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Another Unhappy Customer Regarding Black iPhone5

I thought I had a pristine iPhone5 and I put it in a case right away. Unfortunately I took it out of the case today to put on a Zagg screen protector and I found a small silver spot on the left side of the phone on the bezel. It is not dust, it is not Zagg glue. It is not a scratch. It is clearly a spot where black did not adhere to the bezel. I also a detect a lighter color of black about 1/4 inch near the silver spot. Clearly this is a manufacturing defect.

I'm conflicted about whether to call Apple about it or not. But when I look at the Jonathan Ive video on the Apple site it clearly holds out the iPhone as a a piece of technology that was designed with close tolerances and perfection in mind.

Maybe iPhones wearing black are just not something buyers can expect to be pristine as the metal underneath the black is of course silver.

I'm not damning Apple. I'm just wondering if it is worth that hassle of trying to get them to send me a new one that might end up having another defect that could be worse, or get one with the wifi issues that is being reported.

I'll call Apple tomorrow and see what my options are. I'm not a fan of the white iPhone5.
 
Pedestal

Apple presented the iPhone out of a pedestal, away from people's touch. Now I understand why:

Had he pulled it out of a pants pocked (as Jobs once did with the iPod nano), the scratches would have been shown.

Are the scratches an issue? Of course not. But at a retail price of $1k, of course it is expected a pristine device.
 
Since there is no such thing as black aluminum, the silver will show itself eventually when anodized. Some anodizing is better than others, but even mil spec HAIII anodizing can wear off. It can even flake off immediately after the process if the surface it was applied to had any dust particles or residues.

What's surprising isn't that there are some phones showing wear easily or even out of the box; it's that Apple decided to use such a relatively fragile finish in the first place.

If they really wanted us to have black phones, they could have used carbon fiber, fiberglass, or any number of dense hard resins. Or they could have used DLC coating instead of anodizing. DLC is pretty much the state of the art for making metal black, and tough.
 
Remember the old iPod shiny metal backs? They got scratched just by looking at them. I even applied some "brushed metal" effect on my last two ipods.
 
iPhone 4/4S - glass back - 'glass is terrible for a phone! it shatters!'
iPhone 5 - aluminum back - 'aluminum is terrible for a phone! it scratches!'

facepalm6_1787.jpg
 
When Steve Jobs was designing the original iPhone, it was incredibly important that it wouldn't scratch because he knew people would be carrying it in their pockets with keys and coins.

Too bad that didn't work out. I have yet to have an iPhone that didn't end up with a scratched screen and I am pretty good about not putting anything else in my pocket with the phone.
 
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