Spontaneous separation of new iPhone 5

[MJD Dawg]

Originally Posted by vastoholic

Where's a scientist when you need one. Science should be able to explain it. I've heard some people here say that the metal can some times store energy from trauma it was exposed to previously and then suddenly release that energy, but then it would still have to be the users fault more than likely. I'm pretty sure the factory employees didn't go around busting up all the phones. And if I remember the process that they make these, there is no bending of the aluminum to get it to this shape, it's all milled out from a solid piece. Is that correct or is that just the laptops and iMacs?

I'm sorry, I just do not see how a metal would bend without outside force being applied to it, unless you guys are heating up your phones to make the aluminum so weak until it bends under it's weight.

This is my initial thought as well, but then I see stuff in these two posts from this very thread that points to the possibility that aluminum failure can indeed occur on its own. The fact that Apple decided to use low tensile strength aluminum in this phone and that the location of the bend in the phones I've seen seem to be around the obvious weak spot near the volume buttons both have me thinking that the bend may not necessarily be caused by the users.

Originally Posted by macinhand

Now don't flame me or the OP just yet on this one because Aluminium can actually spontaneously bend!

It all goes back to when the aluminium was smelted, extruded, annealed and if this process is not completed impeccably well, You get what is called "Snap Back" and this is when the aluminium try's to go back to it's natural state!

Even though this experience of aluminium bending is not the same as the OP's it show's that Aluminium can just bend without external forces!

A friend of ours had an extension built with one of the sides of the building being a wall of glass and the structure beams were made of aluminium! The problem occurred when two of the massive sheets of glass started to crack and shatter and it turned out that the aluminium beams were bending themselves thus breaking the glass! When the structural engineers came in and did a full report as to what caused the glass to break it was proved that the Aluminium was bending caused by the annealing process and it was caused by a difference in surface stresses pulling against each other! Ian thinks it was called Biaxial behaviour!

So i am not saying in any way what so ever this is what is happening to the select number of iPhone 5's that are reported to be bent! but it can happen.

Originally Posted by reputationZed

Just an observation based on 20 plus years experience in the aviation industry, metal has memory, and it does not always react to a stress at the time the stress was applied. I guess that was technically two observations.

An overhaul of a landing gear assembly typically follows the path of tearing the assembly down to the component level or lower, performing visual and dimensional inspections, non destructive testing, and rejecting any components that fail the inspection criteria.

My team will occasionally have to do a tear down on a landing gear that was involved in an incident, for example a hard landing. When a hard landing occurs the components in the landing gear assembly may be subjected to stresses they were not designed for. The effects of these stresses are not always immediate, in other words the metal can essentially store the energy of the stress, only to release it at a latter time. To deal with this we may need to quarantine certain components for a period of time, usually 6 months or more. We then compare the pre quarantine visual, dimensional and NDT findings to the post quarantine findings and look for variance. Typically we do not find a variance, but occasionally a component that was within tolerance pre quarantine will be out of tolerance post quarantine

So it is conceivable that the bending is related due to stresses imposed in the body, but not the face plate, during manufacture. I'm not saying this is what happened, only that its a possibility.

[sparky1680]

https://mobile.twitter.com/frankie_ice7/status/261065905340051457?

[kannesss]

Originally Posted by cperchard

Call me sceptical....but......well.....i call BS that nothing happened to it

Skeptical.
Can't call you something that doesn't exist.

[Lindsford]

Originally Posted by stucazzo

the first pic is the yellow stuff i notice the night before, i downloaded a black background to make it stand out more and took a screen grab. You really cant see the yellow if the page your looking at has a lot of white or light colored background. but with a black background, you see it big time. Again, the right side has no yellow at all, just the left side.

I have a soft case on it, not a hard plastic case so yes i noticed it the minute i picked up the phone. It was in the case the whole night, hell, its been in the case since day 1. plus you can see the crack marks it made as well, WHICH WAS NOT THERE THE NIGHT BEFORE, 100% CERTAIN OF THAT

I emailed gizmodo with the pictures and I even volunteered to send them my phone for further testing, if they want to look into it further. its not about the money, its about a 600 BILLION dollar company treating its customers like crap and yes i know, don't buy apple then, but they do make a good product.

What pisses me off is they don't stand behind it. I own a business and yes there is always problems in the production of a product and yes this may only happen to 1% of the iPhones sold. what really bothers me is that they wont take care of that 1%. would it really hurt your bottom dollar if you replaced all phones that had this issue? Cause we all know how they solved the Antenna issue on the iPhone 4... "here is a free case", but we wont apologies for it, instead we will say "don't hold it that way" and fire the lead engineer who designed it....seriously all the iPhone 4's should have been replaced back then, REPLACED, but of course that would of cost a lot of $$ and apple didn't do it. the iPhone 4 (first built models) were DEFECTIVE phones and like the idiots we are, we accepted it and continue to buy from apple. straight POOP!

----------



even if you sat on the phone, IT SHOULD NOT BEND....None on the old iPhones were ever bendable so why is this one bendable...the question is, is Aluminum cheaper than stainless steel? if so, why use it then? maybe its about Apples bottom dollar? And no, i didn't heat the phone up but I am pretty sure the battery gets pretty hot and that could definably effect the structure of an aluminum frame.

I'm not an engineer but i did stay at a....never mind.

In all seriousness though I think there's an issue with reception when trying to use stainless steel

[roxxette]

Titanium iphone 7 still light but stronger that aluminum.

[stucazzo]

UPDATE:

finally had a chance to waste 2+hours of my time to travel almost 40 minutes away to get to an apple store. Very disappointing but not surprised by the outcome. Everyone there said this is the first time they have seen it (i dont believe it).

since i am 2-3 weeks past the ability to add applecare (you can add if up to 30 days after you bought the phone), i had to pay the price of $245 to have it replaced. Seriously! they could of made an exception and add the applecare for $99 and then i could of paid $49 to have the phone replaced. But no, add an extra $100 to the net worth of apple, hopefully that puts them over the 700 Billion marker.

I told him i wanted it noted on my account so that if this becomes an issue in the near future, i can try and get my $245 back. like that matters.

my final thoughts:

1. I am no longer an iPhone fan, or that fact an Apple fan.
2. I own an ipad 2 and when that becomes obsolete I will probably buy a computer/tablet all in one type deal. Its kind of ridiculous if you think about it, that you pay all this money for it and you cant do anything but install their apps. I want a USB and i want a hard drive that can read and write files. BOY ARE WE GULLIBLE
3. I will no longer try to convince non-iphone users to switch to the iPhone. And by my count i have probably referred and influenced over 70-100 people into switching (since the first phone came out 7 years ago). That will no longer be the case. I will tell them how horrible of a company Apple is and how they don't care about their customers and how the quality of the phone has gone down.
4. I will be hanging on to the iphone 5 for now, mainly because i want to wait for the galaxy 4 to come out in February (don't quote me there on the timeframe).
5. Hell!!! i am done with this

hopefully people keep posting pics of their bent iPhones here

[intofx]

You are 2-3 weeks past your applecare date... they give you 30 days to buy it from the start... and your mad that they didn't make an exemption for you. Your not special you know. What do you think the cutoff should be 30 days for the world but for you whenever?

Its really annoying to hear people complain about a very clear policy. you have 30 days to purchase not 31, 45, a million. You took a chance to save $99 and it cost you a extra $100. Lesson learned. Did u get applecare on your new phone? Probably not. Your Samsung phone will be waiting for you in the future. When you break that one without insurance come back and tell us how much they charged you to replace it.

[Koodauw]

I have to say I am with the OP on this one. Clearly some sort of design issue, which Apple will never own up to.

Apple has a history of this. Look up the iPod Nano (1st Gen) screen issues. You'd pull it out of your pocket and have a cracked screen.

There was the Nvidia graphic card issues as well. Same response.

Its rather funny as those iPod Nano owners got flammed in the same manner. Sucks to be those with bend issues.

[OZPINHEAD]

This thread is so full of BS, I can smell it through my iPad.

[realeric]

Originally Posted by OZPINHEAD

This thread is so full of BS, I can smell it through my iPad.

I agree. It's BS. If I were the mod, I would block this thread.

[harcosparky]

So the guy gets up from falling to the ground and rolling down the hill.

Reaches his back pocket for his iPhone only to find it was bent, and was never misused!

[Archer1440]

Well, I am an engineer, and have never imagined such silly and ridiculous assertions as some of those made in this thread.

Aluminum alloy does not visibly bend by itself, the temperatures needed to "soften" it would ignite the contents of the phone... I could go on, but the madness here just needs to stop.

If only honest people posted we would never see threads like this one.

[Kenjhee]

Originally Posted by stucazzo

the question is, is Aluminum cheaper than stainless steel? if so, why use it then? maybe its about Apples bottom dollar?

Aluminum is generally a cheaper material vs. stainless steel, but is not necessarily an inferior substrate. Al is lighter, and is much easier to machine, leading to tighter tolerances.

[mac00l]

I still remember all the fire against the iPhone 4 being a crystal sandwich, hence being "fragile as hell". Still the iPhone 4 proved to be (under normal use) much more durable than the 3GS.

Still my 3GS is working without issues after being backpacking Europe for a month with me (don't ask me how my P&S camera finished the trip....). My mom has an iPhone 4 which endured almost unavailable drops (it fell from her lap when getting out of her car, and slid for 50 meters down street), suffering only minor scratches on a side, and no damage in the screen from the slide. IMPRESSIVE for phones being less resistant in each iteration according to some.

I'm sure my iPhone 5 will be full of scratches in the back in no time. But at least for me is a fair trade for not having issues with cracks in the dock. For me functionality and resistance (overall resistance, not cosmetic persistence) is the utter most important thing in my day to day devices.

Stuff like what happened to the OP is an extreme case. As most of you, I agree that it suffered some sort of severe trauma. Nonetheless it is possible that out of the millions iPhones produced, one precise piece of metal had a thinner thickness and that it matched exactly with the weakest structural point in the iPhone. That argument obviously will fade as the occurrence of the same issue increase as it will be more probable that it is due to misuse. If the occurrence get insanely high then it is not an unfortunate coincidence, nor misuse, but a design flaw.

[macingman]

Originally Posted by stucazzo

UPDATE:

finally had a chance to waste 2+hours of my time to travel almost 40 minutes away to get to an apple store. Very disappointing but not surprised by the outcome. Everyone there said this is the first time they have seen it (i dont believe it).

since i am 2-3 weeks past the ability to add applecare (you can add if up to 30 days after you bought the phone), i had to pay the price of $245 to have it replaced. Seriously! they could of made an exception and add the applecare for $99 and then i could of paid $49 to have the phone replaced. But no, add an extra $100 to the net worth of apple, hopefully that puts them over the 700 Billion marker.

I told him i wanted it noted on my account so that if this becomes an issue in the near future, i can try and get my $245 back. like that matters.

my final thoughts:

1. I am no longer an iPhone fan, or that fact an Apple fan.
2. I own an ipad 2 and when that becomes obsolete I will probably buy a computer/tablet all in one type deal. Its kind of ridiculous if you think about it, that you pay all this money for it and you cant do anything but install their apps. I want a USB and i want a hard drive that can read and write files. BOY ARE WE GULLIBLE
3. I will no longer try to convince non-iphone users to switch to the iPhone. And by my count i have probably referred and influenced over 70-100 people into switching (since the first phone came out 7 years ago). That will no longer be the case. I will tell them how horrible of a company Apple is and how they don't care about their customers and how the quality of the phone has gone down.
4. I will be hanging on to the iphone 5 for now, mainly because i want to wait for the galaxy 4 to come out in February (don't quote me there on the timeframe).
5. Hell!!! i am done with this

hopefully people keep posting pics of their bent iPhones here

I'm pretty sure you are a troll OP but I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Post a picture of the receight for the replacement (with personal details hidden of course) and stop all the doubts of whether you are telling the truth or not.

[stucazzo]

Originally Posted by macingman

I'm pretty sure you are a troll OP but I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Post a picture of the receight for the replacement (with personal details hidden of course) and stop all the doubts of whether you are telling the truth or not.

here you go!!


And lets make one thing very very clear here, I HAVE NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, PUT A PHONE IN MY BACK POCKET so this was not caused by that. And the phone is on me 99% of the time and since it would of taken a GREAT deal of force to bend it, I am pretty sure i would of noticed something if I did it.

and to answer intofx reply about being special or something with the applecare, NO i don't think i am special, but i run a business and i was just stating the fact that it is bad business. We make exceptions all the time for people to keep them as customers even if we have to eat the profits. Obviously, we are not a 600+ BILLION dollar company so maybe when we finally reach that point we can tell customers to "****** off" because we are too big to fail. I never buy warranties, most of them are rip offs, like gift cards.

one thing i have learned from this thread is that most people are fans of Apple because its Apple (so was the case with me). They could of took a dump in a box and slapped an Apple logo on it and most of us would buy it just because. You will see how all that will change in the future, i read articles all the time, apple is past its INNOVATING period. And i dont even use siri since she cant understand anything i want, "would you like me to search the web for that", yeah no thanks, i can search the web myself you dumb C**t

[rivryan]

Originally Posted by stucazzo

here you go!!
Image

And lets make one thing very very clear here, I HAVE NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, PUT A PHONE IN MY BACK POCKET so this was not caused by that. And the phone is on me 99% of the time and since it would of taken a GREAT deal of force to bend it, I am pretty sure i would of noticed something if I did it.

and to answer intofx reply about being special or something with the applecare, NO i don't think i am special, but i run a business and i was just stating the fact that it is bad business. We make exceptions all the time for people to keep them as customers even if we have to eat the profits. Obviously, we are not a 600+ BILLION dollar company so maybe when we finally reach that point we can tell customers to "****** off" because we are too big to fail. I never buy warranties, most of them are rip offs, like gift cards.

one thing i have learned from this thread is that most people are fans of Apple because its Apple (so was the case with me). They could of took a dump in a box and slapped an Apple logo on it and most of us would buy it just because. You will see how all that will change in the future, i read articles all the time, apple is past its INNOVATING period. And i dont even use siri since she cant understand anything i want, "would you like me to search the web for that", yeah no thanks, i can search the web myself you dumb C**t

QQ more please. LOL

if you run a business, you could have at least got the warranty. Oh well, this forum loses one more unlucky individual that had some crazy bending problem and droid gets a new customer. We will be seeing him return shortly, like they all do.

[iHailCarlo]

You must have done something, I am very skeptical of spontaneous separation. So I must call BS.

[itjw]

No worries. He's no longer an "Apple, iPhone, etc..." "fan" so he should be selling the phone in short order and moving on to an appropriate Android plastic pile.

Unless like the hundreds of "scuffgate" and "purplehazegate" and "bendgate" folks he's so hopping mad that he STILL can't part with the phone.

You'd think with all the "problems" that there would be PLENTY of available stock, and Apple would be issuing apology after apology. I am sure there are legitimate cases of manufacturing defects, but they are FAR from the norm and FAR from a "problem". Even if there were thousands of phones with issues, out of millions, the odds are still good you will never encounter one.

So goodbye. It's no loss to them, and no, you WEREN'T the sole cause of their profitibility passing 700 Billion (sorry the world doesn't revolve around your purchases). If you are no longer a "fan" because they wouldn't bend over for you, after you neglected to buy a warranty during the GENEROUS 30 day period they give literally everyone to register, but you chose not to, and you paid the price.

Even if I believed your phone "spontaneously" did xyz, not having AC+ was 100% your decision, and 100% not Apple's fault. Period.

[Fozziebear40]

Originally Posted by Givmeabrek

I'll take my guess too. It looks like someone sat on it with the phone in their back pocket (not smart).

Well that is me sticking with the 4S. I ALWAYS carry my iphone in my back jeans pocket and sit down with it in there! Done it this way since the first iPhone and never had a problem. I am not changing the way I use it. I don't want a man bag to carry it in

[bwhli]

You must've done something to it. iPhones don't spontaneously separate without an outside force.

[intofx]

Originally Posted by stucazzo

here you go!!
Image

and to answer intofx reply about being special or something with the applecare, NO i don't think i am special, but i run a business and i was just stating the fact that it is bad business. We make exceptions all the time for people to keep them as customers even if we have to eat the profits. Obviously, we are not a 600+ BILLION dollar company so maybe when we finally reach that point we can tell customers to "****** off" because we are too big to fail. I never buy warranties, most of them are rip offs, like gift cards.

Your getting mad at a company because you choose to never buy warranties. This was your choice and not the companies burden no matter how big or small. Ac+ is not just a warrenty its a insurance policy as it covers accidental damage. Do have insurance for your car? How much do you pay a month? More then $99... Let your covrage lapse and get into a accident a month later, should the company cover you? They make billions of dollars as well. You took your chance and lost.

[harcosparky]

This is amazing ....

It's 4:50 am and I am sitting here watching an iPhone 5 twisting and turning all by itself.

I'm just about half way through my bottle of Tequilla and started play an old song called " Twist And Shot " on the iPhone.

The damn thing stood up and began dancing across the table.

I hope when it stops dancing that it doe not get bent out of shape!


Yeah this is a joke - I don't own an iPhone 5 ( my iPhone 4 is more than I need ) and I do not drink!

[pooleman]

Originally Posted by ET iPhone Home

What's odd about this is the 3 people, including yourself, that have experience these mysterious damages are all new members of MacRumors. That's the one thing I noticed among the 3 of you, besides these usual damages to your 5's.

You had me giving you guys the benefit of the doubt, but it's becoming a little hard to believe due to your member date.

That's got nothing to due with it. A strange problem like this is just the kind of thing to get people to join a forum like this. Do you know when I first joined this forum? January of 2012. When I first noticed that AT&Thad begun throttling my data.

[tymaster50]

so what when their join date was? Why does that matter? So you never want anyone to join the site? Everyone has to start sometime, just because their join date wasn't like 5 years ago doesn't mean jack ****.