iPhone 6 Plus, death by pocket?
Loving these articles. I mentioned in my prior article that there was really nothing wrong with the form factor of the previous iPhone lines as a testament to how many units they sold. In other words, if the 4 inch form factor were such a real world problem it wouldn't consistently be one of the most successful phones. But they were.
Now Apple has abandoned that size entirely with 2 new phones. Both of which are larger. And it seems like Apple's engineers didn't exactly test for all the right things in terms of build quality. The article above talks about complaints from having the phone in a front pocket, not a back pocket as one might assume when someone mentions that their pocket bent their phone. Obviously, we don't have all of the information here, but clearly, this isn't something that should be happening.
I'm not saying it isn't permissible that phones bend. I'm also not saying that even the behavior mentioned shouldn't be enough to distort the body of a phone. The problem is really more one of the fact that the phone distorted by an appreciable amount with no explainable cause AND over such a short time. You have to realize, these phones haven't even been on the market a month yet. This is NOT repeated abuse. Or at least not repeated enough abuse for this to be acceptable. These phones are best DAYS old. And it isn't a single report.
Then there are reports like this one. Explaining the "obvious" physics behind the phones bending. I'm no stranger to physics and I certainly understand the principles at play here. The problem isn't understanding the physics. The problem is the claim that these are premium devices and command a premium price but suffer from a wholly undesirable and easy to inflict malady that much cheaper devices aren't prone to (because plastics can be much more resistant to bending or even flex back into shape).
So, don't waste my time explaining to me WHY a $750 phone bends from something as pedestrian as putting a cell phone in my pocket and sitting. If I walk into an Apple store and drop $750 + taxes on the counter and ask the "Genius" behind the desk if the phone will warp as a result of reasonable daily use (which I think most can agree putting a cell phone in a front pocket is covered under), what do you think they will say? Undoubtedly they would deny. Anything less would belie the luxury image of Apple and the premium price they charge for their products.
My Lumia 1020, my old Lumia 800 and my wife's Lumia 925 (the later of which has metal in the composition of its body BTW) spend an appreciable amount of time in pockets. None of those devices exhibits any signs or warping. Two of those would at one point have been considered premium phones and one a midlevel phone. All 3 were less expensive than an iPhone 6 Plus.
While there is more than one such report, there aren't many at the moment. Most seem to come from three different sources with pictures and the bend in one at least seems markedly more extreme than the others and is possibly a scam. So we'll see where this lands. But is interesting to see number of articles jumping to Apple's defence, or playing it off as obvious or ruling it out as an eventuality based on how thin it is. That many defensive articles for a phone so new tells me that these people, who are clearly Apple fans, already accept the complaints to be valid and want to position themselves ahead of the curve should it prove itself out the course of the coming weeks/months.
I will hold my final judgement until some more news on this comes out, preferably a 3rd party scientifically conducted stress test. Would also be interesting to see how it fares compared to other similarly priced phones and the iPhone 5 which had similar reports after it's launch.
But this all comes back to my point in my recent article on this topic about what sorts of people are in those 10 million iPhone 6 buyers and how only unthinking sheep buy a brand new product without waiting for valid reviews to come out. Neither of the iPhone 6 models are the iPhones you know and love. They are a whole new size and construction. And even when critical changes like that are made, even Apple has never escaped flawed launches. Antenna-gate comes to mind.
[update]
I don't want to start another blog post on this, so I'll just update this one. While, many of the complaints a few days later all seem to reference the original 3 articles, some YouTube videos on bend tests do show it to be sufficiently weaker than products of similar size and/or of similar composition, including the non-Plus version which appears more than adequately rigid.
Also worrisome is Apple's claim that only 9 users in 6 days have complained about it. Firstly, it admits that there is a problem, even if miniscule. That is also more people than days the phone has been on the market. It would also not include people who haven't noticed a bend (some bends are rather miniscule and only noticed when the device is placed flat upon a table), people who figured they were screwed anyway, people who haven't had time to report it (it has ONLY been out a week) and people who have been told to screw off by Apple Geniuses. In other words, the size of the true problem is undoubtedly larger than 9 people.
Frankly, I think a number of those scenarios will dwarf the reports that actually made it through to Apple's headquarters. In fact, I would say the timing of Apple's announcement is almost strategic. I think a big factor in the number of reported incidents is time. The phone hasn't been out for even 2 weekends yet. A majority of people won't take the time out of their schedule to go into an Apple store to bitch them out over a minor bend in the middle of the week when the phone is still working fine.
For the vast majority of Apple owners though, this will admittedly be either a non-issue or not a problem at all. The simple reason is accessories. I almost never see a naked iPhone. And cases would mask a minor bend and most will even protect/reinforce the device sufficiently to have it survive daily life in the first place. And while saying you need to buy a case just to put your phone your pocket shouldn't be acceptable, it isn't really relevant if you were going to buy one anyway.
So, if you're planning on an iPhone 6 Plus, my recommendation would be to baby the device until you're able to get a case for it. Better safe than bendy.
[/update]
Now Apple has abandoned that size entirely with 2 new phones. Both of which are larger. And it seems like Apple's engineers didn't exactly test for all the right things in terms of build quality. The article above talks about complaints from having the phone in a front pocket, not a back pocket as one might assume when someone mentions that their pocket bent their phone. Obviously, we don't have all of the information here, but clearly, this isn't something that should be happening.
I'm not saying it isn't permissible that phones bend. I'm also not saying that even the behavior mentioned shouldn't be enough to distort the body of a phone. The problem is really more one of the fact that the phone distorted by an appreciable amount with no explainable cause AND over such a short time. You have to realize, these phones haven't even been on the market a month yet. This is NOT repeated abuse. Or at least not repeated enough abuse for this to be acceptable. These phones are best DAYS old. And it isn't a single report.
Then there are reports like this one. Explaining the "obvious" physics behind the phones bending. I'm no stranger to physics and I certainly understand the principles at play here. The problem isn't understanding the physics. The problem is the claim that these are premium devices and command a premium price but suffer from a wholly undesirable and easy to inflict malady that much cheaper devices aren't prone to (because plastics can be much more resistant to bending or even flex back into shape).
So, don't waste my time explaining to me WHY a $750 phone bends from something as pedestrian as putting a cell phone in my pocket and sitting. If I walk into an Apple store and drop $750 + taxes on the counter and ask the "Genius" behind the desk if the phone will warp as a result of reasonable daily use (which I think most can agree putting a cell phone in a front pocket is covered under), what do you think they will say? Undoubtedly they would deny. Anything less would belie the luxury image of Apple and the premium price they charge for their products.
My Lumia 1020, my old Lumia 800 and my wife's Lumia 925 (the later of which has metal in the composition of its body BTW) spend an appreciable amount of time in pockets. None of those devices exhibits any signs or warping. Two of those would at one point have been considered premium phones and one a midlevel phone. All 3 were less expensive than an iPhone 6 Plus.
While there is more than one such report, there aren't many at the moment. Most seem to come from three different sources with pictures and the bend in one at least seems markedly more extreme than the others and is possibly a scam. So we'll see where this lands. But is interesting to see number of articles jumping to Apple's defence, or playing it off as obvious or ruling it out as an eventuality based on how thin it is. That many defensive articles for a phone so new tells me that these people, who are clearly Apple fans, already accept the complaints to be valid and want to position themselves ahead of the curve should it prove itself out the course of the coming weeks/months.
I will hold my final judgement until some more news on this comes out, preferably a 3rd party scientifically conducted stress test. Would also be interesting to see how it fares compared to other similarly priced phones and the iPhone 5 which had similar reports after it's launch.
But this all comes back to my point in my recent article on this topic about what sorts of people are in those 10 million iPhone 6 buyers and how only unthinking sheep buy a brand new product without waiting for valid reviews to come out. Neither of the iPhone 6 models are the iPhones you know and love. They are a whole new size and construction. And even when critical changes like that are made, even Apple has never escaped flawed launches. Antenna-gate comes to mind.
[update]
I don't want to start another blog post on this, so I'll just update this one. While, many of the complaints a few days later all seem to reference the original 3 articles, some YouTube videos on bend tests do show it to be sufficiently weaker than products of similar size and/or of similar composition, including the non-Plus version which appears more than adequately rigid.
Also worrisome is Apple's claim that only 9 users in 6 days have complained about it. Firstly, it admits that there is a problem, even if miniscule. That is also more people than days the phone has been on the market. It would also not include people who haven't noticed a bend (some bends are rather miniscule and only noticed when the device is placed flat upon a table), people who figured they were screwed anyway, people who haven't had time to report it (it has ONLY been out a week) and people who have been told to screw off by Apple Geniuses. In other words, the size of the true problem is undoubtedly larger than 9 people.
Frankly, I think a number of those scenarios will dwarf the reports that actually made it through to Apple's headquarters. In fact, I would say the timing of Apple's announcement is almost strategic. I think a big factor in the number of reported incidents is time. The phone hasn't been out for even 2 weekends yet. A majority of people won't take the time out of their schedule to go into an Apple store to bitch them out over a minor bend in the middle of the week when the phone is still working fine.
For the vast majority of Apple owners though, this will admittedly be either a non-issue or not a problem at all. The simple reason is accessories. I almost never see a naked iPhone. And cases would mask a minor bend and most will even protect/reinforce the device sufficiently to have it survive daily life in the first place. And while saying you need to buy a case just to put your phone your pocket shouldn't be acceptable, it isn't really relevant if you were going to buy one anyway.
So, if you're planning on an iPhone 6 Plus, my recommendation would be to baby the device until you're able to get a case for it. Better safe than bendy.
[/update]
Comments
Post a Comment