Bent iPhone claims put Apple under pressure to respond
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
> "Just casually sticking a £700 smartphone in your pocket is an increasingly reckless thing to do."
Wait, this guy really thinks that users should be expected to know that it's reckless to keep their _phone_ in their pocket, and that they weren't designed for this?
That seems not right. I am confident that most people, unless educated otherwise, will assume that phones are designed to go in pockets. If manufacturers really aren't designing phones to go in pockets, they are going to have to educate users on this. The pocket has been the place non-purse-carrying people have kept their phone since the first mobile phone that was small enough to fit in a pocket.
My iPhone 6 is due to be delivered on the 7th Oct, so I'm hoping it's just a faulty batch.
Now, I can't recall the last time I drove with any phone in my pocket (that is what the cup holder is for - phones) so I'm not too worried about it, but it's still interesting.
Has there been any news about the Samsung Note 1/2/3 bending?!
I have a 3-year-old device that's incredibly slippery and have dropped it hundreds of times without a scratch on the glass. For comparison, I shattered a Moto G inside of a month.
Front pocket seems to be the expected place to keep one.
Maybe they're dropping down like rocks onto the phone resulting in sudden stresses rather than a (relatively) more gradual stress
iPhone 4s and 5s, frequently in back pocket with nothing more small scrapes/scratches on the edges from being occasionally butter-fingered
"Even the most recent smartphones are not designed to be put in trouser pockets - front or back - where they are going to be under the most chassis strain. And this just illustrates the fact that the public's desire for manufacturers to strive for ever thinner and lighter devices means that we are getting ever more fragile devices.
Analyst bias aside, I've seen many, many similar posts on the Internet on this issue from many users using similar logic. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on mindless fanboyism but their most ardent fans do tend to (pun intended) bend into more ridiculous positions than most while defending bad design decisions or quality assurance lapses made by the company.
A guy on MacRumors posted up about his experience with a bent phone and received some supportive comments, but also gems like, "It's aluminum, it's a noticeably longer device and as such it is likely to be bent more easily than previous iPhones. You should expect that it would be easier to bend and act accordingly."
How is this reasonable? We should know better than to put the phone in our pockets?
I sincerely hope Apple does the right thing here and takes responsibility if in fact this turns out to be a legitimate and widespread problem.
However, I will say that the Galaxy Note bend video [1] in (response to the iPhone 6 Plus bend test [2]) was impressive, and shows that while metal material is more stylish, plastic seems to be much more durable. Of course, I know these are far from scientific tests, but it still seems to show some sense of durability between the two.
- Stylish
- Durable
- Lightweight
I expect most people will have a case for the phone. I personally have a 5 right now and have it in a BookBook wallet/case, which is not really very rigid. I'll want something similar when it comes time to upgrade to a 6, but if I can't actually stick it in my pocket I'll need to find an alternative. Or maybe pay for a battery replacement on the 5.
Apple supposedly sold 10 million phones on the weekend of release, more since. Apparently more of those are 6s than 6 Pluses but we don't know the exact numbers or breakdown right now. Similarly we know a few people have had problems but it doesn't seem clear whether it's a few, a few tens, a few hundred or many thousands.
Ultimately this may be bad design ignoring real world valid use cases, it may be dumbness on the part of a small number of vocal users, but without knowing what sort of numbers are seeing the problem and what that is as a proportion of sales it's almost impossible to say.
Right now all we can really say is some iPhone 6s and 6 Pluses have bent and based on that it's no wonder Apple haven't said anything.
Not a great story but probably all that we really know right now.
But we still need to know the number. Has anything so far suggested it might be as high as 2 percent?
But right now this doesn't feel like this is tens of thousands.
On the other hand it is early days.
No real defence for this other than poor engineering. It's basically the Apple III all over.
Still think it's stupid - just because this behavior didn't result in a bent iPhone before doesn't mean it was good.
1. Consumer behavior factors
- Get a case. These devices will break if dropped, and when you are carrying it in your hand many times a day, it is highly likely to be dropped. It's a matter of "when", not "if".
- Don't carry the device in pants pockets. Carry it in a shirt pocket, or in a bag or satchel or hang it on your belt. Solved.
2. Manufacturing and marketing factors
- Distribute 5,000 beta devices and really field test them. Manufacturers, especially Apple, hate to do this because it reveals the secret design in advance of the dramatic release event. But field testing the devices makes more sense given their complexity and unknown uses and conditions to which they will be subjected.
- Make the devices thicker and sturdier. Many of us would not complain about an extra millimeter or two of thickness, especially if it means a bigger battery and some nice-to-haves such as a memory card slot. Thinness is costly, too. Make it an indestructible brick, charge less, and millions will continue to buy the devices.
- An alternative view: yield to bendiness! Make the displays bendy, make the cases flexible, and accept that customers want to abuse their phones by sitting on them in tight jeans.
It's not the material, it's the construction. The case could be made of plastic so long as it had something along the long sides preventing it flexing.
Even a thicker phone is going to risk getting scratched or dented if dropped on solid concrete or rocks.
In my case, though, I choose to live somewhat on the edge and just get total insurance coverage on my phone (a Note 3 currently). In five years of owning smartphones, I've cracked the screen exactly once, and I just got a replacement phone within a week.
This is all just incredibly stupid. The fact it bends and continues to function should be newsworthy, not the other way around.
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-80s-clothing-line-2014-...
Surely customers don't need to include specifications like "Device does not bend under moderate force" when asking for improvements?
I don't think anybody really asked for a thinner or lighter phone anyway, it's just what Apple provided.
The preamble to the printer manual (yes, printers came with 300 page printed paperback manuals in those days!) included instructions such as "do not expose your LaserWriter NT to rain or adverse weather conditions; do not operate your LaserWriter NT in the shower".
Presumably due to an idiot lawsuit following an incident when someone under the misapprehension that heavy electrical appliances and water were a perfectly safe combination ...
The closest actual source I can find quickly is this printout from the LaserWriter II manual, which states (more reasonably) "Don't use devices that produce open flames, such as Bunsen burners or welding torches, near the LaserWriter II." (https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/user/sly/Laserwriter/0303215L...)
[updated with more precise references]
They wanted a larger phone, for sure, but I think one would reasonably assume structural stability for a $1000 consumer device (often bought under a pay-as-you-go loan courtesy of carrier subsidization) under fairly normal conditions.
Further this isn't "sitting on it" -- the issues seem to be coming via seemingly innocuous, but longer term, flexing in front pockets. Aluminum is not all or nothing, and will quite happily give slowly and gradually over hours.
Maybe it's all overblown -- these things tend to be on new Apple releases -- but I don't see how some can so quickly resort to blame the customer antics.
That said, it has reached the point where I'd be ok to have slightly more weight and thickness for sturdiness and battery life. I just think thin and light are things people want.
The trend is towards a comfortable size, beyond which thinness stopped being a big selling point. The Galaxy S5, for example, is thicker than the Galaxy S4. The Note 4 is thicker than the Note 3.
Contrary to common notions, Apple occasionally chases specs, and the thin and light thing seems to be one of them (just as unobtanium type materials often make a big presence in Apple devices -- material specs -- regardless of suitability for purpose).
Apple makes fantastic devices, but just as some other manufacturers chase irrelevant things like octal core processors and truly absurd pixel densities, Apple does the same "not for your benefit, but for our bragging" pursuits.
I've never seen "thinner" nor "lighter". I have seen people asking for better battery life and that would mean fatter phones.
This unit could have a fatter battery, a sturdier chassis, a USB socket or two, and a memory slot. See how much acceptance of a thicker handset there is.
Apple's so secretive and protective of their devices that they're clearly reluctant to field test interesting new models, except maybe internally in a controlled environment. But this is precisely what they, and all manufacturers, ought to be doing.
In that case, eventually the width of the Lightning port will be the limiting factor (I'm assuming Apple will probably obsolete the headphone jack within 5 years once they work out how to recharge headphones regularly and easily)
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/189762-iphone-6-vs-ipho...
Probably the same people who use OtterBox & LifeProof cases on iPhone. Most iPhone users slap on ugly cases to protect their beautiful iPhones. Wouldn't it be much better if Apple builds an iPhone sturdy enough that it doesn't require a case?
The question here is if Apple got the trade-offs wrong, and made the phone too thin at the expense of something that people might care about more--putting it in a front pocket, like you can do with numerous other phones with large screens. Or are these failures simply bizarre edge cases of which we are aware because any "news" about Apple is linkbait.
Mark my words. This will be the major flop remembered in the future for the start of the downfall of this brand.
This will make history.
The excessively low production costs with these devices made in China with low quality standards and low QA at an excessively price range for the end consumer. The profit margin in this phone has to be huge and will serve as an example in the future in how a major international manufacturing fiasco is made of. This is truly amazing.
Joke aside, this is something that Apple needs to quickly address without putting customers at fault. You cannot just tell the customers not to put their phones in their pocket.
They cannot address the issues for existing devices and all devices that are in the pipeline. Users on backorder could cancel their orders, but most won't do that, so why should they bother? In a year people will be joking about not buying first generation Apple devices and that's it.