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.'"
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.
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.
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The only part about this that I find surprising is that Apple's solution to this wasn't to sell iPants with no pockets.
Some of us wear a belt.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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.)
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!
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.