Bendy iPhone 6 Plus And Buggy iOS 8 Bugfix Bite Apple (Updated)
After its triumphal iPhone6/6 PLus launch that saw 10 million of the devices sold in their first weekend on the market, things soured for Apple significantly Wednesday with an eruption of reports of handsets getting bent by simply being carried in trouser pockets. More bad news: Apple released an iOS 8 .1 bugfix to address teething problems with the first iteration of the mobile operating system, which turned out to introduce new bugs bad enough that Apple quickly pulled the update.
Evidently, iOS 8 needs some serious help. Cult of Mac’s Buster Hein cites Crash analytics data from Crittercism finding that iOS 8’s crash rate is 78 percent higher than with iOS 7, with an average crash rate of 3.56% across all devices. Read more on that at:
http://bit.ly/1qwKu8l
As for the bendy iPhones, it appears that Apple has finally hit and exceeded the practical thinness limit for aluminum bodied mobile devices. With the iPhone Sixes, Apple reverted to aluminum for iPhone enclosures, after using glass since the iPhone 4. The glass iPhone backs are rigid and unbendable, so the thinning form factor trend through versions 4 and 5 did not manifest any bending issues from pocket carriage.
However, the iPhone 6 models are the thinnest iPhones ever so far, and housed in aluminum, which is quite malleable under stress, so it stands to reason that they would be susceptible to bending when jammed into pockets, especially in tight trousers.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Ben Grubb, and Mashable’s Christina Warren have representative summaries of the problem.
You can find an iPhone 6 Plus Bend Test video here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=znK652H6yQM
And for some context, a Galaxy Note 3 Bend Test (iPhone 6 Plus Follow-up) here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=FwM4ypi3at0
Given the physical limitations that obtain, it’s hard to imagine this issue being fixable without major re-engineering, so iPhone 6 and especially 6 Plus users will pretty much be obliged to keep the handsets out of tight pants pockets and other situations where bending stress is an issue, or keep them in rigid cases, which really amounts to common sense. If you want super-skinny phones, then you’ll have to accommodate the basic laws of physics.
Seeking Alpha blogger Justin Jaynes has posted an excellent, voice-of-reason riposte to the FUDfest over the “bendy iPhones” that’s well worth reading. Jaynes observes that the “iPhone 6+ isn’t indestructible; most people should be aware that if you apply stress to metal it will bend, and taking this a step further, if you bend the metal too far it will stay bent.
As for the iOS 8 bugginess, if you’ve updated an older device and are not happy with the result, TapScape’s Ron Carlson has posted a handy tutorial on “How to Downgrade iOS 8 to iOS 7.1.2.”
If you’re on an iPhone 6, you can’t downgrade to iOS 7, but if the issue is the iOS 8.0.1update making things worse, Cult of Mac has posted remedial instructions titled “How to fix your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus after the iOS 8.0.1 update destroys it.”