As our debate over whether iPhone bendage is a design issue or a user issue continues, yesterday an Apple spokesperson released an interesting fact: "Through our first six days of sale, a total of nine customers have contacted Apple with a bent iPhone 6 Plus."
Nine. Considering they sold ten million units in the first six days, that means a little less than 0.000001% of iPhone users have reported a problem.
Even if there are more cases that went unreported--let's say the problem is 100 times worse, but 99 people chose to remain silent for every one person who complained--that still means that less than 0.0001% of iPhones got bent.
The video posted by Lewis Hilsenteger in the last entry on this topic clearly shows that you can bend an iPhone while trying to. (That entry also shows photos of a variety of phones from different, non-Apple manufacturers that can also be bent.) I could probably bend my aluminum laptop if I tried, too, but because that object is so important to my livelihood I don't put cups of coffee or any kind of stress on it.
Similarly, if I owned an iPhone 6, after seeing Hilsenteger's video I'd simply place the phone in the "sunglasses/delicates" category of things I own, and care for it accordingly.
Anyone think a YouTube video of me using an undamaged iPhone would get 25 million hits?
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After using a company issued Blackberry for a couple of years my established level of caution and care left me with a shattered iPhone screen 3 days into a new contract. It was a learning experience that quickly changed my expectations of the product and my habits as a user. I didn't blame the design as much as I did myself for being careless.
So 2 years later I'm on my second iPhone, and it was beautiful for the few minutes that I saw it before I snapped the new case around it. Sometimes I want to get rid of that protective layer on the outside and just experience the product, but I'm just not up to the challenge.
In the end, whether you consider it a design flaw or not ultimately depends on what your perspective is. Obviously the design passed Apple's standards, but when you're in a competitive marketplace, you need to benchmark your competitors, not just yourself. And according to Consumer Reports' limited testing, the Galaxy Note 3 (which actually weighs less than the 6 Plus) is nearly twice as strong in bending before it yields permanently (150 lbs vs. 90 for the iPhone). The LG G3 is also 1.5x stronger, at 130 lbs. That's a pretty big gap, especially since neither of the competitors give up anything in utility, and in fact have much more efficient (smaller) footprints for the same or larger screen size.
I also can't help but feel as though your numbers might be skewed by the fact that (so far as I know) some people are still waiting for their phones - ie, 10million preorders does not translate to 10million phones currently in use.
Additionally, most people I know tend to baby their new devices for a month or two before they see what we might call "regular usage" scenarios.
Because of all of this, I'm confident that these 9 cases are just the beginning, and although many people may now make a conscious effort to be more careful with their phones in light of the outcry, it seems ridiculous to me that they should have to expend so much effort to protect (what should be) such a utilitarian object.
Devices that are made to be used should not break in regular usage scenarios. As far as I can see, Apple just didn't think this one through, and that's all there is to it.
You don't have to publish this. It has nothing to do with the iPhone 6 Plus bending thing. But you did decide to publish the comment about McDonald's, which suggests that you also buy into the totally false mythology about the McDonald's case.
As for the bending issue, its going to get worse. The phone was designed poorly and lacks structural stability... this isn't the antenna issue all over again, its a device wide thing that will affect every user who puts their device in their back pocket. The weak point will be exposed over time because of the way the phone was designed... but that's what apple gets for spending less money on R&D than any company BY FAR.
btw, anything can bend, even space/time. But to damage a product from normal use in 6 days is pathetic. Apple even made it worse by admitting that their QA/RA group has no standards. "We tested the hell out of these phones and we let them on the market with a known defect." How sad.
I'm sure we'll see some better statistics on this in the coming months, but part of being a good designer (or being a conscientious user) is knowing what aspects of a design are simply not going to have a return on the time and resources spent on addressing them.