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Comment by selmnoo | Hacker News Reader

> Using a level of pressure no more than what I'd be willing to use for my own Nexus 5, I couldn't even get it to flex.

Of course, using a level of pressure you wouldn't apply to any phone... no-one in their right mind goes around "bending" phones. The thing is, when you have your phone in your pant pocket... and you squat down or something, the arch on your leg is going to easily create upwards of 50+ lbs of pressure at just the right place to create the bend. That's how my co-worker got a bend in his phone. That's right, a guy I personally know got a bend on his iPhone 6. That's why I think the 'only 9 people' line by Apple is absolute and total bull shit. It's infuriating that news journals are just buying it up like it's truth straight from God's lips.

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>The thing is, when you have your phone in your pant pocket... and you squat down or something, the arch on your leg is going to easily create upwards of 50+ lbs of pressure at just the right place...

Agreed.

I have bent extremely thick metal keys in my back pocket I assume just by squatting, and I am under 200 pounds in weight.

I only noticed because I went to unlock my door one day and the key didn't fit.

Thankfully I could hammer it back into place, but unfortunately the same is impossible with an iPhone.

> I have bent extremely thick metal keys in my back pocket I assume just by squatting, and I am under 200 pounds in weight.

But doesn't that just prove it's stupid to put a phablet in your back pocket? There's no hope of making a phone stronger than a thick metal key.

Have you held one? I carry a Nexus 5 around, and the 6+ didn't seem any less rigid to me. Could I bend it if I put on skinny jeans and got into a fight? I suppose.

In hand, the thing feels solid, and that's the important part to me. I think a very small percentage of people who destroy their iPhones will do it by bending, rather than dropping or dunking.

> Have you held one?

I have. I admit it actually felt sturdy and rigid, but I don't think we should put so much weight on it merely feeling sturdy and rigid. How it feels is just how it feels, feels can be very deceiving, they don't conclusively say whether something will last.

> But doesn't that just prove it's stupid to put a phablet in your back pocket? There's no hope of making a phone stronger than a thick metal key.

Putting it in one's back pocket is stupid, I don't know anyone who does that though (I don't know anyone who did that with their Galaxy Notes for years it's been out). An individual I know reports he had his iPhone bent while it was in his front pant pocket. He says he doesn't vividly remember when or how it was bent, but strongly suspects it's when he was squatting American style (like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Michael_V... ). It appears that Galaxy Note is able to withstand this kind of stress, it's just the iPhone 6 that cannot.

At present, I'm not sure what to make of this. I know one person already who had his iPhone bent, and plenty of folks online. But it's difficult to put a number on how many people at this time have had their iPhones bent (selection bias and all on online forums). I think we should give it about 6 months and see if more people are having this problem, as reliable and clear data on this issue is not out there for us to see at this time.

> That's why I think the 'only 9 people' line by Apple is absolute and total bull shit.

More like your coworker is bullshit, or you are bullshit. No, Apple's "only 9 people" line doesn't mean only 9 people have ever seen a bend, but it does mean that only 9 people actually contacted Apple about having a bent phone. If your coworker really did bend his phone like that, his very first stop should have been the Apple Store, to get it replaced, and he would have been part of that "only 9 people" statistic.

So either you're making this up, or your coworker is.

Also, Consumer Reports tested the iPhone (and several other phones), and determined that it takes 70 pounds of force to bend an iPhone 6 (matching the force necessary to bend an HTC One), and 90 pounds of force to bend a 6+.

> the arch on your leg is going to easily create upwards of 50+ lbs of pressure at just the right place

Bullshit. If you're creating 50+ lbs of force on an item in your pocket by bending over, you'd be breaking stuff in your pocket all the time. 50 lbs of force is a not-insignificant amount of force. And of course it takes more than 50lbs to deform the phone anyway.

Not sure the guy who bent the 6+ with his thumbs on that video was able to put 90+ lbs of force in them, but it has been noted that there is a very specific point of structural weakness just under the camera that allowed the phones to be bent this way. You can get very different figures depending on where you apply pressure.

Pressure from your leg is going to be distributed across nearly the entire back of the phone. If anything, that would make it even less likely to bend.

Still, the CR test doesn't properly reproduce either situation. Pressing the 6+ in the middle doesn't let you draw conclusions about how it will behave when pressed in the weak point under the camera or when placed inside skinny jeans' pockets.

Also, that test indeed shows the newer phones are structurally weaker than the 5, at any rate. The iPhone 6 can barely sustain half the pressure as the previous model...

Sure, but the 5 had an impressively high durability. Note that it used glass on both sides, which is why it was so bend-resistant.

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