"steel/titanium inserts" are a new Waldo

[Steve686]

OK. Looking very carefully at the photo from the teardown. Notice the volume buttons are place on a relatively thick steel bracket. Looks like the intent was to have this provide some structural strength to where the cutouts for the volume buttons are. This bracket appears to be held in place by 2 small screws that attach to the small black inserts. My take here is that probably what is happening is one of two things:

1. The small black inserts move upwards when the phone is subjected to pressure in this location thus effectively allowing the bracket to move reducing the support it gives the frame.

2. The screws holding the bracket are made of soft metal and they themselves bend or shear off when the phone is subjected to pressure at this location. Or it could be as simple as some assembly error where the wrong screws were used in a particular batch of phones.

Either way I think it's an easy manufacturing modification that can be made quickly.

The fact that these relatively thick brackets were used leads me to conclude that Apple recognized the areas with cutouts would be weakened and worked on strengthening them.

Just my 2c.

./sherif

Could those also simply be liquid inhibitors?

 

[Steve686]

So you have evidence that none of the other 9999991 iPhone 6 owners have bent their phones? Just because they haven't posted here it doesn't necessarily mean that nobody else is experiencing problems.

Make that 9999990. Mine isn't bent.

 

[Technarchy]

Right. FUD. Any phone will bend with that kind of pressure.

Lies. No android phone does that!!!!

Oh wait...

 

[MH01]

I don't disagree that they are in there.

Though I suspect they are there to hold the phone together, as in where the screws come together. That thing you want is screws popping out when pressure if excreted.

And this is an excellent example of what a Good PR team does, they state that the phone does indeed have steel and titanium inserts, what they do not confirm is if any of these inserts are in any way designed to counter the bending issues that people have experienced. Genius

You have to admit the statement does sound very impressive.

----------

Lies. No android phone does that!!!!

Oh wait...

Image

Knowing that others have had the misfortune does not make me feel better.

I don't want my iphone Plus to suffer from it.

 

[Technarchy]

Knowing that others have had the misfortune does not make me feel better.

I don't want my iphone Plus to suffer from it.

Misfortune?

More like user doing something stupid.

There is no way in hell the iPhone is going to bend unless we are talking complete user ineptitude.

Notice how stories of iPhone 5's bending vanished after a few weeks of release. If it was a design flaw, it would be prevalent two years later.

This is FUD, and when it runs out of steam with the blog hacks, you won't hear about this "problem" except for the occasional inept user.

 

[jeffe]

Misfortune?

More like user doing something stupid.

There is no way in hell the iPhone is going to bend unless we are talking complete user ineptitude.

Notice how stories of iPhone 5's bending vanished after a few weeks of release. If it was a design flaw, it would be prevalent two years later.

This is FUD, and when it runs out of steam with the blog hacks, you won't hear about this "problem" except for the occasional inept user.

It seems like some phones are more likely to bend under user error than others.

I just hope that manufactures are asking themselves how they can prevent these types of issues in the future rather than call their customers inept.

 

[NovemberWhiskey]

In both videos that bent phones, they were exerting far more pressure than a phone would ever experience in a pocket. Unless you were doing squats in skinny raw denim jeans. Even then, in not sure if you would get that result.

Applied to most other major phones, you would get a similar result or some other sort of damage

The only real tests were done at Apple's labs with machines that exerted consistent force. The three point test was very convincing.

 

[Sherif Iskander]

Could those also simply be liquid inhibitors?

Don't think so. The thing that is bugging me, is why use inserts and not just machine it out of the frame like where the other screws fit?

Would be very interested in having someone with a severely bent phone opening it up and giving us a look at what happened to this part of the frame.

./sherif