Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Another cracked iPhone 4 screen

A friend was looking at my iPhone 4 on Saturday and managed to drop it.

It fell from no more than 1.5 feet and the bottom corner of the front screen shattered!

It didn't just crack it totally shattered, and from such a small drop!

I went to the Apple store on Sunday morning and they replaced it for £139 (I live in the UK) - which my friend paid. They keep special units in unbranded packaging without the accessories to use as replacements.

The thing that got me is the fact that they will sell you a discounted unit at all.
It could just be good customer service but the cynical side of me says they know there is a problem and don't want their loyal customers up in arms about having to fork out for a new unit because the iPhone 4 is unacceptably fragile.

As for those who say they are not 'breaking like crazy', how do you know that?
Not everyone will have dropped their phone yet so the fact that the number of cracked screens is low compared to the number of phones sold may simply be because the number of people who've dropped them is still quite low.

The only way you can know for sure is if people who have dropped their phones and not cracked them let us know.
 
Just took a couple of pictures of my dropped area. It fell 31" (or a little over 2.5 feet) onto a partial rug over ceramic tile.

IMG_0334.JPG


IMG_0338.JPG
 
Anyone expecting to drop this onto a hard surface and not damage it must be mad.

Im using a soft glasses case until I find a suitable iphone 4 case i like.

Id never carry it around with me naked (the phone not me).
 
Damaged/scratched/chipped maybe. Shattered no!

And not from 1.5 feet!

I've dropped far more fragile things from further than that and they've survived.

People drop things, period.

Yes glass is brittle and can crack/shatter easily and that's why no-one had made a phone out of it until now.

If Apple can't make glass strong enough to survive even the smallest of falls then they shouldn't have made a phone out of the stuff.

And what's the point in spending so much time and money designing a nice-looking object if you're supposed to put a cover on it straight away? They might as well have made the thing out of silicon rubber in the first place.

I've always put my iPhone in a case in the past but only to protect it from scratches and scuffs etc..

This time the Apple store had sold out of Bumpers so I thought I'd wait a few days till they got more in. I knew I ran the risk of getting scratches but never once thought that the thing would shatter.
 
JodyK said:
Also no they wont replace the glass there they will hand you another phone but normally they replaced cracked screen phones with refurbs ...
Click to expand...

For iPhone 3G and 3GS, most Apple stores DO replace the glass on-site and give you back the same phone nowadays. They might not be set up right now to the same for the iPhone 4, but it's possible they will be soon enough.

Julien said:
Just took a couple of pictures of my dropped area. It fell 31" (or a little over 2.5 feet) onto a partial rug over ceramic tile.
Click to expand...

That ceramic tile that leads off onto carpet probably acted as a ledge. If the iPhone glass landed on that ledge, then the impact was focused on that point. Lots of things will bust more easily if you strike them along the edge of a hard surface like that.
 
Apple iMe said:
Anyone expecting to drop this onto a hard surface and not damage it must be mad.
Click to expand...

I'm not using a case currently, but I know that if I do drop it, chances are it'll break. Do people expect a phone padded with glass to just bounce off the floor?! The fact is, the glass is highly resistant to scratching, however hit the glass in one of the corners and it's likely to break.
 
Again:

"If Apple can't make glass strong enough to survive even the smallest of falls then they shouldn't have made a phone out of the stuff."

Everyone knows glass is brittle so why use it to make a phone???

And my phone didn't land on the corner, the corner/edge of the glass were completely untouched.
 
Exactly my point.

Apple doesn't use Gorilla Glass, they use an inferior product.

If the glass on my iPhone 4 had been as strong as that glass then it wouldn't have broken as, based on the way I saw it fall, the impact to it must've been similar to what's happening in that video.

Apple just like to do things themselves even when there are perfectly good alternative products already on the market.
 
EDIT: This isn't a dig at you BTW. :eek:
CjKit said:
Exactly my point.

Apple doesn't use Gorilla Glass, they use an inferior product.

If the glass on my iPhone 4 had been as strong as that glass then it wouldn't have broken as, based on the way I saw it fall, the impact to it must've been similar to what's happening in that video.

Apple just like to do things themselves even when there are perfectly good alternative products already on the market.
Click to expand...

Apple are touting it as "comparable in strength to sapphire crystal" and "30 times harder than plastic"
http://www.apple.com/iphone/design/
Screen-shot-2010-06-28-at-13.19.12.png

Are their claims false?
 
imkingofjungle said:
what? 3 feet drop and glass crack.... lol 30x stronger than plastic my butt...
Click to expand...

I dropped the original iPhone about 6 months after I owned it LESS THAN A FOOT and it cracked. I was able to use the phone still, but it looked less than nice.

To say that these are 'breaking like crazy' is a bit of a stretch. This forum has how many members? 450,000? How many of them have iPhone 4's? Probably less WAY less than a quarter of those? And how many people have broken their phones on here? 10? 20? MAYBE 50?

What I think people need to do here, is to take a step back and realize there's a whole world outside of this forum, and this forum does not fully represent the entire iPhone / Apple user base. This is just a super, super small (and slightly crazy) portion of that.

Are phones breaking? Yes. Can you crack both sides now? Yes.

But let's not pretend like the first gen, 3G or 3GS were unbreakable, because they sure as hell weren't.

It's glass. Glass breaks when you drop it. Try not to do so.
 
It may well be that strong if you bend it. But have they said anything about impact testing like with the Gorilla Glass video?

It'll be interesting to see if anyone does a similar test with an iPhone 4 screen and a biro.
 
I dropped mine also as it slipped out of my hand pulling it from my pocket. I got lucky it hit the corner and I did have a bumper on it. But clearly no matter what these things need a case or bumpers. Sorry to hear yours did not make the crash and i know that feeling as it is in mid-air. Not fun
 
Im almost willing to bet that the glass on the iPhone 4 is kind of tempered glass. Want to know why? Tempered glass is what is used in most glass shower doors and has a certain amount of flex to it. I know Ive banged into mine on the way out of the shower and had it flex. Its really really strong and resistant to breaking when hit head on. The key is being hit on the flat surface. If you were to drop it on its side it will instantly shatter. It seems these iPhone 4 glass shatters are when they are dropped and their side hits the floor. The Apple demo shows them flexing it on the flat surface. Id bet it could take a decent hit to the face of the glass.
 
JoJoCal19 said:
Im almost willing to bet that the glass on the iPhone 4 is kind of tempered glass. Want to know why? Tempered glass is what is used in most glass shower doors and has a certain amount of flex to it. I know Ive banged into mine on the way out of the shower and had it flex. Its really really strong and resistant to breaking when hit head on. The key is being hit on the flat surface. If you were to drop it on its side it will instantly shatter. It seems these iPhone 4 glass shatters are when they are dropped and their side hits the floor. The Apple demo shows them flexing it on the flat surface. Id bet it could take a decent hit to the face of the glass.
Click to expand...

There was that video of those two dudes dropping it 4 times before it broke, and each time they dropped it flat on it's face. So I think you have a valid point.

Everyone is dropping these on the side. That's a lot of pressure put on one point. It's gonna shatter.
 
JoJoCal19 said:
If you were to drop it on its side it will instantly shatter. It seems these iPhone 4 glass shatters are when they are dropped and their side hits the floor.
Click to expand...

Makes sense but mine didn't drop on the side. The actual edges of the glass were completely mark free all the way round. It land pretty much face down.
 
Scratch!

Hey guys,

So sad to see all these broken screens, but I think there's something not right about the new screens on the iPhone 4.

I've had mine since launch day, and have kept it in a BOA case since then, no drops, no contact with any other hard surfaces. So yesterday, I notice a scratch on the screen, 1 inch long, DEEP, deep enough to get my fingernail into.

Thankfully it hasn't affected the touchscreen, and i've just put my invisi-shield on the damn thing, but i'm majorly pissed off! Had my 3GS since launch with no problems, and my 3G is still scratch free.
 
jcampwala said:
I've had mine since launch day, and have kept it in a BOA case since then, no drops, no contact with any other hard surfaces. So yesterday, I notice a scratch on the screen, 1 inch long, DEEP, deep enough to get my fingernail into.

Thankfully it hasn't affected the touchscreen
Click to expand...

You have a 1 inch scratch that's deep enough for you to get a fingernail into, and it doesn't effect the screen? That's kind of... amazing.

That said, you had to do something crazy to get that scratch. It just didn't appear.
 
Feel bad for the original poster as well as the others with broken phones.

Regardless of the few smarmy remarks from people who treat their phone like a Faberge egg, it's a cell phone. A cell phone designer has to expect their is going to be the occasional drop drop during it's lifespan for the overwhelming majority of their users.

The iP4 use of glass turns some a chipped corner into a shatter mark.

It's a gorgeous device, but it scared the crap out of me using it naked.
 
I dropped mine 3 feet today and my heart was in my mouth, luckily it survived without a scratch. Buy case asap!
 
JustinP81 said:
There was that video of those two dudes dropping it 4 times before it broke, and each time they dropped it flat on it's face. So I think you have a valid point.

Everyone is dropping these on the side. That's a lot of pressure put on one point. It's gonna shatter.
Click to expand...

I think this is true. When I dropped mine, it slowly slid of a piece of paper on to my tiled floor, because it was such a gradual fall to the floor it landed completely flat and with no harm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back