Bumpers Scratching Your iPhone 4 - Say It Ain’t So

Although picking an Apple Discussions thread as the basis of a news piece demands that a widespread scenario be debated, this particular story may be of interest to early iPhone 4 adopters who are also planning to purchasing a Bumper from Apple. According to one iPhone 4 owner, Apple’s Bumpers may scratch the outer steel frame when dressing up / undressing the device.

The person in question, identified on Apple’s Discussions forums as “aditz” claims he and his wife each own an iPhone 4 and are experiencing the same issues. The topic, entitled “iPhone 4 bumpers - read this,” caught our eye earlier today, so we decided to give everyone the heads up one what could be yet another issue surrounding Apple’s new-generation iPhone.

“All those iPhone 4 owners that use the bumper should know(this might be old news to some of you) that even the bumper scratches the beautiful polished steel with no dust involved,” aditz writes. “Don't believe me? Take your bumper off and analyse it, I do really hope that yours is OK. The bumpers(as me and my wife have 1 each) went on the phone in the store after taking the phone out of the box so we can't really say that the phones have been naked at any time.” He adds: “So the way I see it the bumper "fixes" the reception problem in some cases but breaks(scratches) the phone....wow! I'm stunned, again!!  Please let me know if you guys experience the same problem,” his initial post ends.

Fellow forum posters are reluctant to believe aditz’s story, while some go as far as mocking him, saying “You probably shouldn't have even taken it out of the packaging.” Admittedly, others claim to have no issues whatsoever, although the thread is relatively young - just two pages worth of replies. Additionally, aditz fails to note whether he purchased original Bumpers from Apple, while throwing in a couple of pictures would have aided to added more credibility to his story.

However, in a followup post, he reveals that dust getting in between the iPhone’s steel frame and the bumper may have resulted in the scratches both he and his wife are claiming to see on their devices. "I noticed inside the case to dust like raised plastic imperfections that I'm sure are the reason for the scratches.I have done my best to smooth them off... fingers crossed," he writes.

Whichever scenario is confirmed as the real cause of these scratches, Softpedia is curious to know if anyone else is experiencing these issues. Hopefully, this is just a false alarm.

But here’s a piece of advice for staying on the safe side: it may be wise to check the Bumper for dust, sand, or anything else fitting aditz’s description before strapping it onto the phone. Considering you too are having signal problems, the least you can do is enjoy using a decent looking iPhone 4.