Apple Quality Control

sober2ndthought said:

I had to share this video, I know it won't convince those who have made up their mind on the issue. But here is Chris Prillio, who is one of the biggest Apple Fans on the internet, he is suggesting Apple is having serious issues with quality control.

http://youtu.be/lLI3d_18NoE?t=23m25s

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I agree. Don't get me wrong, Apple is still makes great products– products that I really wouldn't want to live without. However, they're QC has been slipping for the last 3-4 years. iTunes Match, Retina MBP, Antennagate, Bendghazi (my iPhone 6+ is proof enough for me), Apple Maps, iOS 7, iOS 8, iPhone 6 Live Stream, iTunes, and the list goes on. They're still doing some great things, particularly Pay, but I really would like to see Apple step back for a minute and go back to focusing on details and user experience.

As something gets bigger & bigger and has to focus on more & more projects all at once, quality slips. Just a fact of life.

I'll still happily take 'slipping' Apple over any other tech manufacturer.

iPhone 6 Lack of Quality Control

I am now on my fourth phone. This one along with the other 3, also has dust under the screen, and in the camera. Am I the only one seeing this? I'm sick and tired of having to go back and forth to the Apple store but I refuse to pay hundreds of dollars for a phone that has dust in all the important areas.

If I had that many returns I just wouldn't even bother, id get a refund. All of the iPhones had dust and crap under the screens? One had dust in the camera?

You don't have any pics of what a picture from that camera with dust looks like do you? Id be curious to see.

I haven't experienced dust, but my first one had a loose home button that got worse, and I just exchanged it.

New one seems to be perfect.

vgamedude said:

If I had that many returns I just wouldn't even bother, id get a refund. All of the iPhones had dust and crap under the screens? One had dust in the camera?

You don't have any pics of what a picture from that camera with dust looks like do you? Id be curious to see.

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It doesn't show up in camera. It seems it's just outside of the range. But it is clearly evident when looking at it with the eye. It bugs me knowing that dust is possible. There either is something wrong with when they put it together, or dust can indeed get inside the camera housing and under the screen.

Bugs me too. Happens every launch with iPad Air and Mini Retina being the worst so far but iPhone 6 well on the way. Never had a dust issue with any other manufacturer. No idea how Apple manage it.

Ok, so I'm not crazy that these things bother me even if they're one piece of dust? I take a little consolation in that. It just frustrates me that I'm paying for flawed goods. Does anyone know if I can still return to AT&T? Even if my replacement phones were through Apple because AT&T never had stock after launch day?

joepark89 said:

I am now on my fourth phone. This one along with the other 3, also has dust under the screen, and in the camera. Am I the only one seeing this? I'm sick and tired of having to go back and forth to the Apple store but I refuse to pay hundreds of dollars for a phone that has dust in all the important areas.

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You must be extremely unlucky as I know quite a few people with the iPhone 6, myself included and no QC issues whatsoever. To have 4 iPhone's is quite astonishing and these are not issues I have seen reported previously. Of course you are going to get the odd phone with issues, just not usually one after the other.

Perhaps they were all Friday afternoon phones?

The-Real-Deal82 said:

You must be extremely unlucky as I know quite a few people with the iPhone 6, myself included and no QC issues whatsoever. To have 4 iPhone's is quite astonishing and these are not issues I have seen reported previously. Of course you are going to get the odd phone with issues, just not usually one after the other.

Perhaps they were all Friday afternoon phones?

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I know. What are the chances? I'm not sure about that because this latest one they actually had to order in.

I'm curious if people are not looking at their phones very carefully and kind of just living with it. For me, it's hard cause I have a bit of OCD when it comes to electronics.

joepark89 said:

I'm curious if people are not looking at their phones very carefully and kind of just living with it. For me, it's hard cause I have a bit of OCD when it comes to electronics.

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You don't say?

Honestly, I'm more concerned about the recent quality of software more than I am hardware. I feel the user experience is slipping and that's what drew me to Apple in the first place - not a slab of metal and glass.

I don't agree that Apple's quality control used to be better -- many people who purchased Apple products in the early 2000's had issues as well. You can scour the forums for problems with Powerbooks, early Macbooks, iPods, etc.

Personally, I had issues with my first two Mac laptops and my first iPhone (iPhone 4), but have been lucky and received a perfect rMBP, iPhone 5, & iPhone 6.

If we had enough data to see what the failure rates on each product was through the years, I doubt you'd see a pattern of worsening QC. We hear about the problems much more now, though, because Apple's sales are about a gazillion times higher than they were ten years ago, and anyone with an issue can make a youtube video about it.

Hardware is solid with the iPhone 6, I am concerned about their software QA.

One of the financial magazines reported that the iPhone 6 plus was coming off the line with only a 50% success rate. The regular 6 was closer to 85%, but even that is not a great number. So clearly putting these things together is not as easy as it used to be (something to do with touch screen sensors embedded in the glass now).

When you have a product with 50% not meeting quality standards, and production numbers in the hundreds of thousands a day, you are going to get some lemons slipping though, bigtime.

cypressc said:

One of the financial magazines reported that the iPhone 6 plus was coming off the line with only a 50% success rate. The regular 6 was closer to 85%, but even that is not a great number. So clearly putting these things together is not as easy as it used to be (something to do with touch screen sensors embedded in the glass now).



When you have a product with 50% not meeting quality standards, and production numbers in the hundreds of thousands a day, you are going to get some lemons slipping though, bigtime.

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No company would continue production with a 50% yield off the production line. Smells like be to me.

I had pretty bad luck with both my iPhone 4 and 4S.... some people just have bad luck.

iPhone 4 - first one stuck red pixel in the center, second one had a bum silent switch, third one was good.

iPhone 4S - first one had a horribly yellow tinted screen. second one wifi was busted. third one, still horrible yellow tint, fourth one, good.

Oddly, wife's 5S from last year was perfect out of the box. Go figure. I hope I don't have these issues with my 6+ whenever that comes.

sober2ndthought said:

I had to share this video, I know it won't convince those who have made up their mind on the issue. But here is Chris Prillio, who is one of the biggest Apple Fans on the internet, he is suggesting Apple is having serious issues with quality control.

http://youtu.be/lLI3d_18NoE?t=23m25s

Click to expand...

He stopped being an Apple fanboy after the 5.

First one had a stuck pixel, got it replaced a day ago.

Mine seems to have an imperfection or dust under the glass. It is very difficult to see and the light has to be right. I only noticed because I was cleaning the glass to put on a screen protector and thought it was a tiny dust particle.

Once the anti glare protector was on, I can't find it any more so I might just keep. The rest of the phone seems perfect and since I can't see it with the screen protector on I will probably just call it a day.

This is a 6+.

I can't find any imperfections on mine, no dust in the camera or under the glass. I'm going to take mine back today and ask for another one.

Well back in the days they were trying to establish a certain fundamental quality and they were keeping things very simple and straightforward but now the OS is becoming much more complex and as it comes with the territory of innovation, I guess its harder (and less important) to have 10/10 level quality and if it slips down to 9/10 it wouldn't change much because now people understand their philosophy on a wide spread level and don't have to prove themselves anymore.

I guess in some places it becomes more practical or relaxed the obsession because there is also the pace of everything else to worry about and the snowball level of features that get added and need to evolve. It throws challenges into the mix.

The method of the process is still there tho and that is important and is good enough.

Its still 9/10 premium if not 10/10 premium.

The software/OS (while still great overall) does seem to be suffering from some growing pains, maybe because they're trying to do too much. I haven't seen any real evidence that hardware quality control is slipping at all. That's not to say that some people don't have problems -- with millions of these things being sold, even a very small percentage of people having problems is still a lot of people -- but I would say fit and finish are actually a lot better now than they were in the past. Some of the hardware in the past, like the original iBooks or the later white iBooks, was kind of shoddy.

SlCKB0Y said:

No company would continue production with a 50% yield off the production line. Smells like be to me.

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I read it in the International Business Times. Last year Apple had to go to Samsung to alleviate low "display yields" on the iPad Mini. Foxconn has to eat the cost of these.