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iPhone 5 "Bending" Fact or Fiction?
- Thread starter MrFishcake
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So you're saying that people should just shut their eyes and pretend theres nothing wrong with the phone? A lot of people wear skinny jeans, a lot of chicks put their phones into their back pocket and untill iphone 5, nobody had problems with it. And now suddenly, when iphone 5, thanks to its lousy build quality, bends in peoples pocket, all people that wear skinny jeans and put their phones into back pockets should stop doing this because the phone might get bent? Can't you see how stupid that sounds? Just because a company makes an engineering mess of a phone (which iphone 5 clearly is) it doesnt mean that people dont take care of their devices.
Can't you understand how stupid it is to put a phone in your back pocket of your jeans? If you think that putting a phone in your back pockets and sitting on it shouldn't cause it to bend you are sadly mistaken. It is not a design flaw of Apples it is a brain flaw of the end user. Putting a phone in a position of stress most certainly means that people don't take care of their devices.
You're sitting on a phone. That is exactly what it means.
Just because the prior generation was bigger and could take your abuse doesn't mean the slimmed down 5 is flawed.
You want your skinny jeans, I want my skinny phone.
Considering there's nothing wrong with the phone... Yep, you should.
Debatable
Back pockets are fine. Leaving the phone in the back pocket when sitting down is not fine. How hard is that to comprehend?
Can you categorically state that the iPhone 5 is 'clearly' an engineering mess of a phone? Can you provide evidence (without using skinny jeans as an example please, I'm talking about the masses, not hipsters). Can you do a better job of making a phone that thin and light and completely unable to bend?
Lets put this into perspective. METAL BENDS. It's a hard fact of life and I would have thought this was common knowledge by now considering just how long Metal has been around as a building material. If you crash your car and bend the wing (fender), you don't complain to the manufacturer because it bent do you? You put it down to it being your own stupid fault for crashing the car!
If you break your phone because you sit on it then its your own fault for sitting on it! If you break your laptop because you stood on it then its your own fault for treading on it! If you kill your dog because you forgot to feed it then its your own fault for not feeding it! Get the drift here?
If the phone was sitting on a table and magically bent itself (which it will not do!) then you can categorically state that there's a fault. Because they only bend as a result of carelessness by owners then no, there's not a manufacturing fault.
So, would you be against Apple making the 5S out of harder aluminum so that it can stand up to the same stresses as the 4S without bending?
I think people need to keep in mind it is a piece of electronic technology, not a wrench or a hammer. Even if other versions don't bend or break easily, it doesn't mean that one should not take a bit of care when handling. If someone dropped or sat on their laptop it would likely get dented, scratched, or bent. People complained that the glass iPhone 4 would shatter, well problem solved with aluminum. Now it can bend. Not everyone will be happy all the time. I have dropped mine, kept it in my pocket, etc. and it has held up just fine, so in my experience it is not as fragile as some would have us believe. Don't forget though that it it is a lightweight phone/computer, not a jackhammer.
"When we envisioned the new iPhone, we landed on a remarkably thin and light design. But its nearly impossible to make a device so thin and so light without sacrificing features or performance."
Durability in everyday use is a performance characteristic. It wasn't sacrificed, or was it?
"If a component wasnt small enough, we re-imagined it."
Why didn't they re-imagine the volume adjustment buttons as well to create more balanced housing design? Instead the thinnest section is now thinner than in previous generation and made of softer material.
"The back of iPhone 5 is made of anodized 6000 series aluminum."
Proneness to scuffs and scratches and plastic deformation area in the pictures of cracked housings suggest that the 6000 grade is used in non-tempered condition. Hopefully that is not the case as it would not be clever material choice at all. Even though it is possible that they have been forced to use it as non-tempered to keep within the tight dimensional tolerances. In that case reference to 6000 grade is marketing hype.
Quotes are taken from http://www.apple.com/iphone/design/
Durability in everyday use is a performance characteristic. It wasn't sacrificed, or was it?
"If a component wasnt small enough, we re-imagined it."
Why didn't they re-imagine the volume adjustment buttons as well to create more balanced housing design? Instead the thinnest section is now thinner than in previous generation and made of softer material.
"The back of iPhone 5 is made of anodized 6000 series aluminum."
Proneness to scuffs and scratches and plastic deformation area in the pictures of cracked housings suggest that the 6000 grade is used in non-tempered condition. Hopefully that is not the case as it would not be clever material choice at all. Even though it is possible that they have been forced to use it as non-tempered to keep within the tight dimensional tolerances. In that case reference to 6000 grade is marketing hype.
Quotes are taken from http://www.apple.com/iphone/design/
There is such a thing a middle ground. Just because someone isn't up in arms demanding something, does not in any way qualify as being against a change. At worst one may be indifferent.
I don't understand your point. Have Apple announced that there is a problem with the manufacture of the iPhone 5 that causes random bending?
Why should Apple have to adjust manufacturing processes because a tiny number of users have bent their handsets?
I wouldn't be against Apple making the iPhone out of a harder aluminium but I'd fail to see the point, as these phones are not just randomly bending, there are contributory factors which play a massive part, such as putting phones in back pockets and sitting down.
Some people are more careless than others. When I know I've paid a not unsubstantial amount of money for a device then I will be taking care of that device, not throwing it in a back pocket carelessly or throwing it in a pocket with keys etc. I fail to see how a cared for device will bend.
And batteries don't bloat by themselves either! ohhhh, wait...
http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage...y-Cases-if-Injuries-Don-t-Occur-Report-2.jpg/
How do you know it is not caused by metal impurity or metal fatigue due to bad block of aluminium?
I don't, but it seems unlikely - but that's not the discussion of this thread anyway. That's a sensible answer, rather than the common consensus in this thread so far of 'all iPhone 5's have been built to a budget cost and they all bend too easily'.
The same way you know when you go outside you won't get hit by lightning. You don't. But you don't assume you're going to get hit by lightning just because the possibility exists.
Is it POSSIBLE some iPhone 5's escaped with poor aluminum prone to bending? Sure. But saying there's a problem because 1 or 2 (or even hundreds) have bent, is ridiculous.
There are MILLIONS of 5's out there with no bending issue, and a handful out there that bend.
"Problem"? No. Either people are too rough on their phones and don't want to accept that, or they need a different phone for their lifestyle (one of those old "rugged" NexTel's comes to mind).
There IS NO "bendgate" and no one complaining about it can prove otherwise. I can: millions of users have NOT bent their phones. No "bendgate"
100% fiction. Sorry if you damaged your phone though. That sucks for you, and I hope you can afford to pay for your own accident without it causing you to point the finger at someone else.
Yes, batteries fail. But phones do nut bend all by themselves. It never happened. Your story about batteries have nothing to do with the simple fact. His phone did not bend by itself.
Problem is that the phone is not as well-made as the iphone 4. it seems reasonable to expect improvement, well at least not regression with the passage of time.
Other problem is that knowledgeable people on this board have caught Apple using a lower grade of Aluminum for the iphone 5 (softer and cheaper) than they could have. No one appears to have a solid reason why the better, stiffer aluminum wasn't used when it could have been, and one would have expected a company that bills itself as not cutting corners, would have used the better quality aluminum. The obvious reason is that Apple chose to save money, but it seems pretty settled to me that there was a better quality Aluminum available, and Apple chose not to use it. Now people have realized this and the fact that replacing a bent back of the phone is going to be very very hard. People didn't realize that a bent iphone 4 glass back was $15 to replace only.
Other problem is that knowledgeable people on this board have caught Apple using a lower grade of Aluminum for the iphone 5 (softer and cheaper) than they could have. No one appears to have a solid reason why the better, stiffer aluminum wasn't used when it could have been, and one would have expected a company that bills itself as not cutting corners, would have used the better quality aluminum. The obvious reason is that Apple chose to save money, but it seems pretty settled to me that there was a better quality Aluminum available, and Apple chose not to use it. Now people have realized this and the fact that replacing a bent back of the phone is going to be very very hard. People didn't realize that a bent iphone 4 glass back was $15 to replace only.
Your reference to "knowledgeable people" should have read, "people who claim to be knowledgeable". There is no information available that substantiates this claim and it is more than likely quite untrue. Also, without supporting evidence, it is equally erroneous to claim that Apple were "saving money" by using this supposedly inferior grade of aluminium. Such "statements" tend to perpetuate obvious rumors that unfortunately, over time become fact in the eyes of the uninitiated.
I do wish that when coming out with such statements, people would at least qualify them, or if unable to do so, at least preface them with with a comment such as "In my opinion".
Costs and machineablity. Apple is cheap. Saving a buck or two per phone makes a big difference for them. They are less interested in building a long lasting phone as they are in increasing profits.
If I remember right, didn't people complain that the iPhone 4 was made of glass when it was released? Wasn't the complaint that it could crack or break too easily? It's funny how this works.
Considering that only a few people have had an iPhone bend(caused by them) I'd say that this is a non issue.
Those of you arguing that the iPhone 5 is cheaply made need to get over yourselves. It's made just fine. Mine has been dropped, slid knocked out of my hands. All of this with no case. A few dings and a few scratches but no bending. It's probably the toughest phone of its candybar full glass front design that we've seen.
Again. Non issue except to those that will find a flaw in everything and make a Moutan out of a mole hill.
Those of you arguing that the iPhone 5 is cheaply made need to get over yourselves. It's made just fine. Mine has been dropped, slid knocked out of my hands. All of this with no case. A few dings and a few scratches but no bending. It's probably the toughest phone of its candybar full glass front design that we've seen.
Again. Non issue except to those that will find a flaw in everything and make a Moutan out of a mole hill.
