Keeping Your iPhone 6 in Your Pocket May be Warping it - Update 2

[Steven Bogos]

Keeping Your iPhone 6 in Your Pocket May be Warping it - Update 2

Multiple reports are coming in that keeping your iPhone 6 in your pants may actually be damaging it.

Update 2: Responding to fan criticisms, Lou subjected a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, a phone of roughly the same size as the iPhone 6 Plus, to the same bending test [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwM4ypi3at0&feature=youtu.be], but was unable to reproduce the results, meaning that this phenomenon is unique to the iPhone. Furthermore, when he attempted to "unbend" his original bent iPhone 6 Plus, the glass on the screen cracked, causing further damage to the phone.

Update: Lou, of Unbox Theory [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znK652H6yQM] has just uploaded a video seemingly confirming these reports, demonstrating just how easily the iPhone 6 Plus bends using nothing more than his bare hands.

Original Story: When purchasing a new mobile phone, there are lots of things consumers look for. Affordability, speed, size, and brand are some of the attributes most people pick and chose from. Being able to keep said phone in your pocket for an extended period of time, is not usually something that phone shoppers even think about, because it should pretty much be a given. However, if you are considering buying an iPhone 6, and you want to be able to keep your phone in your pocket, you may want to think again. Multiple reports are coming in from iPhone 6 users claiming that keeping the phone in their front pants pocket is causing the entire phone's casing to "warp."

According to the reports, collated by Geek.com [http://www.geek.com/apple/iphone-6s-are-being-bent-in-peoples-pockets-including-mine-1605177/], the iPhone 6's new, lightweight aluminum body is to blame. The iPhone 6 is considerably thinner than previous models, and also quite a bit larger. Unlike smaller phones that can slide out of the way, pressure points from sitting or bending now have greater potential to cause the longer iPhone to flex in a way that will damage the device.

Users are reporting that the warping is most noticeable when the phone is kept in a pocket for an extended period of time, during a passive activity such as driving. One user reports that after a four-hour-drive, his iPhone had experienced significant warping.

The Geek.com [http://www.geek.com/apple/iphone-6s-are-being-bent-in-peoples-pockets-including-mine-1605177/] reporter also confirms that his own phone had warped, and has photographic evidence of the phone, fresh from its package, showing no signs of warping, confirming that the warping had occurred since first purchasing the phone.

We have reached out to Apple for comment.

Do any of you guys have iPhone 6s? Are you experiencing this issue?

Source: Geek.com [http://www.geek.com/apple/iphone-6s-are-being-bent-in-peoples-pockets-including-mine-1605177/]

Permalink

 

[dragongit]

You'd... you'd think that this would be one of the very first things a company would test when making a phone right? Something people generally keep in their pockets. It's like making a soft drink and not checking if it'll actually dissolve the customer's stomach. Seriously.

That, or they intentionally designed it so poorly, that you'd need to buy a plastic phone case from them... for another 50-100 dollars.

 

[4rch1m3d35]

This is crazy if this is true. I am an android guy myself but I have always thought the iPhone had good design.

 

[WonkyWarmaiden]

What's next, Apple has to warn customers not to look at their iPhones too much because the machine gets shy? Or that it explodes if you send a text that contains too many misspelled words?

 

[ElMinotoro]

Owning a shit android, I find this hilarious. Maybe this is why Big Steve said bigger phones were dumb

 

[Elfgore]

Damn, I was planning on upgrading in a couple months too. Guess I'm not doing that until they upgrade that shit.

Spoiler: Found this video too. Could be relevant.

 

[Keoul]

It's kinda sad really, assuming it's true.
They charge so much yet they can't be bothered using some decent plastic? Jeez how much profit are they making here?

 

[Alcaste]

what a time to work for apple.

excuse me.

*sob*

 

[Pyrian]

Or that it explodes if you send a text that contains too many misspelled words?

That's a feature, not a bug. ;D

 

[JayRPG]

I'll say the same thing that I've been saying to Apple fan boys all day on facebook:

If this phone cost $500, this would be acceptable, $500 is more than reasonable for the specs of the phone; but this phone isn't $500, it's $1000-$1249 depending on the model and memory size.

The reason you buy an iPhone for this ludicrous price is because of it's supposedly premium build quality and superior materials.

It is marketed as premium, Apple don't shut up about how premium it is, and how much aluminium is used on the body, and how well built it is and THAT is the problem.

You cannot market a $500 (at most) phone for $1000 based solely on it's premium nature when it ISN'T even the slightest bit premium. You can permanently bend this phone with your bare hands, keeping it in your pocket warps it, if it is anything like the iPhone 5 simply pressing on the back can put a dint in it.

A thin piece of aluminum is neither premium, nor a quality material... and above all else, it's not even an expensive material!

It shits me off to no end that Apple will never be pulled up on this, it will just be ignored, and the reason it pisses me off so much is because they are blatantly lying to their customers every time they claim it's a premium device or has more quality than other phones when they know that to not be true, and they will receive no backlash over it.

iPhones are put together in the same factory in Taiwan as HTCs are and more than half their parts come from the Cheap Chinese electronics company, Foxconn. There is nothing special about an iPhone, there is nothing superior about an iPhone and as we can clearly see they haven't a shred of build quality in them. This was designed for aesthetics over function and it's as simple as that.

I can take the Faux leather plastic back piece off my note 3, bend it completely in half and it will revert back to it's flat position, attempting to bend the phone does nothing.

Aluminium is a SHITTY material to make a phone with, it is an extremely soft, weak and pliable metal, it blocks cellular frequencies meaning you have to creatively design antennas to be external (sometimes causing problems like the 4S death grip which dropped calls). It is crap and continuing to use it is just making the industry worse.

Look at Nokia with their nice looking 1 piece polycarbonate bodies, it's smooth, looks good and is extremely durable and you can have an internal antenna! shocking!

I would hardly call the Galaxy S5 or Note 4/Edge bad looking phones even though they use plastic, and do you know why they use plastic? BECAUSE IT IS A LOGICAL FUCKING MATERIAL TO MAKE AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE OUT OF.

Nintendo designs all 3DS models to survive a 4 foot drop - IT IS PLASTIC.
The Playstation Vita is PLASTIC.
All the water proof and dust proof Phones and Tablets on the market are PLASTIC and glass.

TL;DR Aluminium is a shitty material, Apple need to get off their high horses about using it because it is cheap, weak, pliable, blocks cellular signal and is shit, there is nothing superior about the build quality or materials used in an iPhone (in fact the opposite is true) and I am beyond pissed off that Apple will receive no backlash from this despite their entire marketing strategy for selling a phone worth $500 (at most) for $1000-$1250 is due to it's build quality and superior materials which have just been discovered to be total bullshit.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Wow, really? You'd think "not making it so flimsy it warps in customer's pockets" would be at the top of their priority list. I swear, sometimes it seems like the folks in charge get so caught up in the "cool tech" side of things that they forget this shit's supposed to be practical as well.

Makes me glad I opted for an Android, but even then I went for the "mini" model because it fits better in pockets with other essentials (wallet, keys, sunglasses).

 

[kaizen2468]

i've got an iphone 5c so i dont really deal with aluminum but yeah marketing aluminum as a high grade material is dumb. like people have said it's cheap, soft and easily breaks it's form. i mean it's like 90 cents a pound or something and there's not anywhere near a pound of it in an iphone.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

I can actually see this slipping through. I can believe nobody thought to check to see if it warped in pants. That you could hold it without snapping it would be the test.

But, since it's Apple, HA! I've had my plate of an Android phone in my pocket for a couple of years now and it's still a straight edge!

 

[Something Amyss]

You'd... you'd think that this would be one of the very first things a company would test when making a phone right? Something people generally keep in their pockets. It's like making a soft drink and not checking if it'll actually dissolve the customer's stomach. Seriously.

Apple doesn't have the best track record with their mobile products and durability. From displays that scratched if you breathed on them to aluminum that could be damaged by cases, this is nothing particularly shocking. Oh, and there was that whole "not making calls" issue.

Owning a shit android, I find this hilarious. Maybe this is why Big Steve said bigger phones were dumb

Because Apple isn't competent enough to make 'em? Because substandard housing already saw issues in prior phones?

 

[Parasondox]

It's like the time when the iPhone 4 came out and people lost signal cause they held it... in their hand. What was Apple's advice to that? "Don't hold it wrong". Seriously? I didn't know that's how phone signal worked.

 

[rasputin0009]

That's some real shoddy engineering. Seriously. If you're going to use aluminium (which I think is a much nicer material to hold than plastic), then you can't skimp on the quality or more importantly, the structure of the phone. To make aluminium viable on such a large phone, you'd have to add cross pieces (most likely in the corners), but that would take up the much needed space for the rest of the hardware. Or they could have made the aluminium considerably thicker which is usually undesirable in a phone. So ya, you can't have the best from all worlds when it comes to aluminium. Small thin phone or large thick phone. One or the other.

There's some really simple shear and normal stress equations that would have let Apple know that their design was going to fail. Some really shoddy engineering to ignore basic knowledge. Like, I'm starting to wonder that they don't have material engineers in their R&D, but that's silly because it's fucking Apple. They probably have around 100 (complete guess) materials engineers in employment at Apple and I'm betting at least 5 were working on this project. That's a room full of people who forgot their education. For a job that requires skills learned from their education. I just don't get it.

 

[RealRT]

Wow. There's fail, there's epic fail and then there's this. I mean, what the hell? Keeping your phone in your pocket is what A LOT of people do. How do you fuck that up? Did they forget to make it able to make calls too?

 

[Creator002]

At least they'll soon release a firmware update that will increase the strength of the aluminium in the phone, right?

That's bad though. Really, really bad. I actually recommended the iPhone 6 to my mum (she's a total dunce with smart phones and owns an iPad, so easy transition for her). Thank God she hasn't gone out to change her plan yet.

 

[VladG]

Facepalm. This is the "no signal if you hold it like a normal human being" thing all over again, isn't it?

Jesus, and people still buy their shit...

Nothing that can't be fixed by some overpriced accessory though, right? OR, better yet, coming next year, the iPhone 6s: last year's hardware, next gen prices!

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Are all these incidents without using cases? I wouldn't get a $800 phone and not spring a little further for a case to protect it. (Of course, I'd buy it online for around $10, if the Apple dude pulled something out from under the counter and said, "That'll be an extra $80.") I prefer the belt holsters that have two pieces, one clips securely onto the phone and the other protects the screen and keeps it at perfect quickdrawing angle.

Also, I wouldn't buy such an expensive, flimsy piece of junk to begin with. Every Samsung phone I've owned has been abused, sat on, dropped and Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kicked and still worked just as good as new for years. I'd bet I'd have to buy these things by the 5 pack, and use the beefy cases, to last as long as one of the Samsungs.

Maybe Apple should start making there phones out of stainless steel[footnote]I'm seriously trying to give Apple horrible ideas. Prepare to pay extra for the super deluxe Stainless Steel iPhone 7(with will still be too thin), Apple fanbois![/footnote], if they want to make them unnecessarily thin like this. Even then, their designs wouldn't have strength along the edges, because they gotta be minimalist about everything (buttons, ports, screws, basic structural integrity). At least it would be somewhat harder to bend, and that exotic material should satisfy the Apple product designer's weird fetishes.