3G - Cracks in Plastic Housing

Amorpheus · Jul 30, 2008

xploit said:
In this country people have a freedom to express their opinion.

Do you also have the freedom to annoy others endlessly?

Two weeks ago a million 3G iPhones had been sold... how many people have reported cracks here? 10? 15? Or other defects? Seriously, it's not worth making a big fuss about, nothing is 100% perfect and especially with something as "shiny" as this people notice faults that much easier. As long as people who have issues with their phones can get them fixed it's not worth complaining about. Hell, if a slight tendancy for cracks in the white case is the biggest problem, Apple did a fine job.

rvancil · Jul 30, 2008

Just took mine out of my Griffin hard case and didn't see any cracks...its white as well...I picked mine up on release day.

Evolesque · Jul 30, 2008

My first black one had a crack I didn't notice by the volume toggle. It was perpendicular to the toggle switch. I only saw it in the light when I started cleaning it. Happy to say though on my new one(exchanged for light leak) it's crack free. The cracks are hard to see on the black but you can see them if you shine a light around in different angles.(you can see once you shine enough light to get the plastic transparent. The cracks show up as dark lines).

I dont actually mind the cracks as long as they don't propagate later on.
It's probably a different story on the white(since you can see them easily) and I probably be mad if I had cracks on the white one.

Sorry if I posted some stuff, that has already been said. I saw this on engadget and figure I chime in a bit haha.

agentphish · Jul 30, 2008

This just goes back to what I have been saying about Apple's QC on this board for quite some time now.

IT'S SH*T.

They don't seem to care about the quality of what they are putting out nearly as much as they used to.

They are going for quantity, not quality, of new gadgets as quick as possible at this point. They need to slow their roll on the new stuff, do more expansive QC testing, get issues with the products they have right now corrected, then we'll see about new toys.

It would be very difficult for me to believe in all of the testing (I HOPE) they did on these before they went to market that no one saw this at apple.

oreixa · Jul 30, 2008

I have a black 16 GB iPhone 3G since July,11. Today I discovered that it's losing vermish on the upper sides. I post a photo on my blog:

I never droped it, and always cleaned it whit Apple cloth.

razorianfly · Jul 30, 2008

neggie said:
What was defective of the battery. I notice i can charge mine with EVERYTHING turned off mind you and will have to charge it later that night again so basicly i have to charge it everynight. thats my only issue with it as well has the laggy as well OS but assuming that will be fixed on an update

I was getting roughly 3 hours usage including standby (with everything turned off except edge).

I still have to charge every night with this new one, that seems to be normal for heavy usage, but at least I'm getting 15-16 hours standby alongside 5 hours usage.

R-Fly

Mindflux · Jul 30, 2008

andyblila said:
I certainly hope that Apple learned from the mistakes with the Macbooks and fixed the cracking problem. As I said, I've had a white 16GB since day one and have seen no cracks. It may be misplaced hope, but I can't help and hope that this is fairly isolated and a bad batch. Only time will tell.

The thing is I'm PRETTY sure that people with newer macbooks are still experiencing this.

xgman · Jul 30, 2008

Boy this is getting ugly. Guys, please try to keep this thread on topic and loose the squabbles because it will take away from it's impact to Apple and other linked sites like:

http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MzM5OTUsLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdCwsLDE=
and
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/iphone-3g-owners-report-cracks-in-plastic-casing/
etc

If there are this many little cracks after only a couple weeks, then this is very likely to become a major problem for both us and Apple. Now the cases take on a new usefulness . . to cover up the cracks. Just plain ugly. sigh . . .

andyblila · Jul 30, 2008

Mindflux said:
The thing is I'm PRETTY sure that people with newer macbooks are still experiencing this.

Maybe I've been lucky. I've had my Macbook for about 3 months now and have no cracks. Knock on wood!!!

jmmo20 · Jul 30, 2008

andyblila said:
Maybe I've been lucky. I've had my Macbook for about 3 months now and have no cracks. Knock on wood!!!

seriously, you've made it clear you're the luckiest apple customer ever.. but people DO have issues with white macbooks and from what I read here, people ARE having issues with their white iphones.

I can only speak for myself; but I treated my old white macbook with EXTREME care, and still needed 3 replacement top covers, 1 for the staining issue and 2 for the cracking there the plastic tops meet the palmrest cover. So, the issue DOES exist, even if you've never seen it.

wronski · Jul 30, 2008

I'd love to jump in and complain about Apple QC but the fact is that in years of purchasing computers, iPods, and now this new iPhone 3G, among other things, I have not had any issues regarding build quality. I don't doubt that there's a larger margin of failure when it comes to Apple's manufacturing due to the more bleeding edge production processes and delicate nature of the products, however, I certainly haven't had the issues and it's tough to say how the people in this thread relate to the real world million+ purchasers.

dimitri92 · Jul 30, 2008

that sucks, i have a white one but it seems to be fine.

CongoRedJr · Jul 30, 2008

white iphone

i got a whitey and it's cracked all to hell. basically it looks like harry knowles sat on it.. repeatedly. I had to use duct tape to hold the back of the phone together, even then pieces had broken off and were lost so there's some holes but the duct tape covers them up well enough. I'd take pics but my iphone was my camera and that part of it is unusable, covered with duct tape. I'm no engineer or plastic making dude, but I have used items made from the stuff for years, which gives me some experience, and this plastic is cheeeap. hell, my old verizon lg chocolate phone held up longer than 2 weeks. If i lived anywhere remotely close to an apple store I'd go get a replacement but in BFE illinois we have corn, no stores, just corn. So I'll keep using my ductPhone until the only thing holding it together, duct tape, wears out.. then, well i'll guess I'll just tape'r up again.

I got moved over here from a google search looking for cracking or breaking case problems, pretty nice page. I didn't drop my phone, although one would think it was run over by a herd of elephants, but I have had it in my pocket a lot. I think stress from my tight fitting europants must have been just too much for it.. oh well good thing ethanol is paying so well these days, I spose I can buy a original aluminum one somewhere.

andyblila · Jul 30, 2008

jmmo20 said:
seriously, you've made it clear you're the luckiest apple customer ever.. but people DO have issues with white macbooks and from what I read here, people ARE having issues with their white iphones.

I can only speak for myself; but I treated my old white macbook with EXTREME care, and still needed 3 replacement top covers, 1 for the staining issue and 2 for the cracking there the plastic tops meet the palmrest cover. So, the issue DOES exist, even if you've never seen it.

I may be, but that's not what I am getting at. I am definitely not trying to minimize the plight of ANYONE who is having issues with a product. That, in fact, is what the warranty is for. I am hoping for everyone that this isn't as big an issue as it seems. I am hoping that a company with a loyalty base like Apple would have learned from past mistakes. I concede that I may be an idealist and/or a dreamer though. Also thanks to these posts I will be taking a closer look at my Macbook and iPhone daily! However, I hope that I am the luckiest Apple customer ever.

karmamule · Jul 30, 2008

My white iPhone has a teeny crack right at the thinnest point between the headphone jack and the metal strip around the face of it. I can live with it as long as it doesn't enlarge, or pieces don't start breaking off. (It's almost impossible to see unless you peer really closely.) No dropping or rough treatment, so I can only assume this happened while inserting/removing headphones in the jack.

andyblila · Jul 30, 2008

Crazy!!!

CongoRedJr said:
i got a whitey and it's cracked all to hell. basically it looks like harry knowles sat on it.. repeatedly. I had to use duct tape to hold the back of the phone together, even then pieces had broken off and were lost so there's some holes but the duct tape covers them up well enough. I'd take pics but my iphone was my camera and that part of it is unusable, covered with duct tape. I'm no engineer or plastic making dude, but I have used items made from the stuff for years, which gives me some experience, and this plastic is cheeeap. hell, my old verizon lg chocolate phone held up longer than 2 weeks. If i lived anywhere remotely close to an apple store I'd go get a replacement but in BFE illinois we have corn, no stores, just corn. So I'll keep using my ductPhone until the only thing holding it together, duct tape, wears out.. then, well i'll guess I'll just tape'r up again.

I got moved over here from a google search looking for cracking or breaking case problems, pretty nice page. I didn't drop my phone, although one would think it was run over by a herd of elephants, but I have had it in my pocket a lot. I think stress from my tight fitting europants must have been just too much for it.. oh well good thing ethanol is paying so well these days, I spose I can buy a original aluminum one somewhere.

This is what I don't understand and what leads me to believe it may have been a faulty batch. This guy says his is cracked all over, but then thousands of people are experiencing no cracks at all???? What is going on here???

CongoRedJr · Jul 30, 2008

andyblila said:
This is what I don't understand and what leads me to believe it may have been a faulty batch. This guy says his is cracked all over, but then thousands of people are experiencing no cracks at all???? What is going on here???

i should clarify. i didn't give very good details. the cracking started by the headphone jack, i noticed but didn't really do much, just figured 'bad design and don't use headphones.' well it's supposed to play your doggone music, so i still used headphones. by the end of the day the crack had enlarged to the plastic cover for the sim card. 2 days later she was cracked downwardly towards the camera eye. end of that day down that side. by then i was looking for solutions. saturday i resorted to duct tape cause she was startin to get pretty flimsy, a couple small pieces had fallen off. i'll try 'n borrow a buddy's camera an figure out how to put a picture up on here and i'll show ya.

she's a great phone though. does 95% of what I want her to. I'd like it to record video and have a picture/text message feature, where i can shoot a picture of my cattle and send it to others who need them, the pictures not my cattle. Besides that all i'd ask is to stop using plastic that's paper thin, which it is. use carbon fiber. don't give me no high cost b.s. neither, people will pay for quality. this is the problem with chinamen making our goods, very little to no quality control. hell my neighbor got lead poisoning from some cheap china toothpaste. who in the hell puts that crap in toothpaste? chinamen. apparently Rome biting the dust from lead poisoning wasn't historical lesson enough for some people. there ain't no reason, other than greed, that apple couldn't manufacture this phone in the u.s. I guarantee the quality would've been significantly better.

grokphone · Jul 30, 2008

andyblila said:
This is what I don't understand and what leads me to believe it may have been a faulty batch. This guy says his is cracked all over, but then thousands of people are experiencing no cracks at all???? What is going on here???

he needs to post some pictures.

slicecom · Jul 30, 2008

CongoRedJr said:
i should clarify. i didn't give very good details. the cracking started by the headphone jack, i noticed but didn't really do much, just figured 'bad design and don't use headphones.' well it's supposed to play your doggone music, so i still used headphones. by the end of the day the crack had enlarged to the plastic cover for the sim card. 2 days later she was cracked downwardly towards the camera eye. end of that day down that side. by then i was looking for solutions. saturday i resorted to duct tape cause she was startin to get pretty flimsy, a couple small pieces had fallen off. i'll try 'n borrow a buddy's camera an figure out how to put a picture up on here and i'll show ya.

PLEASE take some pictures of this!

thedarkhorse · Jul 30, 2008

Well I posted the 2 I had on my headphone port but today I decided to take a macro lens to the white iphone which wasn't very forgiving.
I challenge you all to really closely examine your iphone and say for sure you have no cracks. I came up with well over 20.
White 3g, owned since launch day, no case, never dropped.

andyblila · Jul 30, 2008

CongoRedJr said:
i should clarify. i didn't give very good details. the cracking started by the headphone jack, i noticed but didn't really do much, just figured 'bad design and don't use headphones.' well it's supposed to play your doggone music, so i still used headphones. by the end of the day the crack had enlarged to the plastic cover for the sim card. 2 days later she was cracked downwardly towards the camera eye. end of that day down that side. by then i was looking for solutions. saturday i resorted to duct tape cause she was startin to get pretty flimsy, a couple small pieces had fallen off. i'll try 'n borrow a buddy's camera an figure out how to put a picture up on here and i'll show ya.

she's a great phone though. does 95% of what I want her to. I'd like it to record video and have a picture/text message feature, where i can shoot a picture of my cattle and send it to others who need them, the pictures not my cattle. Besides that all i'd ask is to stop using plastic that's paper thin, which it is. use carbon fiber. don't give me no high cost b.s. neither, people will pay for quality. this is the problem with chinamen making our goods, very little to no quality control. hell my neighbor got lead poisoning from some cheap china toothpaste. who in the hell puts that crap in toothpaste? chinamen. apparently Rome biting the dust from lead poisoning wasn't historical lesson enough for some people. there ain't no reason, other than greed, that apple couldn't manufacture this phone in the u.s. I guarantee the quality would've been significantly better.

Again, I just don't understand what is going on here. This sounds like a really big problem with your phone. The only way I can even come to grips with this is to believe that this was just a bad batch. Granted we are seeing people post about this problem, but out of the millions sold only a relative few are experiencing this. This guys is the worst I've heard about yet! I really hope for everyone's sake that this is indeed just a bad batch. You should have to hold your phone together with duct tape! Make Apple give you a replacement!

xgman · Jul 30, 2008

thedarkhorse said:
Well I posted the 2 I had on my headphone port but today I decided to take a macro lens to the white iphone which wasn't very forgiving.
I challenge you all to really closely examine your iphone and say for sure you have no cracks. I came up with well over 20.
White 3g, owned since launch day, no case, never dropped.

Why are you not at an apple store right now getting this taken care of? Duct tape?? I'd be duct taping the Apple Genius to a tree till he replaced it!

thedarkhorse · Jul 30, 2008

note- Since posting that macro montage of my iphone half an hour ago I've noticed a cluster of about 5 more hairline stress marks/cracks coming off of the hold switch and over onto the top corner of the iphone.

Mindflux · Jul 30, 2008

thedarkhorse said:
note- Since posting that macro montage of my iphone half an hour ago I've noticed a cluster of about 5 more hairline stress marks/cracks coming off of the hold switch and over onto the top corner of the iphone.

Nevermind all the hand funk in the sim slot grooves. Wash your hands for farks sake!

peterdevries · Jul 30, 2008

thedarkhorse said:
Well I posted the 2 I had on my headphone port but today I decided to take a macro lens to the white iphone which wasn't very forgiving.
I challenge you all to really closely examine your iphone and say for sure you have no cracks. I came up with well over 20.
White 3g, owned since launch day, no case, never dropped.

From the looks of it this iPhone has seen some heavy use (note the scratches on the hold switch). It looks like the plastic has aged very fast. It definitely doesn't look like a two weeks old phone.

Somehow I have the suspicion that some of these phones have seen high temperature changes. The metal from the frame is probably more sensitive to heat than the plastic (or whatever it is) off the back. This would create stress on the back as it is wedged around the metal frame. Repeated expansion and contraction of the metal frame due to temperature changes might cause stress on the plastic and fast aging and thus cracking.

Has any of you with cracks left the iPhone for a longer period in sunlight?

3G - Cracks in Plastic Housing

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