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Apple’s internal tests found that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are significantly more likely to bend than the iPhone 5S, according to information made public in a recent court filing obtained by Motherboard. Publicly, Apple has never said that the phones have a bending problem, and maintains that position, despite these models commonly being plagued with “touch disease,” a flaw that causes the touchscreen to work intermittently that the repair community say is a result of bending associated with normal use.
The information is contained in internal Apple documents filed under seal in a class-action lawsuit that alleges Apple misled customers about touch disease. The documents remain under seal, but US District Court judge Lucy Koh made some of the information from them public in a recent opinion in the case.
The company found that the iPhone 6 is 3.3 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s, and the iPhone 6 Plus is 7.2 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s, according to the documents. Koh wrote that “one of the major concerns Apple identified prior to launching the iPhones was that they were ‘likely to bend more easily when compared to previous generations.’”
Despite these findings, Apple publicly maintained that there were no engineering issues with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but an internal review showed that engineering changes were necessary to prevent touch disease, according to court filings. In May 2016, a year-and-a-half after the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were released, Apple quietly began reinforcing the part of the logic board associated with touch disease, Koh wrote.
In a service notice published in November 2016, Apple said that touch disease happens only after iPhones are “dropped multiple times on a hard surface and then incurring [sic] further stress on the device,” which is the same argument it has made in defending against the lawsuit.
Bendgate
Soon after the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were released in September 2014, several customers said that their phones bent easily. Those cases went viral, which caused Apple to release a statement that said the phones were structurally sound: Apple “perform[s] rigorous tests throughout the entire development cycle including 3-point bending, pressure point cycling, sit, torsion, and user studies. iPhone 6 and 6 Plus meet or exceed all of our high quality standards to endure everyday, real life use.”
That news cycle died, and “Bendgate” went away for a while. But in early 2016, many iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices began to exhibit symptoms of “touch disease.” The phones’ screens would have a flickering gray bar at the top, and the touchscreen would stop working entirely or would work intermittently. Independent repair experts found that this was caused because the “Touch IC” chip, which translates a user’s touch into digital signals, became partially unseated from the phone’s logic board. Many independent repair professionals who specialize in microsoldering told me that they believe the problem is caused by flexing or bending associated with normal use, such as taking the phone out of your pocket and putting it back in.
"It's absolutely a problem in the design. End users are not doing anything to cause this besides using the phone normally," Mark Shaffer of independent repair company iPad Rehab told me at the time. "Really all you can do is avoid any activity that would cause the phone to flex. Don't drop it, definitely don't put it in any case that requires you to apply force to the phone to get it into and out of the case. Don't put it in your back pocket, don't put it in your front pocket if it's a tight pocket. Actually, don't put it in any pocket."
The Lawsuit
The problem became widespread, and eventually a class action lawsuit was filed against Apple, which has been ongoing for more than a year. As a result of discovery in that case, Apple was required to turn over its internal testing documents and reports to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. Those documents remain under seal, but Koh made some information from them public in an opinion published this month.
Beyond noting that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were significantly more likely to bend than their predecessor (Apple described the bending as “expected behavior”), Koh wrote that Apple made engineering changes to the phone a year-and-a-half after it was released in order to prevent touch disease.
“After internal investigation, Apple determined underfill was necessary to resolve the problems caused by the defect,” Koh wrote, referring to an epoxy used to stiffen the logic board. “Apple had used underfill on the preceding iPhone generation but did not start using it on the [touch disease-related] chip in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus until May 2016,” after millions of iPhones had been sold.
Anyone else having the SMS notification issue on the iPhone?
Wife and MIL both having the issue where a SMS comes in and either there is no notification or the notification appears for a second on the lock screen and then disappears.
MIL went to Genius Bar yesterday and they reset her phone. Seems to have worked for now, but not sure it will last.
I get something similar to that with my notifications.
i think for me it stems from either my old iPhone 6 Plus, 3rd gen iPad, iPad Pro or Mac Mini "stealing" the notifications over my current iPhone 7 Plus
Anyone else having the SMS notification issue on the iPhone?
Wife and MIL both having the issue where a SMS comes in and either there is no notification or the notification appears for a second on the lock screen and then disappears.
MIL went to Genius Bar yesterday and they reset her phone. Seems to have worked for now, but not sure it will last.
iOS 11 bug. I was having that during the pre-release betas but once I got an Apple Watch I think it went away. I wonder if the iOS 12 Public Beta will be more stable than the latest version of iOS 11 at the time?
Anyone else having the SMS notification issue on the iPhone?
Wife and MIL both having the issue where a SMS comes in and either there is no notification or the notification appears for a second on the lock screen and then disappears.
MIL went to Genius Bar yesterday and they reset her phone. Seems to have worked for now, but not sure it will last.
Try updating to iOS 11.4 and make sure the iCloud message feature is enabled, that might fix it
Apples is opening upthe autofill password API they released in iOS 11 so 3rd party password managers like 1password and LastPass can use it! So stoked for this!
I wonder if the iOS 12 Public Beta will be more stable than the latest version of iOS 11 at the time?
many people are seeing better performance on iOS 12 beta 1 than on the shipping versions of iOS 11.4.
Even Apple’s latest devices see noticeable improvements like more responsive scrolling, but the big wins are on older iPhones and iPads like iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s. I asked on Twitter what people’s first impressions were of using iOS 12 on older hardware and the results were unanimously positive, with several people echoing the sentiment that it actually makes their old devices usable again:
I got my iphone 8 last December. Half a year later and the battery drain is very noticeable compared to when it was new. I have to recharge it a lot more often.
Says Max Capacity 100%. And Peak Performance Capability.
pff..
I think that he might have intended to convey the idea that you should check to see what applications are running in the background and consuming energy that you don't necessarily need to be using.
Very helpful people will very often set Open Signal to contribute data in the background. If you are traveling an area worse than -100 dBm, this could cause Open Signal to use more power than you're aware.
A big and frequent offender is Facebook. Facebook tries to find a way to do things even if you've set background app refresh to no. Facebook is the only application that I will go out of the way to close when I am not using it. Now...don't go too far with this. If you're a frequent user of Facebook, you'll consume more energy starting it up all of the time. But if you're only going to use it once or twice and you're done until tomorrow, maybe think of physically closing that out.
First thing I tell people who say they have shitty battery life on a newer device is to delete Facebook.
You can set a shortcut to go to Facebook through Safari. That middle icon on the bottom which looks like a box with an arrow pointing up. Then choose add to home screen. I've been just fine without the app for years.
I still have messenger though, doesn't seem too bad. I wish people would stop using Facebook, but everyone gets stuck in their own ways.
First thing I tell people who say they have shitty battery life on a newer device is to delete Facebook.
You can set a shortcut to go to Facebook through Safari. That middle icon on the bottom which looks like a box with an arrow pointing up. Then choose add to home screen. I've been just fine without the app for years.
I still have messenger though, doesn't seem too bad. I wish people would stop using Facebook, but everyone gets stuck in their own ways.
I do the same thing on Android, and for the same reason, it kills battery.