And this is why a large thin aluminum phone is a really terrible idea - *Bend-Gate*

[T_Yamamoto]

Basically all hipsters and girls who wear tight jeans are screwed (this is a huge demographic for Apple).

You mean a lot of youngsters.

Plus parents.

Plus a lot of people.

 

[s44]

Youngsters all get the 5C. I don't see that trend changing.

 

[Jodell88]

I was reading a BBC article on this and this quote stood out.

But Chris Green, principal technology analyst at the advisory service Davies Murphy Group, thought that Apple should take a different tack.

"This is not an issue that Apple - or other phone companies - need to be compelled to respond to or fix. If anything this is a reflection of how people have started to use devices beyond what they were designed for," he said.

"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.

"Just casually sticking a £700 smartphone in your pocket is an increasingly reckless thing to do."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29331349

As a guy, where am I supposed to put my phone? Am I suppose to have a bag at all times, or walk with my phone in my hand? 😕🙄

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Youngsters all get the 5C. I don't see that trend changing.

Because they're kids who drop the phone and crack it all the time.:thumbsdown:

 

[isekii]

I was reading a BBC article on this and this quote stood out.
As a guy, where am I supposed to put my phone? Am I suppose to have a bag at all times, or walk with my phone in my hand? 😕🙄

I keep my phones in my front or back pocket all the time.. usually the latter. My front shirt pocket is also a convenient spot. (this is with all the phones i've plowed through the years Note 2, GS3, OnePlus, Note 3, iphone 5+ etc..)

 

[StealthJet]

These articles on the new sites are being overprotective towards Apple.

They claim that "most smartphones" bend.

However, they forget to mention that the iPhone 6/6 Plus are probably the most fragile phones on the market.

Just poor build quality by Apple in order to cut costs.

 

[Anubis]

I was reading a BBC article on this and this quote stood out.
As a guy, where am I supposed to put my phone? Am I suppose to have a bag at all times, or walk with my phone in my hand? 😕🙄

it's not a purse its a European carryall

 

[darkswordsman17]

Wow, yeah that's pretty bad. I'm guessing Apple's "fix" will be to just provide cheap plastic surrounds to keep people from bending it? :biggrin:

The 6 is turning out to be quite the disappointment. The components that Apple does decently were fairly minor improvements (touch sensor, camera, SoC) and quite a bit of the rest is just not that good (design, RAM, display, bending...).

 

[Stuka87]

Wow, yeah that's pretty bad. I'm guessing Apple's "fix" will be to just provide cheap plastic surrounds to keep people from bending it? :biggrin:

The 6 is turning out to be quite the disappointment. The components that Apple does decently were fairly minor improvements (touch sensor, camera, SoC) and quite a bit of the rest is just not that good (design, RAM, display, bending...).

Whats wrong with the display? Its the first mobile phone with an sRGB display (or at least I cannot think of another) and has great view angles. The design feels great in hand and is very nice to hold (Speaking of the 6 which I own, cannot comment on the 6+).

Plenty of phones bend: http://www.cultofmac.com/297404/get-bent-shocking-history-bent-smartphones/

 

[Phokus]

These articles on the new sites are being overprotective towards Apple.

They claim that "most smartphones" bend.

However, they forget to mention that the iPhone 6/6 Plus are probably the most fragile phones on the market.

Just poor build quality by Apple in order to cut costs.

That's because apple has a tight grip on the media and corrupts them with it's influence.

Can't even trust anandtech's reviews of apple now that anand is working for apple (not that AT was a paragon of objective truth when it came to apple in the first place)

 

[purbeast0]

Wow, yeah that's pretty bad. I'm guessing Apple's "fix" will be to just provide cheap plastic surrounds to keep people from bending it? :biggrin:

The 6 is turning out to be quite the disappointment. The components that Apple does decently were fairly minor improvements (touch sensor, camera, SoC) and quite a bit of the rest is just not that good (design, RAM, display, bending...).

if having record breaking sales by selling 10 million devices in 3 days is "disappointment" ... sign me up! i'd gladly be embarassed any day for those kind of sales on an item.

 

[thescreensavers]

The Adhesive for the battery ends rigth where its bending. Possible making it the weakpoint.

Maybe if they put adhesive the full length of the battery that would make it more rigid to prevent this.

Im surprised apple did not catch this in their testing if this does in fact happen with normal use in a pocket.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Whats wrong with the display? Its the first mobile phone with an sRGB display (or at least I cannot think of another) and has great view angles. The design feels great in hand and is very nice to hold (Speaking of the 6 which I own, cannot comment on the 6+).

Plenty of phones bend: http://www.cultofmac.com/297404/get-bent-shocking-history-bent-smartphones/

The Galaxy Note 4 is also sRGB. DisplayMate noted that while the iPhone6 has the best LCD they've tested, the best mobile display is the Galaxy Note 4's AMOLED.

As for the bending, I think it's pretty silly. Don't people notice that their phones are too tight in their pants and adjust?

 

[HumblePie]

The problem is flat metal, thin metal, soft metal, and a large surface area = not much force required to bend that metal.

HTC aluminum phones can be bent, but the force to do so is very significant in comparison to the new iphones or even older iphones.

Plastic is better at bending back into it's original shape than aluminum as well. Plastic, for the same relative density, is usually easier to bend than metal, depending on the mix of plastic. Some can be far more brittle and crack before bending. Cracking with plastic is especially more common with a jarring force applied to a small surface spot.

Basically any material has it's pros and cons when it comes to the "durability" of the material. Still, there are ways to enhance durability through design and implementation of the material. The aluminum body of the current iPhone 6s seem to be a bad design in comparison to HTC phones of similar design.

So you either know the limitations of the phone and work around them, or get a different phone.

 

[PowerYoga]

Bending aluminum back and forth actually breaks it lol.

then they're bending it wrong. Maybe an apple spokesman can show us how to properly bend our phones without breaking it.

 

[QueBert]

How longs the 6+ been out again?

Long enough to move 10 million units? I would imagine 90% of the males who bought it put it in their front pocket if not more. And I would also have to assume just about everyone who's had their iPhone 6+ bend like this has taken to the Internet to complain - as they should. I'm not seeing many cases of this compared to how many have been sold. Is it a potential problem? Obviously under the right circumstances, but with 10 million sold and it being 4 days and only a handful of reported cases. It's not what I'd consider an issue.

At this point all I know is a few people have reported theirs bent in their front pocket, and a guy made a video where he was struggling with everything he had to reproduce this. I could do this to my M7 and it would end up bent too.

*shrug* Lesson here, don't wear skinny jeans and you'll be fine. Skinny jeans suck anywho.

 

[Phokus]

Long enough to move 10 million units? I would imagine 90% of the males who bought it put it in their front pocket if not more. And I would also have to assume just about everyone who's had their iPhone 6+ bend like this has taken to the Internet to complain - as they should. I'm not seeing many cases of this compared to how many have been sold. Is it a potential problem? Obviously under the right circumstances, but with 10 million sold and it being 4 days and only a handful of reported cases. It's not what I'd consider an issue.

At this point all I know is a few people have reported theirs bent in their front pocket, and a guy made a video where he was struggling with everything he had to reproduce this. I could do this to my M7 and it would end up bent too.

*shrug* Lesson here, don't wear skinny jeans and you'll be fine. Skinny jeans suck anywho.

Hear that women who wear skinny jeans (100% of women i've ever seen)? Don't wear skinny jeans.

 

[QueBert]

Hear that women who wear skinny jeans (100% of women i've ever seen)? Don't wear skinny jeans.

I know lots of females, I can't think of a single one who doesn't carry a purse and have her phone in the purse. Not saying it doesn't happen, but I honestly don't remember seeing a female take a phablet out of her front pocket - ever.

 

[ChronoReverse]

I know lots of females, I can't think of a single one who doesn't carry a purse and have her phone in the purse. Not saying it doesn't happen, but I honestly don't remember seeing a female take a phablet out of her front pocket - ever.

Female pants pockets are undersized on purpose because they rarely use them. It's guys that throw everything into their pants.

 

[sgrinavi]

These articles on the new sites are being overprotective towards Apple.

They claim that "most smartphones" bend.

However, they forget to mention that the iPhone 6/6 Plus are probably the most fragile phones on the market.

Just poor build quality by Apple in order to cut costs.

I have a hard time believing that any major manufacturer of any commodity would consider releasing a product that they knew was going to create a PR problem for them.

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm waiting for the ghost of Steve Jobs to come back and tell us that we are carrying it wrong 🙂

 

[OS]

The problem isn't choice of materials, the problem is apparently apple does not employ any mechanical engineers who know what a stress analysis is, particularly in light of the fact this happened with the 5S and the 6/6+ is even worse.

 

[ultimatebob]

I'd imagine that if enough important people (like celebrities, famous tech bloggers, etc) tweet enough pictures of their bent phones over the next few weeks, Apple will start sending out free hard shell cases to everyone who bought an iPhone 6 and requests one.

And then they'll release "The iPhone 6S... The sturdiest iPhone ever" next year. 🙂

 

[Phokus]

Worry not, iphone fans, Apple has an accessory to 'iron' this issue out 😀

 

[kaerflog]

I'm not here to comment on bendgate but I think apple totally went backward with their iPhone 6 design.
The 5s had this premium/expensive feel to it.
The 6 looks nice but kinda bleh....
Looks like the original iPhone when it first came out.
Its been like 8 yrs now ?? You can't go forward with the design instead of backward ??