14 DAY TRIAL // Despite feeling confident that the #bendgate fiasco will go away as soon as more people get new iPhones into their own hands, Apple felt responsible to address the concerns about its handsets being susceptible to bending.
In a rare move, the company has invited a handful of journalists to step inside its testing facilities and see how its engineers intentionally stress the chassis through twisting and pressing, in order to confirm the maximum allowed weight and pressure that the devices can withstand.
State-of-the-art machinery
Apple isn’t kidding around. They are using some very high-caliber machines to test the sturdiness of their handsets, and they’re not afraid to show them to the world (video embedded below).
The company has allowed several journalists to shoot videos as the bending process takes place, and it even let the news folks interview its engineers, who spoke freely about the intentional bending tests.
Several iPhone 6 units are shown as they get bent, twisted, and pressured with various specialized machines designed to replicate real-life scenarios. The company also says it has handed devices to multiple employees to test them in real life.
Typical media sensationalism
It’s quite possible that we’re dealing with a typical wave of sensationalism, similar to the antennagate fiasco from 2010, where only a small number of devices were susceptible to sub-par performance, and in very specific circumstances.
Being the company that everyone loves to hate, Apple is left struggling to defend its designs and choice in materials.
Speaking to the press about the overhyped bending problem, Apple says it has recorded only nine cases where customers contacted the company for a replacement, because their handsets had warped.
It’s not clear how these people bent their iPhones and whether or not it was their fault, and it’s also worth noting that Apple has sold more than 10 million units so far. Subtract the numbers and it becomes obvious that the company isn’t dealing with a manufacturing defect.
Original reports
However, we’re not here to take any sides. iPhone 6 Plus is admittedly a pretty big phone, and aluminum isn’t exactly the toughest metal out there.
If this early bending report is any indication, it’s probably wise to assess your daily habits before choosing the bigger version.
On the MacRumors forums, user hanzoh explains, “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.”
The user provides the second image below as evidence. While there does appear to be a case of #bendgate, we can’t be too sure. What’s your take on this?
