I understand this is a problem and the phones shouldn't be susceptible to problems like this from normal use. Apple will probably just have to eat this one. The thing that annoys me a little is that if any other phone had a similar bending problem, nobody would give a hoot. In fact it looks like the HTC One had pretty much the same bend-ability[1]. That doesn't make what happened to these people's phones acceptable, but I think it's useful perspective.
Although this is changing now, when the iPhone 6 first came out it really was supposed to be miles ahead came to hardware quality. Apple said it, the blogs said it, etc.
> The thing that annoys me a little is that if any other
> phone had a similar bending problem, nobody would
> give a hoot.
If you can't carry a mobile phone in your pocket without it bending, the phone is not fit for purpose.
Maybe nobody notices when other companies sell phones that are unfit and, later, lie to the public about it. On the other hand, nobody would defend them either.
Me too, a free repair program would be nice, for those of us unlucky enough (like me...) to have spent thousands of dollars on one, and a replacement keyboard coming in at ~700 dollars thanks to it requiring so much of the machine to be replaced.
I bet we just get a 12 dollar check in the mail though.
That also happened to my mid-2012 rMBPro, but, upon further research, I'd discovered that Apple had similar laptop GPU problems going back as far as 2007. There were also similar class action lawsuits to address the problem earlier.
What pissed me off the most was the fact that they kept shipping MBs with similar flaws year after year and when MB users complained, their strategy was to look away and pretend that it was users' fault. I initially had to pay $300+ to replace the logic board and eventually got all of it refunded.
My 2011 MBP had been collecting dust for a year when the repairs came and I had already bought a new MBP. Afterwards nobody wanted to buy the repaired 2011 MBP. I ended up gifting that machine to a junior dev on the team.
In Mexico, Apple asked for about $1200 USD to replace the logic board on the 2011 MBP, and it made no sense to me to invest that kind of money on an old computer without knowing if Apple would start a repair program later.
I've learned my lesson. Never buy an Apple product without Apple Care. It sucks but thankfully I can afford it. I'd rather pay more than suffer Windows and I can't use Linux because I use Adobe apps.
Mike Mullane’s “Normalisation of Deviance” talk to a group of firefighters[1] is relevant here. He describes how the Challenger shuttle disaster happened despite internal memos about the problem years prior.
The message of the talk is, essentially, that a person or team can get used to ignoring their own standards when under pressure.
And yet out of all the people I knew who owned an iPhone 6 from launch never dealt with the "bendgate" issue, including myself. That's from personal experience owning and using one daily for 3 years.
I still think this was an over-dramatized problem.
If you eat/drink while working at a keyboard you can get stuff between the keys and either get them sticky or completely broken. Some actions can just cause issues but if you handle the thing properly then you have nothing to worry about.
>Some actions can just cause issues but if you handle the thing properly then you have nothing to worry about.
Those keyboards broke because of small dust particles, nothing related to liquids, people are using the laptops as before but this time the keyboards are to fragile.
The issue with Apple is that they sell products with defects and then refuse to replace them for free until they have to because of lawsuits.
Apple acknowledged that it made fragile phones that can bend, if you do not know people that had this issue does not mean that only a few people have issues, as you read in the article Apple made some changes in the way the phone is built to patch the problem, they would not have changed the production line for a few cases only,
"Apple argued […] that consumers could not have been uniformly exposed to any alleged misinformation or lies of omission because Apple keeps its iPhone boxes in the back of the [Apple] store, where customers aren’t allowed."
-I am quite possibly a bit slow here, but can anyone please explain how keeping the iPhone boxes out of reach of customers somehow gets Apple off the hook?
I am honestly puzzled as I am typing this on my non-bent, company-issue iPhone 6.
For all that people keep mentioning antennagate, I personally never noticed this being an issue while owning the iPhone 4, nor did any of the other people I knew with an iPhone 4. It just wasn't something that ever came up in practice. And (seemingly as always), the iPhone 4 managed to beat out every other device of its time in consumer satisfaction surveys.
Does Apple make missteps? Sure. The new MacBook Pro keyboards are genuinely a disaster. But 95% of the complaints people actually bring up seem to be dramatically overblown.
Yeah and Papermaster being made scapegoat despite the issue mostly being Apple UI overestimating signal strength to the end user... but yeah, you be holding it wrong.
That's why I pay the "Apple premium" on all my devices, so that apple can claim their hardware has the highest quality, and can pay to fend off all the class action lawsuits that claim otherwise.
Not going to defend Apple. But one doesn't have to be genius to find out that iPhone 6 would be more prone to bending than iPhone 5 (2x times thicker). The internal document doesn't proof anything. It's just numbers.
It's not just that they knew it would bend. The document shows that Apple also knew that bending from normal use would detach the Touch IC chip and render the phone unusable. They secretly addressed this in later iPhone 6 runs ("after internal investigation, Apple determined underfill was necessary to resolve the problems caused by the defect") while continuing to charge affected users $350 (generously reduced to $150 after media attention) to fix their bricks.
simonh|7 years ago
[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/consumer-re...
schwap|7 years ago
_Codemonkeyism|7 years ago
ryanlol|7 years ago
iPhone 6 probably sold 100x times as much as the HTC One
hcurtiss|7 years ago
IBM|7 years ago
SmellyGeekBoy|7 years ago
gtm1260|7 years ago
charlesism|7 years ago
Maybe nobody notices when other companies sell phones that are unfit and, later, lie to the public about it. On the other hand, nobody would defend them either.
L_Rahman|7 years ago
giobox|7 years ago
I bet we just get a 12 dollar check in the mail though.
drcode|7 years ago
Apocryphon|7 years ago
Konryan|7 years ago
It took a class action lawsuit for them to start refunding repairs and provide an actual solution, but by then it was far too late.
_Codemonkeyism|7 years ago
It made me buy a Dell XPS13 after 15y of Apple.
Then Dell proved they could do worse.
Sorry for the rant. I just hate myself for spending $3500 on garbage.
tooltalk|7 years ago
What pissed me off the most was the fact that they kept shipping MBs with similar flaws year after year and when MB users complained, their strategy was to look away and pretend that it was users' fault. I initially had to pay $300+ to replace the logic board and eventually got all of it refunded.
Boulth|7 years ago
pier25|7 years ago
My 2011 MBP had been collecting dust for a year when the repairs came and I had already bought a new MBP. Afterwards nobody wanted to buy the repaired 2011 MBP. I ended up gifting that machine to a junior dev on the team.
In Mexico, Apple asked for about $1200 USD to replace the logic board on the 2011 MBP, and it made no sense to me to invest that kind of money on an old computer without knowing if Apple would start a repair program later.
I've learned my lesson. Never buy an Apple product without Apple Care. It sucks but thankfully I can afford it. I'd rather pay more than suffer Windows and I can't use Linux because I use Adobe apps.
Sidnicious|7 years ago
The message of the talk is, essentially, that a person or team can get used to ignoring their own standards when under pressure.
[1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ljzj9Msli5o
spike021|7 years ago
I still think this was an over-dramatized problem.
If you eat/drink while working at a keyboard you can get stuff between the keys and either get them sticky or completely broken. Some actions can just cause issues but if you handle the thing properly then you have nothing to worry about.
simion314|7 years ago
Those keyboards broke because of small dust particles, nothing related to liquids, people are using the laptops as before but this time the keyboards are to fragile.
The issue with Apple is that they sell products with defects and then refuse to replace them for free until they have to because of lawsuits.
Apple acknowledged that it made fragile phones that can bend, if you do not know people that had this issue does not mean that only a few people have issues, as you read in the article Apple made some changes in the way the phone is built to patch the problem, they would not have changed the production line for a few cases only,
bangonkeyboard|7 years ago
lb1lf|7 years ago
I am honestly puzzled as I am typing this on my non-bent, company-issue iPhone 6.
gruez|7 years ago
ianai|7 years ago
Numerous social media posts about the same problem.
Denials and costly fixes for them. To the point of specialized third party accessories. Remember the iPhone antenna “bands”?
Apple acknowledges the issue.
Class action lawsuit filed.
Leaks about Apple knowing about the issue months before any corrective action.
stouset|7 years ago
Does Apple make missteps? Sure. The new MacBook Pro keyboards are genuinely a disaster. But 95% of the complaints people actually bring up seem to be dramatically overblown.
mc32|7 years ago
drcode|7 years ago
finchisko|7 years ago
bangonkeyboard|7 years ago