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Comment by nlawalker | Hacker News Reader

It turns out that 30 percent of all iPhone owners manage to break their phones within 12 months of purchasing them. For people under 35, the rate is closer to 50 percent.

I find this stunning, especially the second part. With rates like that I'm kind of surprised that Apple doesn't offer this service at a premium.

I wonder how they gathered the data for this, and how they define "break". (Aside: I remember reading somewhere that the most frequent usage of "it turns out" is for presenting outrageous statistics that have no data behind them).

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It really makes me wonder why more time isn't spent in making smartphones more durable. People tend to buy them at $100-$200 on contract, not realizing that if they break the phone, they won't get another one for $100-$200. It's more like $600-$800.

Sure, having the thinnest phone made entirely of glass is a really nice selling point in marketing material, but having a phone that lasts the entire term of your contract without needing to be coddled and have the form factor ruined by a bulky case just to protect it is even nicer. For comparison, the Lumia 920 is not incredibly thick or heavy and still looks quite nice, but it can handle an impressive amount of abuse before it breaks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=E3c8il_Q6SU

There are plenty of durable phones out there, but the tech media constantly label them "cheap plastic".

"It feels like a premium device" kind of grates on me. In most cases, it's code for "it's made of expensive materials that are really quite fragile". Like glass surrounding a rigid metal frame that guarantees it will shatter on impact with no room to absorb a blow.

Yes "feels like a premium device" is code for "made of expensive materials" or, more specifically, "made of expensive materials [assembled to a high degree of precision]." Talking about fragility is misleading: if I want a phone that doesn't get scratched, surely I'd prefer it be made out of glass rather than plastic? since one is much harder than the other. So, of the two, which is the more fragile? Answer: it depends what you're worried about.

>Answer: it depends what you're worried about.

True. But what's better, a phone with a plastic outside and a gorrila glass screen that might scratch on the back but the screen won't scratch and the phone won't shatter if you accidentally hit it with a baseball bar across a paves parking lot? Or a phone with a rigid metal exterior covered in gorrila glass that won't scratch but shatters if you drop it from waist height?

Sorry, that was typed on my phone. That should be baseball bat and paved parking lot.

There's a curve of cost vs durability out there, and many phones fall all along it.

There's a huge case industry out there, of which durability is an important aspect.

Apple does offer this service, essentially. The $99 AppleCare+ offering will replace the phone or repair it (for $49/incident) within two years of purchase.

Here's some links to smartphone warranty provider, SquareTrade

http://blog.squaretrade.com/2012/09/americans-have-spent-59-...

http://blog.squaretrade.com/2012/10/iphone-and-home-squaretr...

A lot of that data comes from SquareTrade.

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