GADGET
GIZMO SPECIAL
THE BENT iPHONE6
Only A Radical Design Shift Can Fix Apple's Bendy iPhone Problem
ABANDONING ITS FAVORITE MATERIAL MIGHT BE THE BEST WAY FOR APPLE TO FIX ITS DESIGN FLAW.
The
iPhone 6 is Apple's
thinnest iPhone ever. But as people are discovering, it's also
the bendiest,
with many customers complaining that
the frame of the iPhone 6 can be permanently bent just
by sitting on it when it's in your back pocket or putting it in a
tight pair of jeans.
Unbelievably,
some people claim this isn't a design flaw. Famous Apple pundit John
Gruber, for example, argues that
we should be "amazed" that the iPhone 6 doesn't snap in
half under pressure, and dismisses complaints by saying: "If you
feel pressure like this on your iPhone 6 in your pocket, you need
looser pants. And if you put your phone in your back pocket and sit
on it, I’m not sure what to tell you."
This
argument is stupid, and you shouldn't believe it.
Andrew
Dent,
vice president of material research at Material ConneXions, says
that smartphones which
permanently bend under normal use very definitely suffer from a
design flaw, one that Apple might have to change its whole design
aesthetic to fix in the future.
"When
you design a product, the whole point of material selection is to
find a material that is suitably durable to hold up to everyday use,"
Dent tells Co.Design.
"The aluminum Apple makes iPhones out of is durable and sturdy
at a certain thickness, but it's a balancing act. If the iPhone 6 is
bending in people's pockets, that means some Apple engineer shaved a
few ounces off of the material that they shouldn't have."
An
iPhone 6 bending without snapping in half isn't an example of quality
engineering, says Dent. No one should be "amazed" by it.
Like plastic or glass, aluminum has the ability to flex and spring
back into its regular shape as long as the material isn't bent past
its yield point. What makes the materials different, though, is that
while glass shatters and plastic snaps, metal permanently
bends.
But
when looking at it through the lens of industrial design, a bent
iPhone 6 is the same as one that has been snapped in half or
shattered. It almost certainly was not created with the expectation
that the frame would bend, and it'll never be the same again. Even if
you bend it back, it'll be creased, and more susceptible to bending
in the same place in the future. "Even if it otherwise still
works, a bent iPhone 6 is a broken iPhone 6," says Dent.
No
wonder Apple is moving to replace
bent iPhone 6's
under warranty. But according to Dent, this isn't a problem that we
should expect to just go away: Apple can't keep on making its devices
thinner and lighter without ultimately abandoning aluminum.
"As
things get thinner and lighter, other industries generally move
towards materials like titanium and composites to maintain
durability," says Dent. "But that's not the aesthetic Apple
is known for." That's because titanium and most composite
materials like carbon and glass fiber need to be painted or otherwise
coated in order to be sold inconsumer
products.
But as Apple discovered with the release of theTitanium
PowerBook G4 back
in 2001, paint and coatings
chip and
crack. They just don't have the so-called "material
integrity" that
Jony Ive likes.
There
is one possible
solution to
Apple's aluminum problem: liquid metal,
a space-age alloy capable of making incredibly durable,light
devices.
But although Apple has been sitting on the exclusivemanufacturing
rights to
liquidmetal in consumer
electronics for
the last four
years,
the company has only made one product
of the material so far: the SIM
ejection pin for the iPhone 3G.
The fact that Apple hasn't yet shipped a more sizable
product with
liquidmetal strongly insinuates that they can't scale up production
affordably.
If
Apple can't produce liquidmetal at scale, that leaves Apple only a
couple options going forward if they want to avoid bending iDevices.
They can use thicker and heavier aluminum, which means that future
iPhones will no longer necessarily be thinner or lighter than the
ones that preceded it. Or they can change the aesthetics that the
company is known for, trading aluminum iPhones for painted titanium
or composite fiber iPhones instead. But to do the latter means
abandoning the material that almost all of its current products
revolve around.
In
the meantime, Apple seems to be claiming that whatever
the issue is, it's not widespread.
They say only nine people have contacted them about bent iPhones so
far. That might be true, but it also seems like a clever strategy
to distract from a legitimate design flaw.
Keep in mind, Apple did exactly the same thing
during Antennagate too,
claiming the issue was being overblown, no one was complaining, and
dropped calls weren't happening. But despite Apple's claims at the
time, Antennagate was a
real design problem: They ended up tweaking the design of the iPhone
4's antenna in the iPhone 4S, then dropping it entirely for future
iPhones.
Whatever
Apple does, don't expect the bending iPhone problem to go away
immediately. No matter what, it's a problem that requires
eitherspace-age
metal or
an entirely new approach from Apple to fully solve. In the meantime?
Ignore our
advice and
get yourself a nice sturdy case.
JOHN BROWNLEE
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3036262/only-a-radical-design-shift-can-fix-apples-bendy-iphone-problem?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&position=3&partner=newsletter
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