Consumer Reports: iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Not as Bendable as Believed

[RangerOne]

Lastly, if you need to put 150 pounds of force on your phone, buy a different one. The ultra-thin 6 is not the phone for you.

I was trying to decide on whether to buy a 6 Plus or a 6. After spending a fair amount of time in the Apple store, where I put an Apple Leather Case on the Plus and dropped it in my pocket, I was still concerned about discomfort during day-to-day activities. And despite my earlier assertion that the 6 Plus had a bend rate of 0.00000285714286, I was still slightly concerned about the possibility of it bending.

So, I made myself a very delicate iPhone 6 out of cardboard. That's right, cardboard. I made it 4mm wider and taller to accommodate a typical case, and 2mm thicker (so it was BIGGER than the 6 Plus with no case). I then went around my typical daily tasks, with the 6 in the left front pocket of my Dockers shorts. See attached image.

I sat down multiple times on every chair type in the house (probably 60 times).
I laid on the bed.
I swung on the hammock.
I climbed a ladder.
I laid on the couch.
I sat on the couch hunched forward working on the laptop.
I sat on the floor and played with the kids (crawling around building Legos).
I tried kneeling.
I crossed my legs.
I rode the recumbent exercise bike (for only 5 minutes, but it was an effective test).
I sat in both our cars.
The kids played Daddy Jungle Gym.

After several hours, what happened to my super-delicate, massive cardboard iPhone 6? Not a darn thing. No bending, no wrinkled cardboard, no frayed corners, nothing. Throughout all these exercises the phone was never more than snug in my pocket. You can't even tell the cardboard was in my pocket much less for 3 hours through all those activities. My concerns about the iPhone 6 bending in my pocket are completely alleviated.

Other observations:
1) I did tend to notice the phone in my pocket more. With the case it's basically the same thickness as the 5s in an Apple Leather case.
2) Crossing my legs was the biggest challenge, but was doable. Re-positioning the phone down to the side of my leg worked perfectly fine.
3) The phone approaches the top of the pocket, so while biking I was concerned that it may fall out. The 6 Plus without a case might be slippery enough to do that, but it would never happen with a non-slippery case on.

Referring the Consumer Reports video... put 4 pencils in your pocket and try your hardest to break them. I bet you can't do it.

Yes, this image is of my "iPhone 6 Plus" after 3 hours in my pocket.

 

[saleheim]

Seriously?

the guy puts the bend word there to get a few more hits....

It's bent but he still loves it?

It's bent but it's still the best phone out there?

It's bent but he loves the hardware?

screen scratched? Bent?

He hasn't really been taking care of his phone really...

so YOU have an iPhone 6 it's not bent....it hasn't bend since you've owned it but you r keeping it and you know it's gonna bend because of Wired?

You obviously don't know Wired.

 

[yansun]

I am. I bought an 1136x640 pixel 4” Samsung display and a Samsung A7 processor to use every day. Love it.

Haha, so all your arguments are untrue by default now...

 

[Trapezoid]

And he'll be even more of an idol when they see just how easily the iPhone 6 Plus bends in his second video. It's rather scary and disappointing to say the least. What he did by applying uneven force at different points was more realistic and actually more practical than Consumer's even-force testing.

The iPhone 6 Plus design (and perhaps the iPhone 6) is not as structurally sound in comparison to most other smartphones. Let's not pretend that it is.

Let's not pretend that people exert 70 lbs of force in their front pockets when they sit down either.

I love how people are saying that because someone intentionally bent phones with their hands, that these are structural defects. Meanwhile, the M8, which is "weaker" than the iPhone6 has never had a bendgate. So many clowns on the internet.

 

[calzon65]

Wow RangerOne, that was some test

 

[Dorje Sylas]

But it makes the test worthless somehow to prove that there is no bending issue.

Not only that, but the test shows conclusively that the iPhone 6 is WEAKER then the iPhone 5 by a rather sizable margin. Not even talking across competing devices.

Apple went too thin, and finally broke.

 

[Trapezoid]

There is nothing to "kill", there is just comeptition. Some prefer one over the other. That they are making a joke out of bended phones (Some people DID in fact have bended phones) is good fun. I see no reason to go from being over defensive to overly attacking.

We all benefit from strong competition - using humor is a fair weapon of choice for that.

The embarassment is that HTC's phones were deemed even more bendable. The truth of course is that all of these phones are as sturdy as they come, and watching some moron in a backwards hat intentionally bending iPhones doesn't mean that "bendgate" is some widespread disaster that is plaguing all iPhones.

Of course, the dude in the backwards hat and Macrumors both know they can make money by taking advantage of the silly people who believe that it is a widespread disaster, so we keep seeing videos, blogs and threads about it.

It's good business taking advantage of morons.

 

[H2SO4]

The irony here is that you're the same, the only difference is that you are betting on a different horse. People actually do help each other here, not just typically in the news forum, presumably because it's not a place to ask questions or resolving issues.

Not really, but possibly. I will call out Apple when they make crap, and short change people. They have done so in the past and will continue to do so.
The reference to a religious cult is to compare some with those who say that the word of Apple or anybody else for that matter cannot be questioned for any reason.
I mean come on, it’s not supposed to be carried in your pocket? WTF??

 

[craznar]

What do you mean exactly by the underlined part please?

There were reception tests done on the 4S with regard to output power and input sensitivity in comparison to previous iPhones and other phones on the market.

The new 4S design increased sensitivity by around 10dBm (can't remember the exact numbers) compared to previous designs. However putting your finger in the 'gap' just made the antenna as good as everyone else again temporarily.

I also managed to do similar things with the Motorola phone I had at the time - however that is a subjective test.

In essence - Apple was being singled out because its antenna design was way better than everyone else's - except in one small specific circumstance, when it was the same as everyone else.

 

[AlabamaSlammer]

Seriously it was brilliant. I really did laugh out loud. Here, read it again;
"It’s supposed to be weak……"

I guess so.. I really don't understand what point he was going for

 

[calzon65]

Not only that, but the test shows conclusively that the iPhone 6 is WEAKER then the iPhone 5 by a rather sizable margin.

When it comes to bending from the back, that is a 100% correct fact!

 

[Trapezoid]

Anyone who claims the iPhone is unbendable is a moron, all these smart phones bend to some degree or another.

The Consumer Reports test simply shows the level of force it takes to bend a handful of phones compared to each other and the iPhone 6 is at the bottom of the list of phones used in the test.

No it's not.

 

[jb007clone]

 

[Trapezoid]

Image

Is that an M8 user?

 

[calzon65]

No it's not.

Then if you are so smart, what does it show?

 

[Trapezoid]

Then if you are so smart, what does it show?

I was responding to your sentence that the iPhone was the bottom of the list of the smartphones they tested. It's not. the HTC M8 is. Strangely, there was no Bendgate widespread catastrophic disaster with that phone. Really strange.

Almost like it's not an issue...

 

[craznar]

Forget we’re talkign about the iPhone for a moment. This is priceless. Haven’t LOLed like that for ages.

Glad you enjoy materials science, personally I found it a pain in the butt when I did it.

 

[H2SO4]

There were reception tests done on the 4S with regard to output power and input sensitivity in comparison to previous iPhones and other phones on the market.

The new 4S design increased sensitivity by around 10dBm (can't remember the exact numbers) compared to previous designs. However putting your finger in the 'gap' just made the antenna as good as everyone else again temporarily.

I also managed to do similar things with the Motorola phone I had at the time - however that is a subjective test.

In essence - Apple was being singled out because its antenna design was way better than everyone else's - except in one small specific circumstance, when it was the same as everyone else.

Oh right, and I stand to be corrected but my understanding was;
1. All phones exhibit some loss of signal when held in a particular way.
2. The iPhone was a lot more pronounced because of the external antennas. To the point of dropping calls?

 

[rGiskard]

Here's a summary of the design flaw as I see it:

Here is the weak point as viewed externally.


From iFixit's teardown, here are the internal reenforcements.


Note that Apple chose to use a series of short steel plates in lieu of a single continuous steel plate. Had they chose the latter, the phone would not have pivot points at the ends of each plate. The meager reenforcements are "good enough," save a few cents, and make for a slightly lighter phone. A continuous steel angle or I-beam could have been used without altering the size of the phone and would have resulted in a virtually unbendable device. They probably used a formula to predict the cost of iPhone replacements vs. increased manufacturing costs, yet Apple's reputation was not factored in. It's a typical American business mistake - even Apple is not immune.

As a result of Apple's flawed design (under a test that doesn't even exploit the weak discontinuity at the volume buttons), the competition is about 150% more resistant to bending:


In only a few days, we already have 9-10 reported iPhone bends. Stress is additive for aluminum, so with time phones will grow more prone to bending. Figure that for several years, each person with a bent iPhone will show it to everyone he knows, and factor in the social media amplification, and the result is irrepairable harm to Apple's reputation as a maker of high end quality products.

The diminished reputation occures with people see others with bent phones. Whether it is "stupid" to carry a phone in one's pocket is irrelevant, since all that matters is what other people see. Take a cashier who sees mobile phones all day long: if he sees more bent iPhones, he'll reach a conclusion. This is why a rigid phone is so important to Apple's reputation. Surely any Apple defender wants Apple to do well - I know I do as a longtime Mac user.

 

[subsonix]

Not really, but possibly. I will call out Apple when they make crap, and short change people. They have done so in the past and will continue to do so.
The reference to a religious cult is to compare some with those who say that the word of Apple or anybody else for that matter cannot be questioned for any reason.
I mean come on, it’s not supposed to be carried in your pocket? WTF??

Yeah, but now we have a test made by CR and including Apple's invite of journalists to their test lab. You choose to ignore these tests and go fully on the YouTube guy's much less precise demonstration. Your premise is that the iPhone is flawed, if a test shows that is isn't really, then the test is flawed since iPhone really is flawed. That's a nice little circular argument, where the Axiom is that iPhone is flawed. So what we can do here is to expose an iPhone to a test to determine if the test is flawed.

 

[almirramic]

Thin, thinner, too thin

They bend, there is no way around it. People did not just come up with this. Maybe not all of them, but then bend.

I've always wanted iPhone iterations to maintain thickness for better battery life. Never got it. Now they literally made the iPhone too thin and something tells me they won't learn much from this except how to maybe how to make them flexible.

 

[Trapezoid]

They bend, there is no way around it. People did not just come up with this. Maybe not all of them, but then bend.

I've always wanted iPhone iterations to maintain thickness for better battery life. Never got it. Now they literally made the iPhone too thin and something tells me they won't learn much from this except how to maybe how to make them flexible.

Yes they bend when you purposely apply force to them to make them bend. As would any other phone as shown by Consumer Reports and Squaretrade.

They do not bend when you put them in your pocket and walk around.

 

[calzon65]

I was responding to your sentence that the iPhone was the bottom of the list of the smartphones they tested. It's not. the HTC M8 is. Strangely, there was no Bendgate widespread catastrophic disaster with that phone. Really strange.

Almost like it's not an issue...

OK Mr. Nitpicker, then the iPhone 6 AND the HTC One (M8) are BOTH at the bottom of the list. You must be in marketing or in politics because people like you are excellent at twisting a meaning. See you could have said the iPhone 6 and the HTC are both at the bottom of the list, however, you didn't say that. So your response was factually incorrect based on the bottom of the list meaning the phones in the test that received the worst score.

So to be clear, the bottom of the list means the phones in the test with the worst score!

Maybe you didn't consider that Consumer Reports put the HTC One (M8) at the bottom to be courteous to Apple.

 

[craznar]

Oh right, and I stand to be corrected but my understanding was;
1. All phones exhibit some loss of signal when held in a particular way.
2. The iPhone was a lot more pronounced because of the external antennas. To the point of dropping calls?

The fundamental situation here was that it performed FAR BETTER than any other phone except in ONE specific circumstance - in that ONE specific circumstance it performed the SAME.

In essence, it only dropped calls in a specific situation that other phones would not have been capable of even having in the first place.

 

[yansun]

Yeah, but now we have a test made by CR and including Apple's invite of journalists to their test lab. You choose to ignore these tests and go fully on the YouTube guy's much less precise demonstration. Your premise is that the iPhone is flawed, if a test shows that is isn't really, then the test is flawed since iPhone really is flawed. That's a nice little circular argument, where the Axiom is that iPhone is flawed.

Its not about the video guy, but about this...
http://imgur.com/a/FBegH
https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=497833&d=1411838507