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Spontaneous separation of new iPhone 5

This thread has been an adventure! :D

Im sad that its over...................................OR IS IT!? :eek:

#BENT-GATE
 
robaroo said:
sometimes i imagine these people posting things on macrumors and then going to the apple store the next day and saying something to the effect of: "i even went on macrumors las tnight to get people's opinion on why this bent all by itself." he posted about it on macrumors the night before so he must be honest.

we all know you bent it by doing something like leaving it on the roof of your car and driving off.
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After most of you have trashed the op with your opinions why would anyone use this thread to support their claim.

All of you dissenters are wrong.

----------
Gibbons said:
Can't say I understand how, if the OP sat on the phone like you all are saying, the screen panel isn't bent, broken, cracked or shattered. It's just the outer band of aluminum and the back aluminum that's damaged.

I mean, the screen/front glass looks perfect. It's hard to understand how a drop or a bend-in-pocket situation could produce a phone that looks like that.

Anyway, just trying to make some sense of it. Good luck, OP - just know if you're successful at getting a replacement everyone here will call you a criminal.
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Why are you being so cautious in your response? The other posters here are simply wrong. And you are right.
 
The point above the volume - button is the unibodies weak link. It would not take much force to create this condition given the lack of tensile strength in the non-tempered low grade 6061 aluminum.
 
Rocko1 said:
The point above the volume - button is the unibodies weak link. It would not take much force to create this condition given the lack of tensile strength in the non-tempered low grade 6061 aluminum.
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Agreed. I could see it happening "spontaneously" too. The weak spot would accumulate metal fatigue over weeks or months and then one day it would just break "out of nowhere". Happens all the time in other built objects (buildings, planes, etc). I think the large round volume buttons borrowed from the 4/4s were a poor choice. They create weak spots in the unibody. If they wanted to use this low grade aluminum a long thin rocker style switch would have left a lot more material around the volume buttons and resulted in a stronger structure.
 
Regardless of what you think happened in this particular case, there are half dozen other people who've experienced the same failure in the same location. And it makes sense that this location would be a weak spot since the metal is so thin right there (above the "minus" button). I think there's a good chance we'll see more of these failures.
 
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The tensile strength of stainless steel varies from 85,000 - 125,000 psi depending on the alloy. The tensile strength of 6061 aluminum is 18,000 psi. Much weaker. So it doesn't take much for 6061 aluminum to fail when placed in tension. Also, the cross-section of the iPhone 5 chassis at the volume buttons appears to be maybe 2 square millimetres. So according to my quick math that area of the chassis can only handle about 50 psi. That's about the same amount of pressure stored in a bottle of coke.
 
sparky1680 said:
Here's what happened at the Apple store:Tell story to first nice, competent genius, who immediately gets lead genius to join us. He listens, looks and says they will take it to the back to pop the front off to have a look. I ask if I can join him? No. I ask if he can bring it back out after it’s apart? No. I explain I want to take a picture. No. OK I say.

10-15 minutes later the first genius returns, with the phone (in the same bent state) to say that they’ve had a chance to look at it and they can’t find a reason for it.

Me: whats underneath that poke mark?

“The battery is underneath there. But it doesn’t show any signs of expansion at all. Its not a result of the battery expanding. We’re looking into it. Its not something we’ve seen before. We are partnering with our management team as well. That gentleman that came up and was helping us as well – he’s our lead genius so we’ve got a few of us on it.”

Lead Genius comes back and joins us-
“So we’ve taken a look – I don’t see internally any sign of anything short of seeing obviously that the metal band is bent. My conclusion would be that there was some force applied to it to bend the band. For example I don’t see any expanded internal components that would suggest anything other than that. I think the best course of action, the most timely course of action would be to proceed with your applecare+ .”

I replied I would be willing to do that but if it turns out in the future to be a more recognized problem that you would refund me that $49 and that it wouldn’t use up one of my two replacements.
‘This is the only case I’ve seen like this. The other thing we definitely can do, whenever we have something new like this, is to pass it up to our other departments that look at this sort of thing. …we like to pass it up to the other teams, when we’re dealing with new products and issues like this, when we pass it up up the line, – sometimes the answer we get back is ok cover this, I don’t know that that would be the answer in this case but obviously there would be a wait for that.”
I replied that no, I needed to replace it now.
“Well we will pass it up, and if they tell us that they would have replaced it we can take whatever actions we need to take to go with that. And I don’t want to set expectations that that’s what will happen”.

We left it at they would email me directly in 3-5 days with a response.

Lead genius leaves and first genius goes to get replacement phone leaving me alone with bent phone. Knowing the insatiable appetite of those on this forum I tried to get a pic of the insides by pulling back on the front plate as much as I could without causing damage. I get a couple of shots as best I can (with my wife’s iphone5) and in the process get strange blue striped screen of death and phone becomes non-responsive. (it had been working normally up to now.)

I’ll be sure to post when I hear back from apple again.
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You have an amazing memory remembering exactly what they said. Nor flaming you, I am impressed.


PJ.
 
Weirdest.Problem.Ever

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uri-geller11.jpg
 
As long as we're going there, let's get it right...

Takeo said:
The tensile strength of stainless steel varies from 85,000 - 125,000 psi depending on the alloy. The tensile strength of 6061 aluminum is 18,000 psi. Much weaker. So it doesn't take much for 6061 aluminum to fail when placed in tension. Also, the cross-section of the iPhone 5 chassis at the volume buttons appears to be maybe 2 square millimetres. So according to my quick math that area of the chassis can only handle about 50 psi. That's about the same amount of pressure stored in a bottle of coke.
Click to expand...

First off, about 50 lbf, not psi. Second, let's stick to the data instead of making claims comparable to 'the tensile strength of kevlar 49 is 425,000 psi, and 316 stainless steel is only 82,000, so it doesn't take much to break steel.' - not a quote.

As for the data, they would not use untempered 6061, which is what your values are for. 6061-T6 has an ultimate tensile strength of 45,000 psi, making the breaking force for a 2mm^2 cross section 140lbf (sorry to mix units, just staying consisten with the post).

Assuming {the material is 6061-t6, the cross section area is 2mm^2, the iphone is .3 inches thick, the break is 1.5 inches from the end (I don't have one to measure), the clips holding the shell to the front face are disconnected, the far end is fixed, it is supported under the breaking point, that the rest of the structure, including the opposite side and any connected components have nothing to do with it, and that you could get a proper grip...}

it would take about 28 lbf applied normal to the top front to break it.

However, most of those assumptions are false, and I'm sure those clips connecting the front to the back would have a great deal to say about things.

To easily calculate the aerodynamics of a cow in a tornado: first assume the cow is a sphere...
 
Snowcat said:
First off, about 50 lbf, not psi. Second, let's stick to the data instead of making claims comparable to 'the tensile strength of kevlar 49 is 425,000 psi, and 316 stainless steel is only 82,000, so it doesn't take much to break steel.' - not a quote.

As for the data, they would not use untempered 6061, which is what your values are for. 6061-T6 has an ultimate tensile strength of 45,000 psi, making the breaking force for a 2mm^2 cross section 140lbf (sorry to mix units, just staying consisten with the post).

Assuming {the material is 6061-t6, the cross section area is 2mm^2, the iphone is .3 inches thick, the break is 1.5 inches from the end (I don't have one to measure), the clips holding the shell to the front face are disconnected, the far end is fixed, it is supported under the breaking point, that the rest of the structure, including the opposite side and any connected components have nothing to do with it, and that you could get a proper grip...}

it would take about 28 lbf applied normal to the top front to break it.

However, most of those assumptions are false, and I'm sure those clips connecting the front to the back would have a great deal to say about things.

To easily calculate the aerodynamics of a cow in a tornado: first assume the cow is a sphere...
Click to expand...

I read somewhere (probably here) that it's untempered 6061... but I don't know that for sure. What we do know... generally... and can probably all agree on... is that aluminum is soft and that cross section at the volume buttons is extremely thin.
 
I've put every iPhone model in my back jeans pocket and sat on them to some extent throughout the day --- never ever had an issue doing so, and I still do it daily with my 4S.

But I can tell from futzing around with the iPhone 5 that it will stress in my back pocket. And with the talk of the softer metal used, it sure looks like that's what happened in those pictures.
 
The exact same thing happened to me! I stopped prying it apart with a screwdriver shortly after.
 
OP....83% of the posters in this thread are worthless and add no value in society. I appreciate you taking the time and documenting everything to help others out. In the long run $50 is nothing to loose sleep over versus a broken iphone 5 and no communication device. Either way you are taken care of since you planned ahead and picked up applecare+. Thanks for your efforts and don't mind the dumb tools.
 
Heard back from genius at Apple store- they do not feel that this should be covered on warranty. Can't say that I'm surprised. Thank goodness for AC+.
I'll just have to wait and see if others have similar experiences in the future.
 
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