Apple Knew About Bendgate and Touch Disease iPhone 6 Issues Months in Advance of Repair Programs

[macjoshua]

Went through a few iPhone 6 Pluses with the 'touch disease'. A replacement phone they gave me at the Genius Bar exhibited the issue right out of the box, so he went back and got another.

Classic Apple QC.

 

[GoodWheaties]

The whole touch disease debacle is very frustrating. I have an iPhone 6 that runs iOS 11.4 beta pretty well but can’t really be trusted because it is affected by this about 10% of the time. It’s not bent either, I’ve looked closely. But frequently it will just stop responding to touch and if you put pressure at the top it will start working again.

Edit: for clarification the phone was my wife’s and was carried in a purse, not sat on.

Also, are people seriously defending Apple for building a phone that could not withstand a few drops??!!!

 

[ChrisChaval]

Let’s not try to revise history.

The iPhone 6 didn’t meet industry standards. It lacked underfill on the touch chips that every other manufacturer applies on larger chips. Apple applied underfill on the iPhone 5s but stopped with iPhone 6 to save a few pennies.

Just because the iPhone 6 chassis superficially resists minor bending doesn’t say anything about the logic board.

That’s like crash testing a car without looking at the condition of the dummy inside.

as far as I remember it not only lacked the underfill, it critically also lacked a reinforcement shield attached right above the affected chips designed to prevent this vulnerable area of the logic board to flex when the chassis did bend somewhat

the competent blond ex-technician lady on YouTube did a great job of explaining all of this

 

[eoblaed]

If you sit your 150, 180, 200 pound frame onto your thin, wide, and long aluminum device ... it might bend.

Who knew?

 

[Apple_Robert]

Will this news hurt Apple iPhone sales for new buyers, as well as current loyal users? Will be interesting to see if there is any significant fallout.

 

[gnipgnop]

well, now its is post 44 because a couple of posts got terminated

Apple says the lack of underfill caused issues with iPhones that had been dropped on hard surfaces. Are drops on hard surfaces really Apple's responsibility in terms of normal use of the product? Probably not, but they went ahead and had a repair program for anyone with the touchscreen issue that didn't have a cracked screen.

That said, it's possible the plaintiffs might have proof of some sort that it isn't drops that are the primary issue, but it's not something that's been revealed yet. There also doesn't appear to be any sort of legal requirement for underfill to be used, so the fact that the iPhone 6 didn't originally include that might not be something the court would even care about.

 

[ChrisChaval]

The whole touch disease debacle is very frustrating. I have an iPhone 6 that runs iOS 11.4 beta pretty well but can’t really be trusted because it is affected by this about 10% of the time. It’s not bent either, I’ve looked closely. But frequently it will just stop responding to touch and if you put pressure at the top it will start working again.

perfect diagnosis

 

[kanki1985]

ohh.. I knew months in advance that apple knew about this months in advance.. There are so many issues apple just doesnt acknowledge, like my iphone 5S had a rattling power button very close to the microphone and all the videos I took from that phone had this rattling noise in them. All apple could have done is put in a small gasket or seal and that noise would have gone away..

they knew it but did not give a crap.

 

[checker2010]

I still think it is absurd that Apple charged $149 to "fix" an admitted production defect.

Incorrect. They charge a fee to fix a phone which has been damaged by hard knocks or bending.

 

[ChrisChaval]

Apple says the lack of underfill caused issues with iPhones that had been dropped on hard surfaces. Are drops on hard surfaces really Apple's responsibility in terms of normal use of the product? Probably not, but they went ahead and had a repair program for anyone with the touchscreen issue that didn't have a cracked screen.

That said, it's possible the plaintiffs might have proof of some sort that it isn't drops that are the primary issue, but it's not something that's been revealed yet. There also doesn't appear to be any sort of legal requirement for underfill to be used, so the fact that the iPhone 6 didn't originally include that might not be something the court would even care about.

I am aware of Apple's position on this matter and consider it an excuse

this is just my opinion and in my opinion in most of the cases no impact ever happened. defect due to bending due to poor design

the protective shield was missing too, so …

it was a disaster waiting to happen

and they knew it

and made you pay for it

 

[kdarling]

Funny to see that in most court cases against Apple, judge Lucy Koh is involved. Coincidence?

She's a District Court judge of the Northern District of California. District General Order 44 requires that cases be randomly assigned via automation to judges in the county where the case is filed.

There's only four judges in San Jose, Santa Clara County, which is where many Apple cases arise, as Cupertino is also in that county (basically it's Silicon Valley!). Thus she will show up fairly often.

Let’s not try to revise history.

The iPhone 6 didn’t meet industry standards. It lacked underfill on the touch chips that every other manufacturer applies on larger chips. Apple applied underfill on the iPhone 5s but stopped with iPhone 6 to save a few pennies.

And/or attempting to use other ways to hold the chip and board together.

As for the bending, an outside engineer's analysis was that the brace for the opening was clearly placed incorrectly. Instead of acting like a brace, it actually acted as a fulcrum to make it easier to bend.

Apple changed the design the next year.

 

[Unami]

i just hope the mbp-keyboard issue will bite them in the ass as well. designing a crappy, uncomfortable keyboard with virtually no travel, which breaks when you hack into the keys or a piece of dust gets stuck underneath, and building it so that it costs $700 to replace a freaking keyboard is pretty bad design. (let alone removing the esc-keys in favor of an ugly bar you have to look at to use, and making a split key on the arrow keys)

I really hope that they‘ll have to own up to the repair-costs and that those high costs make them rethink their recent „as small and unserviceable as possible“ design philosophy.

I recently toyed around with a broken 2002 mbp. you know, the one where you had a nice & pretty mechanism to replace the battery. those were the times.

 

[DjanSeriyAnaplian]

In other news: water is wet.

 

[kdarling]

Apple says the lack of underfill caused issues with iPhones that had been dropped on hard surfaces.

This is typical Apple handwaving. They tell a truth, but not the whole truth. By admitting a single scenario, they hope lazy / ignorant listeners will avoid asking about other scenarios.

So yes, it's true that it causes issues with phones dropped on hard surfaces. But that's just a subset of ways it can cause issues. It's not the only way.

 

[rjohnstone]

Incorrect. They charge a fee to fix a phone which has been damaged by hard knocks or bending.

Nope... they were charging people to replace phones with unresponsive screens (touch disease).
I went through 2 myself... never bent. Fortunately my Apple store didn't charge me the first time and tried to charge me the second.
It took some arguing, but the manager agreed to swap it out again at no cost to me.
It was a defective phone... he had no counter argument that was going to change that simple fact.

 

[AlterZgo]

I've never had any issues w/ my iPhone 6. Of course, neither do I keep my phone in my back pocket as so many people nowadays do and sit on the phone w/ my big a$$ either. Perhaps that could be the issue for why people were bending their phones?

 

[ChrisChaval]

Nope... they were charging people to replace phones with unresponsive screens (touch disease).
I went through 2 myself... never bent. Fortunately my Apple store didn't charge me the first time and tried to charge me the second.
It took some arguing, but the manager agreed to swap it out again at no cost to me.
It was a defective phone... he had no counter argument that was going to change that simple fact.

well, your phone DID bend.

Just that you did not notice, but the logic board did

it takes a minimal amount of bending to take out chips on a logicboard

have been building pc's since the mid 90s and the rule of thumb is: do not bend the motherboard

we are talking about a static device here. I always had respect for the motherboard

imagine an unprotected logic board in a mobile device …

 

[44267547]

Will this news hurt Apple iPhone sales for new buyers.

Counter question: Do new buyers (Average consumer) even pay attention to tech rumors or anything tech related news? I’m willing to believe the majority of consumers have no idea what Bendgate is or even touch disease, unless the research the issue or are notified when they visit an Apple Store.

Also, new buyers for an iPhone likely already have something Apple related in their household, I doubt this would sway them from wanting to purchase some of the most well-made products that’s offered in the tech industry. That’s not a secret and it’s well known that Apple has reliable hardware.

as well as current loyal users?.

Do You honestly believe that most loyal users in Apples ecosystem with other products are willing to abandon Because of what is claimed “Apple knew about certain issues”? I doubt it. PerHaps there could be some that are not as trusting as others, but that doesn’t mean it affects their experiences as long as they have not encountered any issues themselves with iPhones or other products.

 

[sdf]

Apple knew that the iPhone 6 was 3.3 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s, while the iPhone 6 Plus was 7.2 times more likely to bend ahead of the release of the two devices. Publicly, though, Apple said that the two devices had been "thoroughly tested" and evaluated for "strength and durability." Bending, according to Apple, was "extremely rare" and only happened to a small number of customers.

This is not actually a contradiction.

 

[simonmet]

You have to question the price premium of Apple products when we’re hearing so many stories and reports relating to durability, reliability and longevity. Apple under Cook seems happy to cut corners and knowingly push out compromised designs to maximise profit. Indeed, this seems to be their strategy: so long as it photographs well it’ll sell and who cares about our future reputation ... we want profits now!

 

[ChrisChaval]

In other news: water is wet.

this is over-simplifiying the issue

 

[BootsWalking]

This is nothing - wait until we find out what Apple knew about the Iphone 6-series battery issues. That's a much larger and costly problem that they clearly hid from the public to save the cost of a recall that might have run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

 

[gnipgnop]

I am aware of Apple's position on this matter and consider it an excuse

this is just my opinion and in my opinion in most of the cases no impact ever happened. defect due to bending due to poor design

Apple already proved that the iPhone 6 had a bend/flexibility tolerance within industry standards. They provided the testing numbers back in 2014. So that's very unlikely to be a weak spot for Apple in court in terms of liability. Where does that leave the plaintiffs? Not in a very good position. Like I said, there doesn't appear to be any legal requirement for Apple to have used underfill in their design, so it seems like the plaintiffs would at the very least need to provide solid evidence that Apple was wrong for claiming that drops were the main cause for "touch disease" and not bends.

 

[dk001]

Every competent manufacturer of every product should know the most likely causes of failure in any product they sell. That doesn't mean they expect them to fail, but rather what piece may be most likely to cause the failure. They know these things with cars, TVs, bikes, and every other product out there. It's part of engineering nearly everything. In no way does it mean they expect that piece to be a source of major failure. No company would launch a product they expected to see significant failure from a single source.

I suspect one of the big issues for Apple is time. Time is tied to stockholder expectations.

• Must launch on time.
• Must have hardware ready to go.
• Must have iOS upgrade ready to go.
• Make it. Ship it. Launch it.
• Deal with the issues after launch.

 

[QuarterSwede]

I still think it is absurd that Apple charged $149 to "fix" an admitted production defect.

It’s not only absurd, it’s unethical as well.

I’d be a lot more pissed off if it weren’t for an awesome Apple Store Genius who upgraded my 6 Plus to a 6S Plus when mine got touch disease. That genius has always done the right thing and kept me going back to Apple. This is the 2nd free upgrade the store level has given me (first was 4 to 4S when they ran out of my version). Too bad the corporate designers/managers don’t have as much integrity.