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3G - Cracks in Plastic Housing
- Thread starter dogheadboy
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IMO,because unlike graphic cards/mag-safe/chargers and stuff like that, the user's life isn't in danger for a few cracks and if the user doesn't realize or doesn't care about the cracks why acknowledge the issue? It would just be bad advertising. Apple would lose money on this anyway. They already seem to exchange the cracked iPhones and I believe many users realize they have the issue thanks to this thread and such. I know many use a case anyway, there has to be something wrong if you have to take it out to check with a microscope if you have light leaks or cracks, no?
'that thin of plastic'? I know it's pointless to complain about the mangling of the English language on internet forums but come on!
Hi.. I had a crack in my original iphone 3g white bought in August so I changed it and the new one was fine only had a small bubble in the case. Later in the year it developed a crack near the silent switch but it was faint and you couldn't see it in the case I used so I didn't mind. Until last night I look down and it's cracked all the way through the plastic, you could feel it when you ran your finger over it. So naturally I set an appointment for this mourning and the apple guy looked at my phone once and said ok went to the back got me a replacement. He said he's seen it since the beginning online and read the forums and reports but at his store not that many iphones. He also told the guy next to me that his replacement was refurbished and he didn't say that to me. But I figure mine is refurbished too.. magic white box.. Only issue so far is this one is far more yellow than my old one. But no big deal..I get a fresh year warranty.. I checked online.. the warranty's good till January 16 2010. So I'm stoked. Fresh warranty.. good phone (so far) and no crazy crack.. Now I just need to figure out if I'm going naked or not...
I noticed that I have cracks on my iPhone as well. I set up an appointment tonight and hopefully will get it replaced. Mine has cracked by the vibrate switch and on the side of the plastic casing. I also have noticed that between the screen and the bezel there is a gap where light from the screen shines through. I've never dropped my phone and have used the Incase slider but haven't been using a case for the past month or so.
i just exchanged my black 16gb bought 2 weeks after the release.
only cracks in it where the typical ones around the vibrate switch.
replacement is perfect, the vibrate switch is much tighter(feels like the original 2g one) and seems that the fit and finish is better too. also no dust under the screen.
very easy, told them about the cracks and they swapped it out.
only cracks in it where the typical ones around the vibrate switch.
replacement is perfect, the vibrate switch is much tighter(feels like the original 2g one) and seems that the fit and finish is better too. also no dust under the screen.
very easy, told them about the cracks and they swapped it out.
as i took off my old case to put on my new iskin tonight i noticed to my horror three nice cracks on the top left of the housing- eek!
there's also a very faint one by a screw next to the charger slot.
looks like i'll be making an appointment with the ipod bar this week!
there's also a very faint one by a screw next to the charger slot.
looks like i'll be making an appointment with the ipod bar this week!
The above post was posted back in August 5th 2008. As you well notice the time has gone on and there are still reports coming into this thread alone.
Imagine all the people out there that have cracks that don't participate in forums therefore no-one really hears about their cracking issues or how about other forums with similar threads as this one (of course not as big as ours)? There are probably members of this site that don't even bother posting about thiers.
Anyways.
I decided to take a bit of time to scan this thread over and see how many reports of cracked cases we have so far to this day. My oh my, what an undertaking it was that I did not realize I was getting myself into! I started around 4:30pm today with page one and throughout that time I've had to stop and go eat dinner with the family, come home and put my 3 year old son to bed and finally get back on here and finish up the last 15 or so pages so I can settle in for the night!
I thought some of you may be interested in just seeing some numbers from THIS thread ONLY. Didn't really know it was gonna take me THAT long but I sort of enjoyed it anyways, so no biggie.
Now, these numbers are derived from several different situations.
(1) People just flat out posting "I have cracks" followed by any explanation...
(2) I've counted if people reported that they are on their 2nd or 3rd or however many "due to cracks", and I was very careful to read that the first one or few were due to cracks and not something else (light leakage, whatever)
(3) People that posted they have a girlfriend/boyfriend/close friend etc, with iphone with cracks.
(4) For everyone that said they inspected the in-store display models (I think there were about 10 of these instances) I added '1' for this. Even though there were several in one location no one really specified how many and some will argue that they are demo's and people treat them poorly.
Also, I was as careful as I could be to not duplicate a single persons problem. This ended up being harder than I thought because I wasn't writing down every user name that had an issue so sometimes I would have to backtrack and make sure that it wasn't one of those (post#999) "I have a crack", (post#1009) "So I returned my phone because of my crack" by the same user. So I might have missed 1 or 2 due to this, sorry.
After one-thousand and thirty four post and fourty-six pages long...(and counting)
Cracked iPhone 3G's in this thread:....drumroll....
249
Anyone care to challenge my numbers feel free! I'm only human and in need of caffiene.
Thank You.
(p.s. Please Steve Grace us with a Carbon Fiber updated 3G when you return late June please, thank you, get well soon buddy.
)Took mine in a few weeks ago to my local store, Genius had seen a few before. (I got mine launch day) Got it instantly replaced, couldn't be happier.
I have a Black 3G 16GB purchased at the end of July.
There is a crack between the chrome bezel and the headphone socket and what looks like the beginning of multiple cracks between the volume rocker switch and the chrome bezel. The screen is also misaligned under the glass. The top right corner of the screen is very slightly closer to the surround than the bottom right, but only if you look at it really closely. That's all I can find at present.
Personally, I'm not bothered by the cracks or the screen at the moment. If the cracks stay as they are, then meh.!!! Should they get really bad, then I'll pay my local Apple store a visit. I do think some people are over reacting though, and looking at some of the photos on this thread, some people are justified in asking for a replacement.
It's an aesthetic problem on a $299 phone. The phone continues to work as normal (well if Safari didn't keep crashing, etc). When I drop $4000 on a fully loaded MacBook Pro, then you'll find me complaining.
There is a crack between the chrome bezel and the headphone socket and what looks like the beginning of multiple cracks between the volume rocker switch and the chrome bezel. The screen is also misaligned under the glass. The top right corner of the screen is very slightly closer to the surround than the bottom right, but only if you look at it really closely. That's all I can find at present.
Personally, I'm not bothered by the cracks or the screen at the moment. If the cracks stay as they are, then meh.!!! Should they get really bad, then I'll pay my local Apple store a visit. I do think some people are over reacting though, and looking at some of the photos on this thread, some people are justified in asking for a replacement.
It's an aesthetic problem on a $299 phone. The phone continues to work as normal (well if Safari didn't keep crashing, etc). When I drop $4000 on a fully loaded MacBook Pro, then you'll find me complaining.
So I have a question. I've heard that they slightly revised the internal workings of the more recent (like made after October) iPhone 3Gs. Is this true, and if so, is it worth replacing my current one?????
I have had my current one since September after getting the one I purchased on July 11th replaced a few times for various issues.
I have had my current one since September after getting the one I purchased on July 11th replaced a few times for various issues.
What have you heard? I don't remember reading anywhere about this unless i might have just forgot about it.
Further to the above, I happened to be in Glasgow today and took the chance to pop into the Apple store. I have never been in one previously asking for assistance of any kind, and I have to say I was not too impressed.
I admit that I didn't have a "Genius Bar" appointment, however they refused to even look at the handset. I explained that I am about an hours trip away from the store, and would appreciate if they could just have a quick look and advise if it was worth making an appointment and coming back, but no, they point blank refused to do so. Annoyingly, there were staff standing about all over the place doing hee-haw.
As I say, not too impressed. I admit I didn't have an appointment, but how many Joe Bloggs punters actually know that you need one for something like this? Generally speaking, if you have a problem with something you have bought, you take it back to the shop when it is open and it gets dealt with.
So, as it stands, I'll now need to make an appointment, travel back to Glasgow again, without even knowing if they will do anything about my handset.
So much for the wonderful Apple service that you hear folk speaking of..........
To see a Genius, it requires an appointment. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that's the way it works. It's not Best Buy or Wal-Mart. They don't just replace your stuff without questions asked... they deal with each case individually... thus needing an appointment so that they have time to look at your problem and see if it requires a replacement.
EXACTLY the same type of small crack in exactly the same place on my white iPhone 3G. More than a little annoying!
Jesus H! Kudos to you for counting that, I am one of those 249.
Did you happen to notice a pattern in terms of what color had the most cracks? I assume it's white...
Jesus H! Kudos to you for counting that, I am one of those 249.
Did you happen to notice a pattern in terms of what color had the most cracks? I assume it's white...
Oh it was definately white over black by a large margin. In fact most of the post about the black were folks saying "no cracks in my black iphone 3g" so...
I believe there are way more white cracks, because they are easier to see. I never notice anything on my black one. And I've dropped it a couple of times, if I don't look at it closely enough, I can't see anything
I appreciate that, and I explained that if it did indeed need replacement that I was happy to arrange an appointment and come back another day. They wouldn't even take a quick look at the handset, and regardless of what you say, that's pretty poor customer service in my book.
Got what looks like a crack running from the bottom of the silent switch to the bezel on mine now. Hopefully doesn't get any worse!!
The folks hanging around doing 'hee haw' are likely bog standard sales assistants. They're probably not allowed to comment on issues/problems in case they create a false impression or cause a potential expectation or admission of fault. That's why Apple route everything through the Genius bar where the staff are empowered to make the calls on whether things are replaced or not. They also tend to have a long list of questions presumably to try to troubleshoot for future issues that a mere shop floor bod wouldn't ask for.
Unless you get to a store very early in the day (when appointments are still available), they'll very rarely have a slot for someone to take a quick look at something. The Genius bar slots usually allow for something like 10-15 minutes per person and an appointment usually takes the full whack even for a simple replacement. On the one occasion that I ended up at a quiet Genius Bar, the guy was quite happy to help me with an unrelated issue but usually, they're just too swamped.
If they make one exception for you to take a quick look, how many others are they then expected to make? And how many people who have booked an appointment are then delayed? I do understand the frustration. I once needed some headphones swapped out but couldn't do it without getting the Genius appointment.
I think they expect most people to already have called AppleCare to be told to make an appointment or for the store staff to explain it in a professional manner. I think the other problem currently is that in the UK, there aren't enough stores (and therefore Geniuses) so it's rare to get an appointment on the same day in the store.
I noticed the cracks on mine last Thursday after seeing these posts. I made a genius appointment for Friday and had it replaced. The girl at the genius bar checking people in was rude and told me it was my case that scratched the phone and that it was in fact not cracked. I told her to feel it and she still didn't believe me. I waited about 5 minutes for the genius to finish helping another customer. He took one or two looks at it and said it would be replaced. He also told me to get a sturdy case for my phone.
Made an appointment with the local apple store genius bar for 1/16/09 to swap out for a crack near the ringer switch on a black iPhone that I purchased on 8/6/08. No problem doing the swap. Genius was very nice and asked the standard questions, what case?, which pocket?...
New one from a service space box looks good and the buttons seems to have a nice harder to press feel.
Thanks apple for the no hassle swap out.
New one from a service space box looks good and the buttons seems to have a nice harder to press feel.
Thanks apple for the no hassle swap out.
Awesome news, I'm going in today for the same exact problem (deep crack in plastic by the ringer switch), only I bought a refurb from AT&T a little over a week ago (the refurb was a launch model). That and the power button has completely sunk into the body on the left side. Hopefully these two issues will warrant a replacement for a newer model.
If not I'm thinking of returning it completely and sticking with my 2G. Wish me luck
.UPDATE: Apple came through and gave me a replacement. Thumbs up
!