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Apple Knew About Bendgate and Touch Disease iPhone 6 Issues Months in Advance of Repair Programs
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Not really. If you're the plaintiff, you either have to prove that the iOS throttling during normal use didn't occur due to standard lithium ion limitations (cold, low charge, EOL battery), or that Apple is somehow liable for only using the term "power management" in their iOS update and not spelling out what that consisted of.
The price in the UK is a whopping £156.44 and they blame the user too -
https://www.apple.com/uk/support/iphone6plus-multitouch/
Mine has shown this behaviour and it hasn't been 'dropped multiple times on a hard surface and then incurring further stress on the device'.
https://www.apple.com/uk/support/iphone6plus-multitouch/
Mine has shown this behaviour and it hasn't been 'dropped multiple times on a hard surface and then incurring further stress on the device'.
That's like asking the customer at a restaurant to cook food himself if he doesn't like it.
If changing a design from year to year was really proof of "defects" in court by itself, then nobody in the electronics business would be solvent anymore. Companies make tweaks and adjustments and upgrades all the time. That doesn't mean what was used before actually qualifies as a "defective" design. Look at that iPad Rehab video that somebody posted earlier...that woman just holds up a phone and claims it will conform to your butt if you sit on it. The arguments about the bending and what actually causes "touch disease" seem pretty flimsy for a court case.
For anyone wondering what these problems are about, here's an old post I made on the topic:
Many of today's chips have so many connectors, that they're placed underneath in what's known as a BGA (ball grid array). Here is the touch controller desoldered from its pad on the board:
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Now, normally to prevent the balls from coming loose because of circuit board flex, thermal expansion, etc... a polymer called "underfill" is injected underneath.
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This stabilizes the connection points.
In addition, in previous iPhones, there was a full metal shield that helped make the board more rigid:
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But in the iPhone 6, BOTH the full shield AND the underfill were designed out
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Those board design decisions, along with a comparatively weak case with a mechanical brace design mistake (Bendgate), allow the board to flex and the BGA solder joints to separate over time.
It's probably not even a question of IF it will happen, but more of WHEN it will happen. Thermal expansion alone could cause it sooner or later, much less any natural flexing during normal use.
I think what might have happened, was that Apple was planning to begin using spray top coatings that can double as a shield and a kind of overlayment brace, but had not quite gotten to that point for some reason. IIRC, some avionics makers have gone to this method.
Many of today's chips have so many connectors, that they're placed underneath in what's known as a BGA (ball grid array). Here is the touch controller desoldered from its pad on the board:
Now, normally to prevent the balls from coming loose because of circuit board flex, thermal expansion, etc... a polymer called "underfill" is injected underneath.
This stabilizes the connection points.
In addition, in previous iPhones, there was a full metal shield that helped make the board more rigid:
But in the iPhone 6, BOTH the full shield AND the underfill were designed out
Those board design decisions, along with a comparatively weak case with a mechanical brace design mistake (Bendgate), allow the board to flex and the BGA solder joints to separate over time.
It's probably not even a question of IF it will happen, but more of WHEN it will happen. Thermal expansion alone could cause it sooner or later, much less any natural flexing during normal use.
I think what might have happened, was that Apple was planning to begin using spray top coatings that can double as a shield and a kind of overlayment brace, but had not quite gotten to that point for some reason. IIRC, some avionics makers have gone to this method.
Not trying to make any comparison between the two; my point was simply that these rich tech companies (Google/Apple/Facebook) try to justify their greedy sins by hiding behind liberal social justice causes. They're just as greedy and as capitalistic as any old-school conservative corporation.
Well due to the batterygate, I don’t feel inclined anymore to spend a grand on an iPhone, the cheaper ones will do just fine I feel, they don’t deserve more of my money, I also don’t think I’ll buy another Mac? They don’t seem to be interested in it at all.
The main problem with this theory is that Apple clearly demonstrated that the iPhone 6 design was torture tested thousands and thousands of times. They showed videos of the tests, which included torque, sit tests, and three point bend. They provided data from the tests. So why didn't "touch disease" show up in units that went through all of that torture testing if the lack of a metal shield + lack of underfill + bending = "touch disease"?
Because Touch Disease is not simply a mechanical failure that shows up immediately.
Broken BGA solder joints result in oxidation that causes problems months after a bend or drop has occurred. It's possible even normal vibrations from the iPhone vibration motor can cause Touch Disease.
If iPhone 6 were such a perfect design, Apple wouldn't need change the manufacturing process and resume underfilling iPhone 6 logic boards in May 2016. They would have left the design as-is.
Exactly. Sales seem to be a result of the momentum of their past track record, not based on the quality and value of their current products.
And that's fine. But over time, without any change to the trajectory they're on, that good reputation will be diminished and it will result in decreased sales and profits. It won't happen overnight. It'll be imperceptible at first, but grow in acceleration. That's how these things usually go. But It is not a forgone conclusion that this will happen. I suspect that Apple is simply cashing in on their reputation and that once the gravy train starts to slow down, they'll take the necessary corrective action. Until then, they'll make record profits. And as I said before, I don't plan on financially supporting that train.
I will jump in.
More likely to bend than the iPhone 5 does not equal 'bendgate'. The iPhone 5 was a brick.
Most phones were/are still more likely to bend compared to the iPhone 5.
Also bending was not an issue for 99.9999% of the phones purchased
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Auto manufacturers also know that some cars are going to bend if they are involved in a crash. Farmers know that eggs might crack before you get them home. I hardly think Apple thought they were releasing a product that would bend under normal use. I don’t know about anyone else, but I take care of my belongings and respect the parameters of normal sane usage.
But they didn't add the metal shield or change the design of the iPhone 6 case, which sounds suspiciously like Apple is telling the truth about the issue being related to drops on hard surfaces and not bend/flex/vibration...
It would appear charging $149 to "fix" an iPhone 6 was an attempt to make it look like the damage experienced was the customer's fault. Oh here -- we at Apple will provide you with another phone for a mere $149 cause you sat on yours, an out of warranty phone and we like you so much. And they knew it would happen significantly often before Tim Cook showed off the phone, September 2014. I wonder why Apple are still making the iPhone 6s/plus models. The remedy is to replace the 6 with a different model.
I wasn't speaking to the throttling issue. I was speaking to Apple likely being aware of the iPhone 6 design issues that lead to the phone randomly resetting under load when using batteries still well within their usable lifetimes, which they of course attempted to hide with the throttling workaround but that's only tangential to the core issue.
What's alarming to me as a consumer is that Apple went ahead with their frame design without making changes to insure structural strength that would prevent bending from occurring. I'm not sure what the per unit profit is for Apple after taking into account R&D and factory, but I can't imagine a minor structural change costing much per unit when they assemble at mass scale.
If by coincidence you mean her being the district judge of San Jose, a federally appointed position, no. She's been presiding over the Apple Samsung case for over seven years. She also presided over the class action by former employees against Apple, Adobe, and others who blackballed employees. And compared to other federal judges, she's not tech illiterate and understands the material presented in court. She's also handled cases against Google and ruled against them.
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What a careless, unnuanced, click-baity headline. Apple being aware of testing data suggesting more malleability isn’t the same as Apple having definitive knowledge that Bendgate would happen. If 100 out of 1,000,000 iPhone 5 models would bend, guess what? 800 out of 1,000,000 iPhone 6 models would make it eight times more likely to bend—but it’s still a paltry .08% of units bending. We have no idea what the baseline is, and it’s irresponsible to say Apple “had knowledge” that the Bendgate scandal would happen before iPhone 6 shipped.
One example of a responsible headline would be: Apple knew iPhone 6 was more malleable than iPhone 5s before shipping.
One example of a responsible headline would be: Apple knew iPhone 6 was more malleable than iPhone 5s before shipping.