Why does the iPhone 5 quality control suck?

Browns2212 · Mar 11, 2013

My family has 2 and I know 3 other people who have them.

No "blemishes" on any of them.

However, my one friend did have his power button go bad. He exchanged for a new one and it was not scratched, bent or dinged.

How many i5's have been manufactured/sold? 20 million? How many would you guys guess have "blemishes" out of the box? 100,000? 50,000? Way less? I mean, if 50K of them do, then that's a 5% chance you are getting one. It's too many, but my guess is there is not that many with problems out of the box.

mattopotamus · Mar 11, 2013

BoostDeuce said:
i try to be careful but apparently not careful enough. I dropped my HTC thunderbolt probably 15+ times and the screen never cracked, even when dropped on gravel. Only got a few small dents on the corners of the case.

I see no point in buying an iphone 5, which is so sleek and lightweight, and putting on a half inch thick case. I want the iphone for the facetime and the smaller size and weight. My wifes galaxy s3 is too big to comfortably use daily

I completely agree about casing a phone. Half of the reason it appeals to me is the way it looks.

RenoG · Mar 11, 2013

mattopotamus said:
I completely agree about casing a phone. Half of the reason it appeals to me is the way it looks.

Same here, so I think the most I'll do is put a thin bumper on it just to keep it from getting those nicks (i have black, and it perfect right now).

rocknblogger · Mar 11, 2013

itjw said:
Pretty simple. There are trolls, and folks with OCD that hold the iPhone to a COMPLETELY different standard than any other mass produced consumer electronic ever produced.

In a way it IS Apples fault. They produce SUCH a high quality product, with such high levels of refinement, that people actually get butt hurt when one appears with a mm "scuff" out of the box that you can kinda see, if you hold the phone at the right angle and in the right light...

The VAST majority of users (save the OCD'ers and trolls of course) are completely satisfied with the "quality control" of the iPhone.

You aren't. Buy something else maybe? Nah, that would be riddled with "problems" too, unless you held it to a different standard.

And save me the "I spent $$$ so it better be FLAWLESS" crap, because if you whined about ANY other product the way you whine about this PHONE people would literally roll their eyes and laugh at you. Almost no mass produced product is "flawless" if you look hard enough. If that's not acceptable to you (tiny marks, "scuffs" or other meaningless "defects") then don't buy mass produced products.

Nothing will ever be good enough. You can lie and say you had a phone once that was, but if you gave me ten minutes and a microscope I could find plenty of "quality control" issues with it too. The difference is, you didn't hold it to the same standard as you do the iPhone.

There is NO quality control "problem" with the 5. Just a handful of OCD'ers and trolls bent on complaining because they can't accept reality.

Sorry

This is a ridiculous argument. While my iPhone is perfect I saw my friend go through three black iPhone 5's at the Apple store. If it was me I would have done the same. Just because you are willing to accept substandard quality doesn't mean that anyone else should. I also refuse to believe that if yours had obvious scratches and dings you would accept it. Why would you? I don't understand when people say "It doesn't bother me". Are you really willing to spend your hard earned money on a product with obvious defects?
Would you accept a $3000 rMBP with dings and scratches too? Or would you draw the line there?

I've never seen so many people defend a company when there is sufficient evidence that there is a problem with quality control. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. The manufacturing plant even said that they were having problems but you still try to defend the iPhone 5/Apple and bash anyone who says they've experienced issues with their iPhone. I guess you know more than the plant?

Just stop already. You're making yourself look foolish.

artschool · Mar 11, 2013

rocknblogger said:
This is a ridiculous argument. While my iPhone is perfect I saw my friend go through three black iPhone 5's at the Apple store. If it was me I would have done the same. Just because you are willing to accept substandard quality doesn't mean that anyone else should. I also refuse to believe that if yours had obvious scratches and dings you would accept it. Why would you? I don't understand when people say "It doesn't bother me". Are you really willing to spend your hard earned money on a product with obvious defects?
Would you accept a $3000 rMBP with dings and scratches too? Or would you draw the line there?

I've never seen so many people defend a company when there is sufficient evidence that there is a problem with quality control. Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. The manufacturing plant even said that they were having problems but you still try to defend the iPhone 5/Apple and bash anyone who says they've experienced issues with their iPhone. I guess you know more than the plant?

Just stop already. You're making yourself look foolish.

i agree with you, plus apple shares are down 40% since last september.

so it seems that there are plenty of people that are losing confidence in apple.

Zaft · Mar 11, 2013

artschool said:
i agree with you, plus apple shares are down 40% since last september.

so it seems that there are plenty of people that are losing confidence in apple.

will people that have no idea about the stock market stop posting please.
read some info on why the stock is actually down, not take it from your ass.

artschool · Mar 11, 2013

Zaft said:
will people that have no idea about the stock market stop posting please.
read some info on why the stock is actually down, not take it from your ass.

lol, ok.

apple don't recognise the stock market as a problem.

AFDoc · Mar 11, 2013

why does the quality of threads suck?

Nothing new to see here folks, just a tired, re-hashed thread r/t apple's supposed issues with QC.

All i5's I've come in contact with are were fine OOB, deal.

zorinlynx · Mar 11, 2013

People don't generally come here to rave about how flawless their iPhone was out of the box.

People tend to come here to complain and whine about problems. So it's only natural that reading this forum you would think that "most" iPhones have problems right out of the box. In reality, probably 99.9% of phones are perfect, and we're just hearing from the 0.1% of people who DO happen to get damaged merchandise.

When you combine that with how many iPhone customers there are, that means you're going to get a significant amount of people here complaining.

My launch-day iPhone 5 was flawless out of the box. It's been my best new phone experience ever. Most people don't come here to post that though!

drew0020 · Mar 11, 2013

zorinlynx said:
People don't generally come here to rave about how flawless their iPhone was out of the box.

People tend to come here to complain and whine about problems. So it's only natural that reading this forum you would think that "most" iPhones have problems right out of the box. In reality, probably 99.9% of phones are perfect, and we're just hearing from the 0.1% of people who DO happen to get damaged merchandise.

When you combine that with how many iPhone customers there are, that means you're going to get a significant amount of people here complaining.

My launch-day iPhone 5 was flawless out of the box. It's been my best new phone experience ever. Most people don't come here to post that though!

I think most people probably don't notice the small flaws on their phones. From a statistical standpoint I've purchased 5 phones. Had a few replacements and all had some sort of visual defect. These were random purchases at different times (wish I tracked the serials of each). The most recent purchase was a couple weeks ago from AT&T. This was one of the worst phones I've seen.

My point is I think the 99.9% is way to high especially if most people throw their phone in a case. I never use a case so I notice when my phone is defective from the box.

Radiating · Mar 11, 2013

BoostDeuce said:
are you kidding me? People on this forum post about going crazy by taking their iphones out of their cases because they are so fragile. There isn't a more fragile phone out there. I'm on this forum because i'm pretty sure i want to pull the trigger on the iphone 5, but i worry because i never use a case on my phones and tend to drop them about twice a month. I've never had an issue with my HTC phones with gorilla glass, but this iphone worries me.

You're confusing build quality for durability

Build quality is not the same as quality control and that's not the same as durability.

Poor build quality can lead to poor durability but sometimes good build quality is less durable but more intricate.

Anyways you can get a simple power support bumper and ghost armor sude protection (to prevent the bumper from sluding off from bug drops) Spigen screen protector and your phone will look 100% like new, mine is a launch day phone and still looks brand new . I drop mine twice a day onto concrete.

The bumper looks like new too.

thehustleman · Mar 11, 2013

drew0020 said:
Pretty simple really. I have yet to see a new iPhone 5 out of the box without a dent, ding or scratch. The majority of the dings and dents are on the chamfered edges of the device.

Ive given 5 iPhone 5's as gifts to my family. All had some sort of defect. 2 were exchanged this week and also had defects. I recently developed a home button issue. My first replacement looked like it was dropped. The second was much better but has a small dent on the left side of the device.

Is a dent and ding free device to much to ask for new out of the box? Very disappointing.
Andy

I don't buy this.

I sell phones for a living and while I'm not the most pro iphone guy there isn't a quality control problem with the 5.

I've sold and activated over 35 iphones (is my second best selling phone) last month and have yet to find a flaw on one.

Grolubao · Mar 11, 2013

thehustleman said:
I don't buy this.

I sell phones for a living and while I'm not the most pro iphone guy there isn't a quality control problem with the 5.

I've sold and activated over 35 iphones (is my second best selling phone) last month and have yet to find a flaw on one.

So I was just might unlucky to get 5 broken iPhones? This in the course of 2 weeks? Ok... makes sense...

Browns2212 · Mar 11, 2013

BoostDeuce said:
i try to be careful but apparently not careful enough. I dropped my HTC thunderbolt probably 15+ times and the screen never cracked, even when dropped on gravel. Only got a few small dents on the corners of the case.

I see no point in buying an iphone 5, which is so sleek and lightweight, and putting on a half inch thick case. I want the iphone for the facetime and the smaller size and weight. My wifes galaxy s3 is too big to comfortably use daily

What's funny is how different people have different experiences with the same phone.

I had an HTC Thunderbolt (bought used) right before I got my i5 b/c I wanted to have a 4G phone. I dropped it a few times and it was fine. As soon as I got my i5 I gave the Thunderbolt to my wife. She had it no more than a week and dropped it......guess what? Shattered the glass on the screen. It still worked, but it looked awful.

I've also used a case on every smartphone that I've owned. I love how they look without a case, but also like how they look with a case. Granted, I make sure I get a case that I think looks good. I just figure that when you spend $200 on a small device that you are going to use A LOT and carry around with you pretty much everywhere, why not add a little extra security to it?? I mean, I guess I'd rather deal with it looking slightly worse (with a case) than to take a chance on dropping it and it breaking and having to go through the insurance/AppleCare process.

I have a Kay's Case that I got from Amazon for $12. It is thin and looks good. It's cushions the cornes and back, but I don't use a screen protector. Have dropped it a couple of times and it has been fine.

Commy1 · Mar 11, 2013

I've held and used several iPhone 5's never seen any issues, I guess that someone has to see the problems though if they exist...

vastoholic · Mar 11, 2013

Grolubao said:
So I was just might unlucky to get 5 broken iPhones? This in the course of 2 weeks? Ok... makes sense...

Yes that's exactly what it is. Somebody, somewhere has to be the one to open up the products that slipped through QC. The unlucky ones are just the most verbal. I consider myself lucky that I have yet to experience a physical issue with any of my apple products, because I know that somewhere out there, those bad ones do exist.

drew0020 · Mar 11, 2013

vastoholic said:
Yes that's exactly what it is. Somebody, somewhere has to be the one to open up the products that slipped through QC. The unlucky ones are just the most verbal. I consider myself lucky that I have yet to experience a physical issue with any of my apple products, because I know that somewhere out there, those bad ones do exist.

I've yet to find an iPhone 5 without a physical defect (lost count but around 10 phones). I'm using the best of the bunch. This one has a small ding on the upper left side front facing of course so I see it every day. Oh well. I wish I had some of these other posters luck.

tl01 · Mar 11, 2013

My three iphone 5's have been cosmetically perfect. No issues there.

sectime · Mar 11, 2013

drew0020 said:
I'm not talking about after usage. I'm talking about brand new out of box or refurbished from AppleCare. All had visible defects out of the box/white box replacement.

My company has purchased about three hundred 5's. my friend runs the purchasing dept I asked him about this. He told about ten phones had problems and they were received early in the release. This really means nothing but 15 in a row sorry don't think so.

ParagJain · Mar 12, 2013

Find it funny,

people find issues with build quality and same folks keep on waiting for the next version of the phone. Shouldn't this be a case where you have spent so much of money on a gadget, if you are not happy with quality, then you move on to some other company's gadget?

John T · Mar 12, 2013

Post deleted!

The-Real-Deal82 · Mar 12, 2013

drew0020 said:
Pretty simple really. I have yet to see a new iPhone 5 out of the box without a dent, ding or scratch. The majority of the dings and dents are on the chamfered edges of the device.

Ive given 5 iPhone 5's as gifts to my family. All had some sort of defect. 2 were exchanged this week and also had defects. I recently developed a home button issue. My first replacement looked like it was dropped. The second was much better but has a small dent on the left side of the device.

Is a dent and ding free device to much to ask for new out of the box? Very disappointing.
Andy

My wife and myself both have iPhone 5's that were imperfection free straight out of the box. This means they do exist.

drew0020 · Mar 12, 2013

The-Real-Deal82 said:
My wife and myself both have iPhone 5's that were imperfection free straight out of the box. This means they do exist.

I'm not doubting they exist. I just wish I could get one. There is nothing more than I'd like as a defect free device new out of the box. Just seems very difficult but at least it's almost time for a new phone for me so I care a little less. Still disappointing though.

mlmwalt · Mar 12, 2013

My 5 has dents, dings and scratches. All put there my me.

Regular wear and tear.

Jalopybox · Mar 12, 2013

That's like asking why Kia or Hyundai cars are not as good as Honda or Toyota. It's not demanded, that's why.

Why does the iPhone 5 quality control suck?

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