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>“But the fact remains—compared to earlier iPhone models, the iPhone 6/6+ is kind of a ‘bendy’ phone. Its slim form factor and larger surface area subject the l

>“But the fact remains—compared to earlier iPhone models, the iPhone 6/6+ is kind of a ‘bendy’ phone. Its slim form factor and larger surface area subject the logic board within the phone to mechanical flexion pressure that no other iPhone has had to deal with[...]” Thank god they are rumoured to be making phones even slimmer then, _and_ getting rid of the headphone jack as well! Apple seems to be putting form ahead of function these days.

manarth 10y ago
Well, they did (apparently) address the issue in the 6S, by moving the vulnerable components, so presumably they'll have considered this issue in the next iteration. Maybe they'll even restore the metal shields over the chips. The 7 will probably just have a different set of problems to deal with.
- valine 10y ago
  Not only that, but in the 6s they also switched to a new grade of aluminum that is significantly less prone to bending.
xedarius 10y ago
These days??? How quick we forget the iPhone 4 that didn't work as a phone when held due to shielding issues.
- intoverflow2 10y ago
  Apart from that it was a great design, very user serviceable. Whole thing comes apart with just two screws, glass isn't part of the touch screen so smashed phones can be fixed for <$10 in < 10 minutes. Apple likes to bleat on about how environmentally sound they are but glueing everything together and making it disposable piece of electro-garbage just makes that whole spiel ridiculous to me.
  - collyw 10y ago
    You mean the one that they choose the most obscure pentalobe screws on the market for?
    - rsynnott 10y ago
      Most iPhone 4s had tiny phillips screws; the pentalobe ones were introduced towards the end of its run.
    - zaroth 10y ago
      I think the screw heads are a red herring. The screwdriver costs next to nothing, it's really not a problem spending a few dollars on tools for a phone that comes apart well. I think there are much more relevant things to complain about as far as actual "serviceability" goes. The reality is, if you aren't the kind of person who can spend a few minutes researching and procuring the correct set of screwdrivers, you really should not be opening the case anyway. If you've ever opened up an iPhone and for example replaced the battery I think you would agree, the pentalobe screws are just the appropriate level of deterrent. Crucially, there's no DRM on the battery preventing me from swapping it out myself.
      - jrowley 10y ago
        The iphone 4 originally shipped with regular phillips head screws on the outside, but Apple quietly switched those out to the pentalobe head screws sometime after the initial batches of phones came out.
  - jandrese 10y ago
    Having replaced the screen on a 4s myself, I can say your 10 minute estimate was way off. You could replace the back glass in 2 minutes flat, but the front glass was much much more involved. Replacing the front glass required you to disassemble every 0.something mm screw in the thing and pull all of the parts out. It took me over an hour, partially because I had to carefully document each and every screw to make sure they go back in the right place (I didn't want to swap a 0.7mm and a 0.8mm screw somewhere).
- Synaesthesia 10y ago
  It did work just fine, it actually had the best antenna of any phone on the market at the time - dramatic improvement on the previous models. Yeah it lost signal when held wrong but was still superior to other phones. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2
  - wepple 10y ago
    > Yeah it lost signal when held wrong but was still superior to other phones. My definition of 'superior' doesn't involve having to hold a phone a particular way for it to make a call.
    - sbuk 10y ago
      You didn't have to hold it a particular way - you had to avoid holding it a particular way. I had one for 2 years and didn't experience dropped calls beyond expected norms.
    - Synaesthesia 10y ago
      It lost signal when held that way. It didn't drop calls. As explained in the anandtech article, they couldn't get it to drop a call once.
      - euyyn 10y ago
        Curious: What happens when, during a call, you lose signal and don't recover it? If the call doesn't drop, does it just stay connected, waiting for the signal to come back?
        khedoros 10y ago
        I think the point is that it wasn't ever a complete loss of signal. Signal strength drops a little, maybe the baseband turns up its gain and burns a little more power, and the call stays connected.
- mhb 10y ago
  And for how long have they been making the guaranteed-to-fail power adapters with no strain reliefs?
  - kps 10y ago
    17 years, starting with the ‘yoyo’ of the clamshell iBook.
  - givinguflac 10y ago
    While anecdotal, I have a charger from a 2006 MBP that has no fraying at all and is in great working order with a MagSafe 2 adapter. I've beaten the crap out of it too and travelled a ton with it. It's a bit dirty looking, but not damaged and perfectly functional, especially for a 10+ year old charger.
  - thr0w__4w4y 10y ago
    While I totally understand what you're saying and agree with you, I've had 2 of the 85W Mac power adapters replaced out of warranty (2012 rMBP). I'm a "road warrior", travel around 250k miles / year, probably pack / unpack my computer 4-8 times per day, and I'm good about winding/unwinding the power cord, but it's just not designed for that kind of wear & tear. I think I've gotten replacements because I've been able to show the electrical arcing that takes place (for anyone reading this who doesn't know what electrical arcing is, look it up). Between the nice spark, the sound and especially the smell, employees are pretty damn quick to replace the part. (I did have an employee initially try to just replace part of it, and when I showed him how the problem remained, I just walked over and grabbed a new one off the shelf and told him "I'll just take this." He scanned it and off I went.) FWIW, the problem I'm talking about is the little 2-prong AC adapter that slides on to the main power "brick". On an 85W model at least, all that weight is borne and supported by the connection, and the torque (or maybe I should be using a term like "lever" or "moment", I don't recall my physics very well) is too much over time. Last comment - generally I just take Shoe Goo and goop it over the weak strain relief where the cord emerges from the brick. Sure, I don't look cool, but that part of the power supply doesn't fail.
- coddingtonbear 10y ago
  I had an iPhone 4 for nearly two years and had no idea that this issue even existed.
  - rsynnott 10y ago
    It was generally only noticeable in areas of marginal signal, IME. I found it possible to make it happen deliberately if signal wasn't great, but never did it accidentally.
JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Apple is Apple because they put design ahead of engineering. Always have. Its why they sell well. Nothing new here.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  Apple's engineering is good too, it enables them to actually deliver on those designs.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    ...except for the OP's whole point - they break easy. For instance, cords. There's never been a load coil on their cords, because they look clunky. So they are noisy as heck. Their cords have no strain relief - again because it looks clunky. So their cords are the #1 replacement item due to breaking all the time right at the connector.
    - iN7h33nD 10y ago
      or they do it like this because they can sell new charge cords at a premium so they engineer them to fail
      - srtjstjsj 10y ago
        Perhaps. Intentionally bad engineering is still bad engineering for the user.
    - DigitalJack 10y ago
      All the cords I've ever seen have stress relief. It's not nearly adequate in my opinion, but they do have it.
tuna-piano 10y ago
It frustrates me to no end. I (and I assume many others) would instantly upgrade my iPhone if the next iPhone was thicker but had 2x the battery life. That would be a real improvement in my life. But they'll probably come out with one about the same size, with ~10% more battery life due to software and hardware changes - and call it a great increase. They even realize the battery thing is a problem, so Apple, the manufacturer of the hardware and the design geniuses, come out with a monstrous, hideous battery case, instead of just improving the underlying hardware. http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGQL2LL/A/iphone-6s-smart-battery-case-charcoal-gray http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGQL2LL/A/iphone-6s-smart-...
- nharada 10y ago
  I don't understand this. You say you want more battery in exchange for a larger device. Isn't that exactly what this case is providing? You call it "monstrous" but it's precisely what you're asking for -- more width in exchange for more battery.
  - jdietrich 10y ago
    It's a bulbous protrusion that completely ruins the design aesthetic of the phone. There's no way Ive would design an iPhone with a big lump sticking out of the back. Why bother with a beautifully finished aluminium chassis if you're going to wrap it in silicone? http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGQL2LL/A/iphone-6s-smart-battery-case-charcoal-gray http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGQL2LL/A/iphone-6s-smart-...
    - DigitalJack 10y ago
      The same reason your car has front, rear, door-ding bumpers.
- DigitalJack 10y ago
  I wouldn't buy a thicker one. Well, I might, but I wouldn't be as happy. By the time I put a case on my 6s+, it's as thick as I care to go. There are plenty of cases that have a battery at the expense of thickness. Why not use that?
rndstr 10y ago
> Apple seems to be putting form ahead of function these days. I don't want to start a flame war here but I would be interested in the numbers of broken screens. I make it a habit to ask friends with shattered iPhone screens how often they dripped it w/o breaking and most tell me they never dropped it before

manarth 10y ago

Well, they did (apparently) address the issue in the 6S, by moving the vulnerable components, so presumably they'll have considered this issue in the next iteration. Maybe they'll even restore the metal shields over the chips. The 7 will probably just have a different set of problems to deal with.

valine 10y ago
Not only that, but in the 6s they also switched to a new grade of aluminum that is significantly less prone to bending.

xedarius 10y ago

These days??? How quick we forget the iPhone 4 that didn't work as a phone when held due to shielding issues.

intoverflow2 10y ago
Apart from that it was a great design, very user serviceable. Whole thing comes apart with just two screws, glass isn't part of the touch screen so smashed phones can be fixed for <$10 in < 10 minutes. Apple likes to bleat on about how environmentally sound they are but glueing everything together and making it disposable piece of electro-garbage just makes that whole spiel ridiculous to me.
- collyw 10y ago
  You mean the one that they choose the most obscure pentalobe screws on the market for?
  - rsynnott 10y ago
    Most iPhone 4s had tiny phillips screws; the pentalobe ones were introduced towards the end of its run.
  - zaroth 10y ago
    I think the screw heads are a red herring. The screwdriver costs next to nothing, it's really not a problem spending a few dollars on tools for a phone that comes apart well. I think there are much more relevant things to complain about as far as actual "serviceability" goes. The reality is, if you aren't the kind of person who can spend a few minutes researching and procuring the correct set of screwdrivers, you really should not be opening the case anyway. If you've ever opened up an iPhone and for example replaced the battery I think you would agree, the pentalobe screws are just the appropriate level of deterrent. Crucially, there's no DRM on the battery preventing me from swapping it out myself.
    - jrowley 10y ago
      The iphone 4 originally shipped with regular phillips head screws on the outside, but Apple quietly switched those out to the pentalobe head screws sometime after the initial batches of phones came out.
- jandrese 10y ago
  Having replaced the screen on a 4s myself, I can say your 10 minute estimate was way off. You could replace the back glass in 2 minutes flat, but the front glass was much much more involved. Replacing the front glass required you to disassemble every 0.something mm screw in the thing and pull all of the parts out. It took me over an hour, partially because I had to carefully document each and every screw to make sure they go back in the right place (I didn't want to swap a 0.7mm and a 0.8mm screw somewhere).
Synaesthesia 10y ago
It did work just fine, it actually had the best antenna of any phone on the market at the time - dramatic improvement on the previous models. Yeah it lost signal when held wrong but was still superior to other phones. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2
- wepple 10y ago
  > Yeah it lost signal when held wrong but was still superior to other phones. My definition of 'superior' doesn't involve having to hold a phone a particular way for it to make a call.
  - sbuk 10y ago
    You didn't have to hold it a particular way - you had to avoid holding it a particular way. I had one for 2 years and didn't experience dropped calls beyond expected norms.
  - Synaesthesia 10y ago
    It lost signal when held that way. It didn't drop calls. As explained in the anandtech article, they couldn't get it to drop a call once.
    - euyyn 10y ago
      Curious: What happens when, during a call, you lose signal and don't recover it? If the call doesn't drop, does it just stay connected, waiting for the signal to come back?
      - khedoros 10y ago
        I think the point is that it wasn't ever a complete loss of signal. Signal strength drops a little, maybe the baseband turns up its gain and burns a little more power, and the call stays connected.
mhb 10y ago
And for how long have they been making the guaranteed-to-fail power adapters with no strain reliefs?
- kps 10y ago
  17 years, starting with the ‘yoyo’ of the clamshell iBook.
- givinguflac 10y ago
  While anecdotal, I have a charger from a 2006 MBP that has no fraying at all and is in great working order with a MagSafe 2 adapter. I've beaten the crap out of it too and travelled a ton with it. It's a bit dirty looking, but not damaged and perfectly functional, especially for a 10+ year old charger.
- thr0w__4w4y 10y ago
  While I totally understand what you're saying and agree with you, I've had 2 of the 85W Mac power adapters replaced out of warranty (2012 rMBP). I'm a "road warrior", travel around 250k miles / year, probably pack / unpack my computer 4-8 times per day, and I'm good about winding/unwinding the power cord, but it's just not designed for that kind of wear & tear. I think I've gotten replacements because I've been able to show the electrical arcing that takes place (for anyone reading this who doesn't know what electrical arcing is, look it up). Between the nice spark, the sound and especially the smell, employees are pretty damn quick to replace the part. (I did have an employee initially try to just replace part of it, and when I showed him how the problem remained, I just walked over and grabbed a new one off the shelf and told him "I'll just take this." He scanned it and off I went.) FWIW, the problem I'm talking about is the little 2-prong AC adapter that slides on to the main power "brick". On an 85W model at least, all that weight is borne and supported by the connection, and the torque (or maybe I should be using a term like "lever" or "moment", I don't recall my physics very well) is too much over time. Last comment - generally I just take Shoe Goo and goop it over the weak strain relief where the cord emerges from the brick. Sure, I don't look cool, but that part of the power supply doesn't fail.
coddingtonbear 10y ago
I had an iPhone 4 for nearly two years and had no idea that this issue even existed.
- rsynnott 10y ago
  It was generally only noticeable in areas of marginal signal, IME. I found it possible to make it happen deliberately if signal wasn't great, but never did it accidentally.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago

Apple is Apple because they put design ahead of engineering. Always have. Its why they sell well. Nothing new here.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
Apple's engineering is good too, it enables them to actually deliver on those designs.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  ...except for the OP's whole point - they break easy. For instance, cords. There's never been a load coil on their cords, because they look clunky. So they are noisy as heck. Their cords have no strain relief - again because it looks clunky. So their cords are the #1 replacement item due to breaking all the time right at the connector.
  - iN7h33nD 10y ago
    or they do it like this because they can sell new charge cords at a premium so they engineer them to fail
    - srtjstjsj 10y ago
      Perhaps. Intentionally bad engineering is still bad engineering for the user.
  - DigitalJack 10y ago
    All the cords I've ever seen have stress relief. It's not nearly adequate in my opinion, but they do have it.

tuna-piano 10y ago

It frustrates me to no end. I (and I assume many others) would instantly upgrade my iPhone if the next iPhone was thicker but had 2x the battery life. That would be a real improvement in my life. But they'll probably come out with one about the same size, with ~10% more battery life due to software and hardware changes - and call it a great increase. They even realize the battery thing is a problem, so Apple, the manufacturer of the hardware and the design geniuses, come out with a monstrous, hideous battery case, instead of just improving the underlying hardware. http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGQL2LL/A/iphone-6s-smart-battery-case-charcoal-gray http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGQL2LL/A/iphone-6s-smart-...

nharada 10y ago
I don't understand this. You say you want more battery in exchange for a larger device. Isn't that exactly what this case is providing? You call it "monstrous" but it's precisely what you're asking for -- more width in exchange for more battery.
- jdietrich 10y ago
  It's a bulbous protrusion that completely ruins the design aesthetic of the phone. There's no way Ive would design an iPhone with a big lump sticking out of the back. Why bother with a beautifully finished aluminium chassis if you're going to wrap it in silicone? http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGQL2LL/A/iphone-6s-smart-battery-case-charcoal-gray http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MGQL2LL/A/iphone-6s-smart-...
  - DigitalJack 10y ago
    The same reason your car has front, rear, door-ding bumpers.
DigitalJack 10y ago
I wouldn't buy a thicker one. Well, I might, but I wouldn't be as happy. By the time I put a case on my 6s+, it's as thick as I care to go. There are plenty of cases that have a battery at the expense of thickness. Why not use that?

rndstr 10y ago

> Apple seems to be putting form ahead of function these days. I don't want to start a flame war here but I would be interested in the numbers of broken screens. I make it a habit to ask friends with shattered iPhone screens how often they dripped it w/o breaking and most tell me they never dropped it before