I came to this thread as my iPhone 5 also bent and I am unsure how it happened, I definitely did not drop it, but it is normally in my front pocket and I could of leaned forward over some object like a desk or something of the sorts without noticing. I would expect any high quality product (or one that claims to be so) to be more durable than this, but I'm not going to go on a rant. It dose seem like there's quite a number of these case though, and with a 23 months still to go on my contract, it's rather annoying. Still phone is useable and I could live with it, but this dose seem to be a slight design flaw having such a weakness.
Anyway, the reason for me posting...
Sorry to bring this up again... I'm an engineer in the field of Aeronutics and don't have much knowledge in this area at all, and don't pretend to either.
I was quite interested by the discussion and just tried to make sense of this whole thing. What really really confuses me is, you provided a link with NO reference to 6061 alloy or the T6 process (it is a process I assume?) AND the second paragraph of your link states:
"Under certain conditions. hardness may remain unaffected by tempering or may even be increased as a result of it. For example, tempering a hardened steel at very low tempering temperatures may cause no change in hardness but may achieve a desired increase in yield strength. Also, those allo) steels that contain one or more of the carhide-forming elements (chromium. molybdenum. vanadium. and tungsten) are capable of secon- dq hardening: that is. they ma) become somewhat harder as a result of tempering." (sorry for spelling errors, copy/paste from scans isn't that great yet... check the link if it's unclear)
I can not see how what you provided gave ANY proof one way or another... I'm not saying you are wrong, or right, just that well, telling someone they lost by providing false facts doesn't really strengthen your point either.
I will now have to go and spend some time researching this myself (in the literature that is) as it's seriously bugging me.
😀