Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Slide-On Cases Causing Cracked Glass on iPhone 4s?

I have been saying this about cases for years, except I was talking about the plastic or metal surface of a MacBook or iPhone.

Most cases just trap dirt between the case and the body of the device, and create deep, permanent pits in its surface.
 
You guys don't work in construction do you ? Every phone I've owned over the past 20 years ends up with scratches, cracks or blemishes of some sort. I guess someone should have fixed that "design" flaw by now.

BTW: I don't own an iPhone.
 
Baloney. The risk was always there with the 3G and 3GS cases as well.

This is more manipulation right before Apple announces record iPhone sales.

Sometimes the FUDsters get a few shots in. Of course, Apple's quarterly numbers tell the REAL story. Follow the numbers and the mindshare, not the BS spewed by the jealous, the desperate, and the downright ignorant.
 
*LTD* said:
Baloney. The risk was always there with the 3G and 3GS cases as well.

This is more manipulation right before Apple announces record iPhone sales.

Sometimes the FUDsters get a few shots in. Of course, Apple's quarterly numbers tell the REAL story. Follow the numbers and the mindshare, not the BS spewed by the jealous, the desperate, and the downright ignorant.
Click to expand...


Umm you are showing a pretty big lack of an understanding of material there.
The risk with the class is by far greater. A micro fracture in glass has a much greater likely hood of going to a full fledged crack in the glass. Record sells do not mean anything against design flaws. Apple more than likely will be eatting another round of crappy design flaws.

Glass backing is yet another example of apple choosing to look pretty over good functioning. Just like the piss poor antenna design. They choose to look pretty over a good design.
Glass is a very brittle material so a scratch in it can easily go to a crack. Plastic can take a scratch and no go to a crack.

So please do not go scream the standard fanboy defense here.
 
The non-existent antenna issue didn't slow sales of the iPhone 4, so now it's time to make up some other non-existent ********.

The glass that you see on this mobile phone is actually engineered glass - aluminosilicate glass. It's extremely durable.
 
*LTD* said:
The non-existent antenna issue didn't slow sales of the iPhone 4, so now it's time to make up some other non-existent ********.

The glass that you see on this mobile phone is actually engineered glass - aluminosilicate glass. It's extremely durable.
Click to expand...

Ok I see you are putting your finger in your error on the antenna issues......

And again clearly you do not understand what brittle material means.

brittle does not mean something is not durable. What brittle does mean is something will crack or chip before it bends. It means a scratch can easily form to a full fledged crack. In this case dirt which is harder than glass will scratch.
Glass is around 5.5-6 on the moth hardness scale. silica (dirt) is around around a 7.

7>6 so it will scratch. Scratch can easily go to a crack on something as brittle as glass.
 
With my iPhone and iPhone 3G, I always had slide on cases.

For the 4 I got a cover case. Geez I am smart and I didn't even know it.
 
HarryPot said:
OK, sand. Just as common.

I'm not saying this is true, but if it is, Apple is definitely to blame. If you are making a phone made of glass, you should know this can happen, and therefore, warn consumers or alert case makers for them to take this into consideration.

We are not talking about irresponsible owners, we are talking about a very delicate aspect of the design of the iPhone.

As I said above, this is a phone. Phones need to be able to withstand certain abuse, and they should definitely withstand sand or similar.
Click to expand...

Does the sand stop the device from being functional at all? No.

And like you said, sand is very common. Why does the public need to be warned about something like that then?
 
NT1440 said:
Does the sand stop the device from being functional at all? No.

And like you said, sand is very common. Why does the public need to be warned about something like that then?
Click to expand...

I'm going to make the hard guess here and say that most people don't know or think that sand can crack their iPhones. I for one didn't knew that from a single little scratch a bigger one can occur as easy as people here have stated.
 
HarryPot said:
I'm going to make the hard guess here and say that most people don't know or think that sand can crack their iPhones. I for one didn't knew that from a single little scratch a bigger one can occur as easy as people here have stated.
Click to expand...
You didn't know that sand scratches glass?

I take it you don't wear glasses?

Also, you've never seen a small spider crack on a windshield get bigger? You really didn't know that a small crack in just about everything will end up as a bigger one? Really?
 
Stink Star said:
so the fact that people are too stupid to make sure there isnt rocks inside their AFTERMARKET case is a design flaw?!?!?!?! now people are just being stupid! thats like saying an undersized pulley for a supercharger could harm your car, so its a design flaw of the engine... get real people, apple engineers cannot think of every circumstance that a person might do with their phone
Click to expand...

foobarbaz said:
Design flaw? What the hell? If your case scratches the device it should protect, then it's just one shltty case.

Why the hell would the iPhone engineers bother "investigating"? This is just a blogger desperate for attention.
Click to expand...


Yep. You know its really unfortunate too, because I absolutely LOOOVE the front and rear glass design. Love it. It is my absolute favorite design for any consumer product I own, like Steve was saying at WWDC 10. But its really unfortunate that Apple probably won't build such a beautiful and unique design next year because people are simply too ****ing retarded to deal with this type of design. I love the glass because it doesn't get little wear and tear scratches like plastic or even aluminum does. Not to mention its gorgeous and feels great.

But with that, there's some tradeoffs, that being it will shatter if your not careful or responsible. And it just really annoys me that peoples inability to be careful and thoughtful with their phones, is now going to affect me next year because Apple won't continue with this kind of design. iPhone 4 will probably remain my favorite design from Apple for a very long time if they go back to a cheap plastic body, or even a metal body. The metal back with black accenting is getting boring and too predictable from Apple, I like it when they do something different.

I mean, to me, it just sort of seems like common sense that if a small grain of sand gets inside of a FORM FITTING case, that it could cause damage to glass. That doesn't seem like uncommon knowledge to me. Especially because when you slide it inside, you'll hear some nasty scratching when the sand grain rubs against the glass.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

My iPhone 3GS has scratches on the back it's a incase silicon case which has managed to get tiny bits of grit in it. Not sure how maybe stuff in my pocket. However the back is now scratched where it's trapped dirt inside it. Except if I take the case off it loosens up making it more possible for dirt to get inside.

iPhones need to be better made. Scratch proof and to some degree shatter proof. It's all vey well having a shiny device. But if it can't withstand a minor mishap resulting into a smashed screen or some third party case which after less than 6 months looks like something you might you might only use to hold a bar of soap then improvements must be made.

Insurance companies and third party case manufacturers must be laughing. This seems to be the only device propping up these other companies.

That being said I'm very happy with the technology the iPhone offers it's seamless compatibilty with my desktop/iMac is superb.

Mc
 
For all those UK'ers :

I reckon Gavin from Autoglass should inject his special resin in all your iPhone's back glass :p they'd make a fortune, and if you get the chip before it cracks it's usually free too! :D
 
garybUK said:
For all those UK'ers :

I reckon Gavin from Autoglass should inject his special resin in all your iPhone's back glass :p they'd make a fortune, and if you get the chip before it cracks it's usually free too! :D
Click to expand...

Thanks.. you've just reminded me of their stupid jingle now. Will be stuck in my head for hours. Gah!!
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8B117)

With what appears to be extremely low return rates. So where's the beef? There isn't any. Just a FUD-patty between two buns. The baloney gets started on the internet and the geek contingent on tech sites just run with it.

Apple's numbers (i.e., reality) doesn't support Poindexter with his hackintosh. Big surprise there. And we're talking a tightly-controlled, walled-garden, one (or at best, two) model product that is on a single carrier in the US, translating into record sales quarter for quarter for Apple.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; de-de) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)

horrible design choice to begin with. i know about 10 ppl from my class at uni who use iPhone 4s with shattered screens or backs. my cousin had hers placed on a glass table without any case and when someone called her and the iphone started to vibrate it actually broke the back of the phone o_O. therefore first thing i did after getting mine was setting up some insurance for it.

oh and the irony is, apples own bumper scratches the iphone like wtf i thought a case is there to protect it from that
 
TBH, I've had this problem- the pits, not the cracking yet though thankfully.

I honestly think it's my own fault though due to my gritty pockets ;)

Can't see how it would be different with any other phone, but I think we feel it more as when we got it, it was pristine glass, and now there are numerous little pits in the back of it.

I now clean it every few days to make sure.
 
Pachang said:
sure buddy, whatever gets you to sleep at night.
Click to expand...

I sleep pretty well at night, especially because I know my phone doesn't need a case to fix an antenna issue, i.e., I actually can use my phone to, *gasp*, make calls, and that case will not crack/shatter the rear of my phone.
 
Sounds like Apple might eventually bring the (radio-transparent) ceramic back that they have been patenting some time ago and which has been speculated to be on a coming Apple notebook. It's now 4 years since they applied, so it might eventually be ready for daily use.

Would coincide nicely with the rumors about renewed MBA's - with that model Apple once collected experience for the Unibody enclosures that they now have on every notebook (except for the entry MB).

Maybe they are going to do this again - test drive a new material with small production numbers on a (relatively expensive) niche model and then go for mass production with notebooks, iPhones and iPads...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back