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3G - Cracks in Plastic Housing

haven't used my iPhones 3G... waiting for Pwnage UNLOCKING for T-Mobile

if i understand this thread correctly... the seral number indicates the week it was made, right???

so my two 16GB Black iPhones 3G are:
week: 26
model: MB048LL/A


there are not "out of the box" problems, but will see after i start using them

i will add for extra protection:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/T...phone/iphone_accessories/cases&mco=MTI5MzUwNg
and
http://store.apple.com/us/product/T...phone/iphone_accessories/cases&mco=MTM2MTY2OA
which helps to see screen much easier (especially in the sun or where there's a lot of lights) and no finger prints or smudges are visable.
 
megfilmworks said:
84% of MacRumors 3g owners do not have cracks.
MacRumors... not the average owner!
The small minority can get a new phone.
I don't see a problem.
Click to expand...

SO you are saying that MacRumors members got special phones from Apple? Or that there is a higher incidence of cracked phones among macrumors members than outside of the community?

come on man (woman). The percentages may be off a bit because some people like to complain and people without cracks might be uninterested, but the actual amount of defective or cracked phones in the MacRumors community is EXACTLY the same as outside of the community.
 
distortedloop said:
How on earth is he harming the environment by exchanging them? They aren't thrown out and a new one made every time he exchanges one, they're re-furbed and re-sold or given to people with other warranty exchanges. Maybe he's making an extra trip to the mall to exchange it, but you know what? There are much bigger concerns to the environment than his two mile drive to exchange a product.
Click to expand...

With all due respect (and I have a cracked one too) but this is what's harming the environment by exchanging them:

Driving 2 hours to the nearest apple store in a gas guzzling SUV. Getting a new iPhone which otherwise wouldn't have had to be manufactured. Try to imagine what it costs to manufacture all those iPhones that are replacements for defective ones (also a problem cause by Apple).

Did you know that it takes hundreds of gallons of water to produce only one sheet of paper? Just an example, and I know we use paper everyday etc etc. But all small stuff thrown on a pile becomes a really huge one. (quite obvious)

My girlfriend went to the US to high school and she was taken BY CAR to the schoolbus stop 300 meters from the entrance of the house!!!! THAT's the cost to the environment.

Of course those few thousand (hopefully) exchanging their iPhone will not make a big imprint, but taken together with all the other things that everyone does daily it has quite an impact. Watch the Al Gore movie and you will get a sense of what your own actions can effect both in the bad as the good sense.

I would exchange my iPhone too, but there is no harm in thinking a little bit about what you can do to help the environment.
 
Hmm, I dropped my phone today while in my agent 18 case and got a couple MINOR scratches on the chrome.

If I have cracks will they give me crap about returning it because of a couple tiny marks?
 
peterdevries said:
With all due respect (and I have a cracked one too) but this is what's harming the environment by exchanging them:

Driving 2 hours to the nearest apple store in a gas guzzling SUV. Getting a new iPhone which otherwise wouldn't have had to be manufactured. Try to imagine what it costs to manufacture all those iPhones that are replacements for defective ones (also a problem cause by Apple).

Did you know that it takes hundreds of gallons of water to produce only one sheet of paper? Just an example, and I know we use paper everyday etc etc. But all small stuff thrown on a pile becomes a really huge one. (quite obvious)

My girlfriend went to the US to high school and she was taken BY CAR to the schoolbus stop 300 meters from the entrance of the house!!!! THAT's the cost to the environment.

Of course those few thousand (hopefully) exchanging their iPhone will not make a big imprint, but taken together with all the other things that everyone does daily it has quite an impact. Watch the Al Gore movie and you will get a sense of what your own actions can effect both in the bad as the good sense.

I would exchange my iPhone too, but there is no harm in thinking a little bit about what you can do to help the environment.
Click to expand...

I care about the environment more than the average person. I use only CFLs... refuse plastic bags...etc... but you're just crazy. Like over the deep end crazy.
 
emt1 said:
I care about the environment more than the average person. I use only CFLs... refuse plastic bags...etc... but you're just crazy. Like over the deep end crazy.
Click to expand...

I will open a thread in another forum here about this, because this is is quite interesting but off topic, but where exactly am I crazy?

And you care more than the average person.. Right. You probably wake up in the morning all fuzzy and warm because today you will drive to the Mall in your Escalade (1 hour drive, even though the WallMart is around the cornor, but their muzak is not so nice and they don't have a Starbucks) and will refuse the 20 plastic bags that you would get. Great, we can all stop worrying now. If everyone just would refuse plastic bags... :rolleyes:

Just an example of how times have changed: Where I come from we used to go iceskating every year on the channels and lakes. I haven't seen a sheet of ice that you could stand on since I was 8 and I'm 33 now. Europe in the past 10 years has seen an explosion of floods. Rivers carry more water because ice-caps on mountains are melting. There are cities in Germany that have flooded for the past three consecutive years.

I would suggest you do not go outside of the borders of your country, because you will be astounded to realize that most people except probably in China and India share these beliefs, especially here in Europe. Do the words Kyoto protocol mean anything to you?

I'm not sitting on a high horse, because everyone can do a bit more, and me too. I take the car when it rains, and I forget to turn off my amp after watching a movie, but in the environment context you americans are sitting on this one (the left one that is): :D

thumbelinaay5.jpg


sorry couldn't help it.

edit: provoked a bit more and added thumbelina :D
 
peterdevries said:
come on man (woman). The percentages may be off a bit because some people like to complain and people without cracks might be uninterested, but the actual amount of defective or cracked phones in the MacRumors community is EXACTLY the same as outside of the community.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily, because:

1. Macrumors contributors are techies, thus may be more exacting and more likely to pick up/complain about minor flaws than the general user base.
2. A proportion of people will only join the forums and start to post when they have an issue, so the number of issues is likely to be overrepresented in the forum population.
 
[/QUOTE]
alFR said:
Not necessarily, because:

1. Macrumors contributors are techies, thus may be more exacting and more likely to pick up/complain about minor flaws than the general user base.
2. A proportion of people will only join the forums and start to post when they have an issue, so the number of issues is likely to be overrepresented in the forum population.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I'm saying in the first sentence, so I agree.
The percentages may be off a bit because some people like to complain and people without cracks might be uninterested
Click to expand...

So I guess you don't agree with the other part..:

But the amount of actually defective phones is exactly the same, or are you saying that cracks develop more in Macrumors members' phones? I hope not. They get noticed faster and are complained about more, but the phones of macrumors members have the exact same physical properties as e.g. the iphone of my sister, and she is only a member of myspace.
 
Guys, calm down, this crap happens. It's the way the plastic is fitted, and the rumour that it's some sort of plastic-coated ceramic stuff apparently.

Anybody remember the Nintendo DS hinge cracks? They were FAR worse then this, some of them were even falling apart.

I'm willing to bet that all the stuff you're seeing is totally superficial and sitting on the plastic coating of the phone rather then the actual inside, if course you can't feel it, it's hairline. The only reason it looks so bad is because your fingers have natural oils and dirt in them, and the more you touch it and screw with it the darker and grosser it's going to get, so just leave it.

It's really not a big deal, this stuff just happens, RIM has been making plastic phones for an extremely long time, of course they know how to prevent that, not to mention the fact that their phones aren't even remotely as complexly designed as the iPhone's back [It might not look complex, but the shape is stressing the plastic at the edges.]

The reason for the cracks for the most part being at the edges and sides of the phone rather then the middle is because of the shape. It's shaped like an arch, and anybody who's ever dine studying in architecture knows that the reason an arch is a good shape for say... building a bridge is because all of the pressure is exerted at the ends of the arch.

It's really not a big deal, and unless this starts causing the phones to fall apart or have actual, important damage I wouldn't worry about it.
 
My white iPhone is going back today for cracks around the volume switch. I have a feeling the cracks occur when the phone is assembled and pushed together, the outside edges of the case expand and the spray-coat finish cant expand the same amount as the plastic so it crazes. The effects of the cracking show when dirt and grease from your fingers gets into the minute gaps. I'm gonna exchange it for a black one so it doesnt show up. I think apple needs to change the coating they put on the plastic for one that is less brittle so it can expand and contract in line with the plasic.
 
Thread removed!

Apple have just removed the 'cracks in iPhone case' thread from there own discussions forum......was 128 posts long and VERY busy! Looks like they don't want that sort of PR!
 
Has anyone had a problem returning their phone with cracks in the case?


I will be going to the apple store on tuesday to attempt it, the cracks are getting out of control, and I have also noticed that the plastic does not match up properly on every corner with the chrome, and the chrome does not line up right with the glass
 
peterdevries said:
SO you are saying that MacRumors members got special phones from Apple? Or that there is a higher incidence of cracked phones among macrumors members than outside of the community?

come on man (woman). The percentages may be off a bit because some people like to complain and people without cracks might be uninterested, but the actual amount of defective or cracked phones in the MacRumors community is EXACTLY the same as outside of the community.
Click to expand...

I think he's saying that 15% is not as bad as we were originally thinking. That's all. It's still bad, but it's not like every phone is having this issue.
 
peterdevries said:
With all due respect (and I have a cracked one too) but this is what's harming the environment by exchanging them:

Driving 2 hours to the nearest apple store in a gas guzzling SUV. Getting a new iPhone which otherwise wouldn't have had to be manufactured. Try to imagine what it costs to manufacture all those iPhones that are replacements for defective ones (also a problem cause by Apple).

Did you know that it takes hundreds of gallons of water to produce only one sheet of paper? Just an example, and I know we use paper everyday etc etc. But all small stuff thrown on a pile becomes a really huge one. (quite obvious)

My girlfriend went to the US to high school and she was taken BY CAR to the schoolbus stop 300 meters from the entrance of the house!!!! THAT's the cost to the environment.

Of course those few thousand (hopefully) exchanging their iPhone will not make a big imprint, but taken together with all the other things that everyone does daily it has quite an impact. Watch the Al Gore movie and you will get a sense of what your own actions can effect both in the bad as the good sense.

I would exchange my iPhone too, but there is no harm in thinking a little bit about what you can do to help the environment.
Click to expand...

I'm so sick of self-righteous Europeans. I'm allowed to say that BTW because I'm a German living in the US.

The only reason that Europeans drive fuel efficient cars is because they can't afford anything else, not because they care for the environment. You think people in Europe live in their little 90 square meter apartments out of love for the environment? Its simple economics. I know about 7 europeans who have moved to the US in the last 5 years. When they came they went on and on about how wasteful Americans are blah blah... now they all live in 3000+Square foot homes and drive SUVs or low gas millage sports cars. Why? Because in the US the average person can afford to do so.

BTW, I just remembered I forgot to buy shampoo, so I'm going to get in my 300HP sports car and drive 10 miles to walmart to pick up 1 bottle of $2.50 shampoo. :) :p
 
dantay said:
Apple have just removed the 'cracks in iPhone case' thread from there own discussions forum......was 128 posts long and VERY busy! Looks like they don't want that sort of PR!
Click to expand...


They locked the one on Howard forums too. This is just unacceptable. It is tactics like that that will be their undoing. :mad:

By the way, I would not be surprised if they take a quick look at these phones being returned and if they don't see cracks with the naked eye, they may just clear the memory and white box them and on to someone else.
 
xgman said:
They locked the one on Howard forums too. This is just unacceptable. It is tactics like that that will be their undoing. :mad:

By the way, I would not be surprised if they take a quick look at these phones being returned and if they don't see cracks with the naked eye, they may just clear the memory and white box them and on to someone else.
Click to expand...

Did apple have hofo shut down the thread? Or did hofo state any other reason for shutting it down?
 
lordhamster said:
I'm so sick of self-righteous Europeans. I'm allowed to say that BTW because I'm a German living in the US.

The only reason that Europeans drive fuel efficient cars is because they can't afford anything else, not because they care for the environment. You think people in Europe live in their little 90 square meter apartments out of love for the environment? Its simple economics. I know about 7 europeans who have moved to the US in the last 5 years. When they came they went on and on about how wasteful Americans are blah blah... now they all live in 3000+Square foot homes and drive SUVs or low gas millage sports cars. Why? Because in the US the average person can afford to do so.

BTW, I just remembered I forgot to buy shampoo, so I'm going to get in my 300HP sports car and drive 10 miles to walmart to pick up 1 bottle of $2.50 shampoo. :) :p
Click to expand...

I don't know why everyone is attacking peterdevries. He isn't crazy, he's just thinking about more than what goes on in his own daily life. We Americans aren't too experienced with that and it's something we could learn from-- but instead, we're bashing the concept of "caring about the environment" as if our "our great American freedom" is the freedom to be totally oblivious. What a sick place this is, sometimes... Look, there are certain things in life that are important. Bragging about your sports car/SUV and its misuse of resources is not one of them.

Apple cares about the environment too-- not very much, but they attempt to. These are serious times, and you can't expect to stay oblivious for much longer. Conservation is not difficult, but it does requires some actual thought. I guess most of us here don't want to hear that...

As far as the cracks, I'm quite upset as I wanted to get a white one, but I'll wait until this dies down (I can't afford one yet anyway)... someone hit the nail on the head when they said the white one was the most beautiful :)

It would make the most sense for Apple to provide brand-new iPhones, but the extra cost of manufacturing them (if they would really do that, and not just give the cracked phones to others) seems inordinately high. Perhaps it's the cost of doing business...
 
ad hoc said:
I've noticed a small crack between the headphone jack and the chrome bezel (the thinnest part of the plastic back) on my less than 1 week old Black... Honestly not too worried about it as long as I don't get others that I can see without a bright flashlight.



Click to expand...

Just looked at mine and has the exact same:( Not too worried as it really is hardly noticable but a bit worried it could be a sign of things to come.
 
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