Avoid putting the phone in your front pocket.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BANGALORE: Do you regularly put phones in the front pocket of your jeans? Then better be careful with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus; they could bend. Don’t take it as a new feature of the iPhone because once it is bent, you won’t be able to revert it back to its original shape.
iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6 feature aluminum body giving a feather light feel for the phones, but they have carried along with them a disadvantage that we know about aluminum – malleability.
The bending issue of the iPhone 6 Plus came to light when Unbox Therapy did a bend test on a new iPhone 6 Plus. The gadget review show had received complaints from users that when iPhone 6 plus went through pressure situations they had a tendency to bend. The reviewer without waiting went ahead with the bend test by applying pressure on the iPhone 6 Plus with both his hands. The result was stunning; the new iPhone 6 plus bent a little above the center, near to the power and volume rockers, almost looking like an unevenly designed curved OLED display.
The reviewer after the bend test said “Bottom line here is an aluminum phone, it is going to bend if you apply enough pressure, like I just did. Will this happen in your front pocket? That probably depends on how tight your pants are.”
The bend test video garnered more than one million views on YouTube by Wednesday evening and it is becoming viral every few seconds. In response to the video, people started posting pictures of their bend iPhone 6 Plus with the hashtag #Bendgate.
An iPhone 6 Plus user who faced the bending issue posted in Macrumors forum “Yesterday, I left at 10am with the iPhone in my left FRONT pocket of my suit pants. I drove 4 hours to a wedding, which also involved a lot of sitting during dinner etc but also 2-3 hours of dancing. I left at 2am and went to bed, driving home 4 hours back. So in total, the 6 Plus was about 18 hours in my pocket while sitting mostly. As I lay it on the coffee table and sat down on the couch to relax from the drive (yes, sitting again ), I saw the reflection of the window in the iPhones slightly distorted.”
According to The Telegraph, during the early days of iPhone 4 and iPhone 5s users had complained about bending issue. According to them iPhone is not the only smartphone to face this issue, Sony Xperia Z1 had similar problem with a number of users complaining that their phone no longer stayed flat on a surface due to a bend.
There are also reports that Apple will not replace bend iPhones with a new one free of cost and the official statement from the tech giants is yet to come.
But what is causing more trouble for Apple is another video posted by Unbox Therapy putting Samsung Galaxy Note 3 into bend test. Unfortunate for Apple and iPhone lovers the Galaxy Note 3 withstood the bent test without bending at all, taking the reviewer by surprise.
1 Comment
“There are also reports that Apple will not replace bend iPhones with a
new one free of cost and the official statement from the tech giants is
yet to come.”
It’s appearing that this device bends far easier then devices of the past. That should not be surprising being this device is even longer and much thinner then the upcoming note 4. Jonathan Ives is the guy making things at Apple these days and there has been “thinness” obsession going on there for quite some time. Style is taken over function. Until now, many folks do carry big phones in front pockets and this is more or less considered “normal use”. If Apple does not replace these devices they are in fact re writing what they consider normal use is for this phone being it appears to be weaker and has a design flaw just below the volume buttons.. this is where all the bends are originating from what I have seen. Apple has a big legal department and probably will win in court against user claims. But do they really want to take that kind of PR hit? Perception is a bitch. This could really go bad for Apple. I mean really ugly.