, is that bad? Sounds like the 5s was just so far beyond everything else it was unnecessarily over-engineered.

Re:Meaningless

[Raenex]

I really don't care about your analysis over Consumer Reports or Snopes.

It's not my analysis, it's the analysis of an engineer. Of course, a bit of common sense also goes a long way, as the videos demonstrating the bend and the bends found in actual usage show the same weak spot. But congratulations on your sheepish following to Apple, Consumer Reports, and Snopes. Jobs would be proud.

Re:Meaningless

[stealth_finger]

Unless you are overweight with rolls of fat, how does bending over cause the upper part of your leg to bend (where the front pockets are)?

Ummm ... because that's where your fucking hip joint is located?

You must have some seriously defective pants or your body does not conform to normal human standards. I've never had a pair of pants where anything sitting in a front pocket is located over my hips and not further down my leg (almost halfway to my knee).

The waist of your jeans aren't supposed to be hanging midway down your thighs.

The pockets aren't on the waistline though are they?

Re:Meaningless

[Dread_ed]

I went to Wal-Mart the other day. I needed a belt in short order and it was the only place around. When I finally found the belts specifically designed for y-chromosome possessing hominids I was shocked to learn that my waist size (32 inches) was considered a child's size. It was the smallest belt they had in the building. The next closest size was 38 inches. Sizes progressed from there in 2" increments up to over 50".

It was shocking to extrapolate the algorithm used for stocking belts at Wal-Mart has determined that adult males who shop for belts at this Wal-Mart will be overweight. it's still freaking me out.

Re: Meaningless

[Brockmire]

Dude, you're fucking small like a child. You're probably 135lbs soaking wet.

Re: Meaningless

[Dread_ed]

Thank you for pointing out the information I left out. I am 6 foot tall and weigh in at somewhere between 158 and 165. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, no "love handles" anymore (three years since I stopped drinking and they are completely gone!), slim build with lean muscle, and a distinctly unflabby torso.

I previously weighed as much as 200 pounds and was unhealthy due to poor diet and over-consumption of alcohol.

But did they know it would blend?

[CCIEemeritus]

But did they know it would blend?

Re:But did they know it would blend?

[Anonymous Coward]

They knew it would sell. And that's the only thing they needed to see.

Re:But did they know it would blend?

[goombah99]

Well they knew the iphone 5 would blend. So the question is would it blend "significantly more"?

Re:But did they know it would blend?

[rogoshen1]

god dammit AC. stop wasting your insight.

Not a suprise

[110010001000]

Apple will replace your iPhone 6 for "only" $149 if you run into the touch screen disease. Since it really is a manufacturing flaw, it should be $0. There is currently a class action lawsuit over it.

Re:Not a suprise

[Immerman]

See? Clearly there is no bending problem - they're bending just fine and generating additional revenue in the process!

If the problem is actually just losing the connection between touch screen and logic board, rather than damaging one of them internally, you'd have to wonder why they didn't just use a more flexible connector. 1/4" of ribbon cable would easily handle any bends that didn't damage the rest of the phone, while adding minimal cost. It's enough to make a cynic suspect nefarious intent.

Re:Not a suprise

[110010001000]

The class action lawsuit will cost them much more than the incremental revenue. I suspect the lawsuit will succeed.

Re:Not a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not certain what sort of flexible connector you expect on the bottom of a BGA chip.

The circuit board flexes with the rest of the phone, and the touch controller chip doesn't, so the solder balls under the chip crack, leading to the issue.

(Yeah, its a poor design.)

Me!

Re:Not a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

A class action law suit for a non exsistsnt problem.

MSMASH POSTED THIS???

[Anonymous Coward]

An anti-Apple story posted by msmash? It must be a day that ends with "-day".

Re:MSMASH POSTED THIS???

[Anonymous Coward]

apple covering up a design defect in one of their product? It must be a day that ends with 'y'.

Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Spy Handler]

It's just a phone, I don't feel much outrage.

I mean, if we're talking about cars and people dying from a design defect, and the car company making a cold calculation that settling lawsuits from dead customers' relatives would be cheaper than recalling and fixing the entire fleet of cars (see the movie "Fight Club" for example), then yes I can see myself feeling some level of outrage.

But like I said, it's just a damn phone. So Apple calculated that .03 % of iphone 6's will bend, cost of settling would be X, and cost of recalling the entire year's worth of iphone 6 will be Y, and Y turned out to be much greater than X, so they went with option X. Sounds pretty logical to me.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[110010001000]

It is a $700-$900 phone with a defect. The only solution to this defect was to get a new $700-$900 replacement. Did you think Apple fixed or replaced it for free?

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[iggymanz]

and longer phone is more likely to bend than shorter one in a pocket. This is a shocking revelation.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[AlanBDee]

What upsets me is that I honestly don't think it would have happened when Steve Jobs was at the helm. After he passed away the company applied the standard strategy of charging as much as possible and reducing the cost of manufacturing the product.

They forget that it was that level of quality that many of us were willing to pay for. They've been losing credibility from me for years with buggy releases and crappy hardware. Eventually, the momentum will run out and some other company that is run by somebody who cares more about producing a great product then maximizing the bottom line will overtake them.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[110010001000]

Eventually the MBA's and the accountants start smelling money and overrule the people who care. Unless you have a strong leader who can stand up to these types of people it is going to happen to any company.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Joe's fingernail clipping. The math is just right, and the envelop the phone came in on stated Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate. It just had to leave out the word "bend"

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[rsborg]

I'd also add that (having bent ever so slightly my 4S) that I would always remove my phone from my back pocket before sitting down.

Remarkably that prevented any future bends in phones.

Re: Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have been the same. Hardware qa has never been great at Apple. Don't forget the ipod nanos with shattering screens or the leaking liquid cooling on powermacs.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

and longer phone is more likely to bend than shorter one in a pocket. This is a shocking revelation.

The real question to ask is "Is it much more susceptible to bending than any competing phone of equal size?"

I'm guessing the answer to that is "no". If so, what's the big deal?

You put ANYTHING in your pocket, it's going to bend, unless it's a steel plate.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[iggymanz]

actually, steel deflects under any load too. The deflection caused by a fly on an i-beam has been measured.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently it was shocking to apple too or they would have designed the phone better and not lied about it.

Re: Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Hognoxious]

Or the mice with the missing button.

Re: Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. In fact, things would probably be worse right now if Jobs were still around, as he was notorious for pushing products out of the door before they were ready.

The whole "first adopters" dilemma originated with Apple products during Job's second coming. The "first adopters" concept was one of the very few things that Apple actually invented. Before that, most electronics were thoroughly field tested. Apple under Jobs threw all field testing out the window, and experienced many design/engineering blunders, including:
- the round mouse (an absurdly incompetent design);
- overheating computers/laptops that had to be "underclocked" just to run at the highest temperatures in the nominal range;
- dent susceptible and irreparable machined aluminum laptop housings;
- smart phones that couldn't copy/paste;
- "magsafe" connectors that caught fire (such a connector had already been designed and thoroughly tested elsewhere, but Apple took the idea and threw out all of the safeguards to make it 'stylish");
- monitors that couldn't tilt downward;
- the Iphone 4 antenna -- Jobs himself tried to blame the design/engineering blunder on the end users, "You're holding it wrong!";
- ... and the list goes on and on (including the two problems you mentioned).

No other manufacturer has been plagued with such a full parade of design and engineering fiascos, but when Jobs was in power with his reality distortion field, Jobs/Apple could do no wrong in the eyes of Apple fans.

Now that Jobs is gone and the RDF has faded, the Apple fans are beginning to see that "the emperor has no clothes." Don't blame it on Tim Cook.

From the start of Job's second term to the present, Apple was and is firmly a "form over function" manufacturer. They are a still a "fashion product" company.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[PrimaryConsult]

LG produces some decent phones. They were one of the last holdouts with removable batteries, and still have a memory card slot and headphone jack on their flagship phones. But they don't seem to be overtaking anyone...

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was still under warrenty? yes...

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

No one should be surprised at this as the i(DIOT)phones have always been a $5.00 phone that (Cr)apple managed to sell for extremely inflated prices by convincing iDiots that owning one somehow makes them cool! No different than any other of (Cr)apple's poorly designed and cheaply made products!!

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

you forget what a monopoly is. they have a monopoly on their ecosystem segment of the smartphone market -- and they share an effective duopoly of the smartphone ecosystem with android. So if you choose to leave the apple cult, it is no small task to move your shit over.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Raenex]

What upsets me is that I honestly don't think it would have happened when Steve Jobs was at the helm.

You mean Steve "You're holding it wrong" Jobs?

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[iggymanz]

nah, no one i know has damaged their iphone 6 - 9 this way.

maybe a certain tiny percentage of customers are careless people and put their phone in their silly skin-tight clothes and bend over hard. A longer phone will do worse in that situation, surprise surprise.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

By defect of course you mean someone purposefully bends it, or sits on the phone while in their pocket.

User fail, not Apple fail. So Apple should pay for your stupid mistakes? No, they should not.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[neoRUR]

Yes this is exactly what happened to me. I got the iphone 6+ when it came out (buying it full price) thinking this will last me 3-4 years. Then 1 year later, I get the problem and the phone is unusable and I have to buy a new iphone 7+ and have to put it on monthly plan.
I keep this one out of my back pocket and am careful to not bend it now.
But it is clearly a defect and the bend was not that much.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Guspaz]

They replaced it at a discount, at least. It happened to my iPhone 6 out-of-warranty, and they replaced the entire phone for the cost of just the replacement screen. Of course, that was still a few hundred dollars.

Re: Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Guspaz]

What's the alternative to the aluminum chassis that gets a dent or a nick? A light impact caused the chassis of my magnesium laptop chassis (inside of a backpack that was dropped a foot onto a tiled floor) to simply shatter like glass. Meanwhile, I've dropped a macbook from a similar height onto tile with no protection at all and suffered from a cosmetic gouge that didn't impact the functionality of the laptop at all.

Re: Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have forgotten to factor in the loss of goodwill through damage to reputation in that calculation.

Re: Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really about materials as much as it is how the materials are engineered. Machining laptop housings out of soft aluminum stock is a terrible idea, which is why Apple experienced an epidemic of problems with their early Macbook Air models (and which is also why Apple's marketing dept. long ago ceased promoting "unibody construction").

Panasonic Tough Books are a zillion times more rugged than any Apple product. I can guarantee that they are not machined out of soft aluminum stock like a Macbook Air. In fact, Tough books are made out of magnesium and rubber. Never heard of magnesium "shattering." Perhaps your particular anecdotal laptop was defective, or maybe the design of your particular anecdotal model was weak.

There are other resilient materials that are used in a lot of laptops more rugged than those of Apple.

Regardless, if you want to defend Apple, you have to address their endless line of design, engineering and usability problems (a few of which are mentioned above), and not focus on a single, anecdotal experience.

Re: Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Guspaz]

It was a Toshiba Portégé R700, what was then considered a thin-and-light. They advertised it as being a magnesium alloy chassis, but the chassis walls were incredibly thin, and when the drop happened, the area that took the impact and a bunch around it just shattered into chunks: none of the pieces (on the laptop or what came off) were bent in any way, it was just a bunch of shards.

There were a lot of other problems with that laptop, and Toshiba really screwed me over when I tried to get the thing repaired (directly contradicting things their salespeople told me when I bought the thing), so I've never bought any Toshiba product since.

I've had a lot of problems with Apple products (many device failures without physical damage), and I'm not a huge fan of OS X (I run Win10 on my Macbook), but I do have to say that I have received better support from them when it comes to repairs and warranty replacements than any other electronics company I've ever dealt with. Of course, if you don't live near an Apple store, you're not going to have as good an experience.

Basically, the reliability of Apple products is disappointing, but at least they make getting it fixed or replaced really painless.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[AmiMoJo]

It wouldn't be so bad if they were not being dicks about replacing bent phones. They knew it was a problem and replaced some journalists phones immediately, but normal customers were left with expensive bricks.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[thegarbz]

It's just a phone

Careful. You may not be outraged, but you certainly will outrage others with that attitude.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[AmiMoJo]

They have a few journalists a free replacement, but individuals were SOL.

Re:Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a $700-$900 phone with a defect. The only solution to this defect was to get a new $700-$900 replacement. Did you think Apple fixed or replaced it for free?

Yes and no. Yes if you have had the phone for less than 3 months and the phone looks fine because it is under hardware warranty. I did replace mine after 2 months of having it due to their phone hardware defect. If the defect occurs after 3-month period, then you are out of luck.

Re: Am I supposed to be outraged?

[Anonymous Coward]

* F U C K - H E A D -L O S E R -R A P I S T ! ! *
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Dcccccc/c/\|cccC____ GUSPAZ Fucks ASS c/cc\ccccE
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In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple totally knew that if you threw their phone off of a tall building it would break!

I'm not an Apple fan. I don't like them as a company, but everything has design tolerances and compromises. Maybe Apple went too low on this one, but the assertion that they are evil because they might have known that apply unreasonable force to your phone by being stupid and putting it in your back pocket and sitting on it, is ridiculous.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

>unreasonable force
>back pocket
You're on the other side of the stadium punching a strawman.
We're over here, where shit was actually happening.

Is there a chance the phone will bend?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not on your life, my Hindu friend!

"significantly more" means nada

[goombah99]

You are significantly more likely to be hit by lightning than win the lottery. But that doesn't mean lightning is a significant worry. It just means the effect is measurable.

Same

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

multiple users reported that their iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets were bending under pressure, such as when they were kept in a pocket.

I would imagine God is pretty scared right about now over minor chronic misuse leading to certain body parts bending.

Re:Same

[Anonymous Coward]

...huh? Did you have a stroke while typing that? I certainly feel like I had one while trying to read that!

Yeah but who could have predicted

[Anonymous Coward]

that creimer was actually able to reach into his back pocket?

Bending 6s

[Anonymous Coward]

Iâ(TM)ve had my 6s+ for 2.5 years... I work as an iron worker and keep my phone 24/7 in my work jeans with only a thin qmadix protector and glass screen protector. Only problems Iâ(TM)ve experienced were a bad speaker (dropped it in water) still have it and see 0 reason to upgrade. If youâ(TM)re bending your phone your not being very self aware and doing some dumb shit... or you are wearing skinny jeans as a dude and... well... youâ(TM)ve got other problems greater than a bent phone.

Re: Bending 6s

[Anonymous Coward]

All their phones are the same. Look up screen loose iphone (any version)

Re:Bending 6s

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh look, a "mine works fine" in an apple article.

The only part about this that I find surprising

[MiniMike]

The only part about this that I find surprising is that Apple's solution to this wasn't to sell iPants with no pockets.

Re:The only part about this that I find surprising

[mjwx]

The only part about this that I find surprising is that Apple's solution to this wasn't to sell iPants with no pockets.

Given the girth of the average Apple fan** here in the UK... I wouldn't want to see any of them in pants*.

* For the uninitiated, in the UK pants == underwear. What you call pants we call trousers.

** Apple are missing out on a huge opportunity, the iPie. Buy a £0.50 frozen pie from ASDA, add a apple logo made from pastry to the top and sell them for £5 a piece. Apple fans would live off them.

Re:The only part about this that I find surprising

[MiniMike]

** Apple are missing out on a huge opportunity, the iPie. Buy a £0.50 frozen pie from ASDA, add a apple logo made from pastry to the top and sell them for £5 a piece. Apple fans would live off them.

This wouldn't work. An Apple fan wouldn't pay less than £10 for that pie.

Re: The only part about this that I find surprisin

[Anonymous Coward]

My iphone se had its screen pop out a week after i bought it while charging..

What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[Qbertino]

I don't get it. The pinnacle of this nonsense was the newer Moto Z. What is this bullshit? Give me a friggin Phone that doesn't feel like I'm holding a thin small slice of plywood with some fragile crystal glued on. And Oooph the battery while your at it. Point in case: I added a UAG case to my Moto G5 and it finally feels like a phone and not some piece of junk from a vending machine that will break when I sneeze at it. How awesome would it be if that extra heft would be like +2000mAmps of power. ... OnePlus, Nokia, Motorola ... all are into this nonsense. I seriously don't get it.

There definitely is a market for solid phones the thickness of the iPhone SE or thicker that have a solid battery and a case that doesn't fall apart. Or bend.
If I had the resoures I'd build it.

My 2 cents.

Re:What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has to be thin so you can fit a big ass case on it.

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[letthelightin]

The market is okay with buying products designed to break. Why would the producers make anything else? They're not interested in what you want, nor how long it shall last - only if you'll keep givingthem cash.

Re:What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[ausekilis]

If the phone were more substantial, you wouldn't need the case. I've bought otter box cases for every phone I've had for the past 10+ years because of how flimsy the damned things are. I dropped one phone from a height of 2.5 feet onto tile and having the screen shatter and case bend, then I decided I needed hard plastic cases for *every* phone.

Some delicate snowflakes baby their phone for years. Wipe it down every night and likely tuck it in while charging and singing some lullaby's before bed. I am not one of those people, I run, kayak, mountain bike, and chase my kids around. I'd rather spend $600 toward family fun than replacing my phone that shattered after i hit a bump on my bike.

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

The early adopters read the tech reviews before deciding to buy. When they do buy, they boast on social media and influence others. The tech writers need some bones to chew on, and so they will discuss trivial and fashion features such as thinness rather than, say, usability features.

The bankruptcy of the disconnect was revealed in 2009 when negative reviews of the Dell Streak resulted in it being abandonware on launch. The problem? The screen was too big, "no-one in their right mind would want to use it".

The screen size is average-to-slightly-small compared with current phones.

But when an iphone of large screen was later released, the reviewers climbed over themselves to endorse it.

Either all users of large-screen iphones are dickheads, or reviewers have no idea. (My pick is the latter).

It's an industry that relies on trivial product characteristics and branding to sell bucketloads to early adopters a.k.a. fashion victims, to recover capital costs asap. Reviewers are captivated by and swallow the spin, to the point where they are captured by the manufacturers.

User needs and usability come a long, long, way back.

Re:What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Serious question here: What if I could sell you a phone - for, say, $600 - that was 18mm thick, had a 5" 1920x1080 screen, 6000 mAh battery, ran stock Android, 5 GB RAM/128 GB Flash, IP68 rated, headphone jack, dual SIM card capable, and would take MicroSD cards? Would you buy that?

Re:What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see an opportunity here: aftermarket phone protector with battery and inbuilt lightning/usb/whatever to power the phone. Dual purpose, and if you don't run the battery down too far you could charge the protector while you kept using the phone (temporarily out of case - or just have two protectors and alternate them).

Re:What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and apparently they already exist. If I ever bother upgrading from my old htc (with replaceable battery) I'll that might come in handy.

Re:What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[omnichad]

Does it come with free spyware?

Re:What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[kalieaire]

Here you go:

* https://sonimtech.com/xp8/
* https://www.kyoceramobile.com/duraforce-pro/

They both come w/ dedicated PTT buttons too.

Re:What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anything *not* come with free spyware?

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[Qbertino]

Yes. Those are somewhere around the specs I had in mind. Make it a case that has screws and can be replaced + a variety of different colored cases and up the repairability and you've got yourselves a new hot contender for "smartphone of the year" I would say.

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[thegarbz]

Now if you could get together 50million like minded friends we would have a market.

Re:What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[houghi]

The reason is because that way they sell more phones in the long run. Why?
You buy a phone and it gets you through the day and a bit. Batteries go bad. That is a given. They do not hold their charge as good. So at a certain moment you do not get a day and a bit, but a day. Next you get the period you are awake and recharge when you are sleeping.
At some point you will either be charging a lot or you buy a new phone. Now YOU might not do that. The majority of people will. When you sell a shitload of phones, having people buy a new phone sooner means s shitload of extra money.

It would not be that hard to make a phone the size and battery capacity of a power bank that lasts you several days.

Not being able to replace the battery is just part of it.

Re:What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

I said it before and I'll repeat it: I couldn't bend my iPhone 6+ (or any other phone I tried) with any amount of force I didn't feel was unnecessary.

I'm from the "keep it thicker, put more battery in" camp, but still, I don't mind a thin phone.

I wasn't (in my estimates) careful with my iPhone 3G, 4 or 6+ and only the six plus sustained screen damage after an odd fall in a case (and countless falls otherwise - that were much more likely to bust the screen IMO). Every time I brought any into apple, the techs rated both the battery and condition as "like new" -- so I think it's a case of people who think beverages need shaking to taste better trying to drink soda . . .

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Don't need 50MM people - 10K people would do it... Yes, i have those connections, and we've been seriously talking about this approach.

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Nice - thank you for the answer! I'm actually looking at doing this - but it would be just black cases, somewhat difficult to disassemble (but not impossible, just easier to make it more than a few screws and still hold IP68). No need for external cases as it's toughened already. And niche focused - 10K, 20K to make it actually succeed. Doesn't have fancy "face unlock" or stuff like that, but all the basics and rugged and a big battery!

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[thegarbz]

Don't need 50MM people - 10K people would do it... Yes, i have those connections, and we've been seriously talking about this approach.

errr. no, you're delusional if you think 10000 people is a market that would even come close to breaking even, let alone be profitable for an expensive to develop high tech gadget. The Essential phone sold close to 10x that last year, and the result was ... $50m in the red and the company effectively folded 2 days ago.

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Hmmm... Methinks you're wrong. It's millions if you develop everything brand-new from the ground up. Use an already existing cell-phone platform and screen, it's a lot lower hurdle to execution. Much like it's easier to offer a vehicle based on an existing platform than building a whole new platform altogether (had to work in the obligatory /. car analogy). I do believe it can be done - and profitable - at 10,000 units... The question becomes distribution/marketing - Kickstarter? Indiegogo? Banner ads on geek sites? Sponsor a fork of systemd?

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[Brockmire]

And then get all your numbers turns upside down when patent owners come for their cut. There goes any margin you had in mind.

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[LynnwoodRooster]

What "patent owners"? I'd build on an existing platform - it's fair use to buy an existing product, extend it, and resell. That's extremely common in almost all industries - or else no one could ever build vehicles, houses, computers, etc.

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[thegarbz]

Ok lets go through it.

It's millions if you develop everything brand-new from the ground up.

Essential phone tried this. Investment was in the hundreds of millions range.

Use an already existing cell-phone platform and screen,

Your fundamental requirement was the existing platform didn't suit your needs. You are literally back to ground up development of the hardware. The result is still a development cost in the 10s of millions.

I do believe it can be done - and profitable - at 10,000 units...

Well we're going to have to agree to disagree since you won't even look at the Essential example as evidence that it can't. Your $10000 shipments won't even cover development, let alone retooling, production fees, patent and license payments.

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[LynnwoodRooster]

The expensive parts of development of these kinds of products (which I have done in the past) are the display, the main board, and the software. Using an off-the-shelf display and main board (there are plenty with the specs I've quoted) eliminates that. Software - stock Android, and the drivers already exist for the main board. This is really a packaging deal, with new mechanicals to provide IP68 (which is not unheard of) and internal space for a larger battery. This is much more akin to developing a custom body to put on an existing car.

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[thegarbz]

Okay so you have no clue really about mobile phones at all. Let me break it down for you:

All displays are off the shelf unless you're LG or Samsung. There's no development cost there.
Every version of the Android is effectively custom software unless you're duplicating someone else's phone which effectively makes the entire scenario pointless.
As for off the shelf mainboard. ... Yeah you clearly have no idea. Every mainboard in every model of phone is custom. Not only that the very specs you quoted would necessitate a custom mainboard and a custom chassis even if these things were interchangable between any model of phone (which they aren't).

This is really a packaging deal

NO! It isn't. It's not remotely packaging. Packaging is such a small part of what you propose that it makes it almost insignificant.

This is much more akin to developing a custom body to put on an existing car.

Nope, you're talking about converting a porch into a dune buggy. The entire premise of product is a different platform than what is on the market.

development of these kinds of products (which I have done in the past)

While I have no doubt you have developed some kind of product you have quite clearly shown that you haven't a clue about *these* kinds of products.

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[LynnwoodRooster]

OK, all that aside. If I can bring a $600 unit to market with the specs originally listed, would you be interested?

Re: What's this "Thin Smartphone" shtick anyway?

[thegarbz]

Nope. But it's a simple use case kind of issue. I'm sure you will find people who want that kind of thing, but it's not for me. We can go down the list:

$600 - Yes in my price range.
18mm thick - No I prefer thin phones. 10mm would be about my limit.
5" 1920x1080 screen - No, need a higher res phone because I enjoy playing with VR.
6000 mAh battery - Yes, but it won't fit in that package. I'm happy to accept an external battery pack if needed but not necessary. This would be far more interesting to my girlfriend who Pokemon Gos everywhere.
ran stock Android - Yes
5 GB RAM/128 GB Flash - Would like it but would happily forgo it.
IP68 rated - Not required. Splashproof is good enough
headphone jack - Yes - lack of it would be a dealbreaker
dual SIM card capable - No
and would take MicroSD cards - Yes - lack of it would be a dealbreaker

Re:Is there a chance it will go cracky?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut your mouth you stupid paki

Re: The only part about this that I find surprisin

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it was holding the electrons wrong?

_Were_ you supposed to be outraged?

[epine]

Eventually the MBA's and the accountants start smelling money and overrule the people who care. Unless you have a strong leader who can stand up to these types of people it is going to happen to any company.

Which is why consumers with a clue should have taken precautionary measures to prevent the entire product segment from degenerating into a walled-garden duopoly.

Because holding all four railroads or both utilities is massive bean-sniffer power up. Ensconced on a fantasy island of Florin/Guilder (also known as rich/raff), the bean counters always win. And now the piper extracts his pound of flesh, almost with indifference: So it bends. Big deal. Pay us again, skater Sam (of the big grab) and slender Samantha (of the tiny clutch).

And did they know...

[SurenEnfiajyan]

that we would know about it?

Some dying to know what Apple thinks of us

[OrangeTide]

And do they care?

Sure they knew.

[nospam007]

Any 5 year knows that it's a bad idea to put something with one side made of glass in your ass-pocket and sit down.

Why somebody would do such a stupid thing is beyond me.

Misread the title...

[DanDD]

Internal Documents Show Apple Knew the iPhone 6 Would Blend

https://youtu.be/KWqw5SpITg8

Ob

[Hognoxious]

It's been known for a long time that Apple customers are a load of benders.

The 5s was the last decent iPhone.

[shm]

The 4s was great. The 5s was the last decent iPhone. The 6 onwards were just too big. The 7 had no headphone jack.

RIP iPhone.

Oh, hey, like I said...

[BronsCon]

Apple is wonderful at product testing, they just suck at using the resulting data to improve their products. Now we have documented proof of this.

So sad, how far they've fallen. One wonders how long it will take their money to catch up... or if they might correct course before that happens.

Re: Oh, hey, like I said...

[Brockmire]

Maybe they are using that data to improve their profits by figuring out how to kill phones and make users buy new ones. They probably have some graph with intersecting lines right where the bend resiliency falls off.

Re: Oh, hey, like I said...

[BronsCon]

You know, that is a distinct possibility.

Skinny jeans

[Daralantan]

I remember when this phone came out, the first article I saw talking about the phones bending was titled something like: "iPhone users' tight jeans are bending their phones."

I think that's been my favorite title for an iPhone news story.

Re:Skinny jeans

[ennis99]

Of course they knew they were not stupid. It's the same for batteries. ____________________________________________________ https://dltutuapp.com/ https://kodi.software/ https://luckypatcher.pro/