I see in the US a clumsy someone’s launched a class action lawsuit against Apple over the ‘durability’ of the iPhone 4 glass screens … not tough enough for some butter fingers.
Funny, I’ve had iPhones for a few years, including the iPhone 4 and haven’t damaged them. Lucky, I guess.
That said, on the TV news I spotted Dave Gibson, leader of NZ band Elemeno P using his iPhone 3GS to check Facebook comments about his band not being ‘Christian-enough’ for the Parachute Christian Music Festival they are headlining at … oops. (Apparently it’s the second one he’s broken! Rock stars!)
Dave Gibson's smashed iPhone still works! (image TVNZ - click to watch video)
Let’s face it: ‘Durable’ doesn’t mean ‘indestructible’.
Psion Series 5 — not tough enough IMO.
Not that I’m completely unsympathetic, I broke TWO then state-of-the-art Psion Series 5 organisers in pretty tame accidents (like, bag fell off chair in cafe). Its much-more-robust predecessor, the Series 3, I dropped off my car roof onto concrete with hardly a blemish … a couple of times(!) The Series 5 just wasn’t robust enough in the housing — not shockproof enough. But we didn’t sue them. (My wife broke the screen of her Palm Tungsten once, too. Gee. we’re starting to sound as clumsy as the Californian litigant!) My iPhones have fared pretty well so far.
What’s your experience?
Looks what Google search on ‘iphone smashed screen’ pulled up …
Well, I guess they’ve sold MILLIONS of them…?
Peter as you know I have an Iphone.
I cannot think of a phone before it, that had such a big single once piece of glass. Today there are several.
I have dropped it often but normally at gym from sitting height and no issues, I have seen many smashed screens on I-phones.
I think for some people they consider cellphones as disposable items and treat them as such, I use too until I paid for my I-phone.
Which leads me too the comment about some people in US sueing Apple.
Maybe for the $1000+ price tag it should not break. ? But it cannot be indestructible. If you break a laptop screen you pay for it, what’s the difference?
Apple quote
“that the iPhone 4’s aerospace-grade glass is “Chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic” I wonder if consumers hear this and then take it as being bullet proof.
Yes the class action lawsuit seems to have entered into Kubler-Ross’s ‘Stages of Grief’ model.
I say: “You dropped it? It broke? Deal with it.”
Sure, I was annoyed at the 2nd Psion Series 5 screen I broke — glass, touch screen, larger than iPhone — so regarded it as unworthy (for us) to replace a third time… and moved on.
I think you’re right about people treating their gear too roughly. It’s a microcomputer!! Sheesh.
A couple of years ago I was doing some quick laundry work at the house. I kept hearing this unusual banging sound in my washing machine but thought nothing of it. After my clothing was washed I took everything out of the washer and popped it into the dryer, and again, the weird banging sound continued. But now it was much louder. I put the sound down to a baseball cap I had thrown in with the wash (the heavy caps tend to make this sound). I went about my business thinking nothing of it – until I went looking for my mobile phone.
“That was weird – where did I leave that thing?”
In the background the banging sound continued…
“I know – I left it on the window sill.”
Bang, bang, bang… went the dryer.
“Nope, not there…”
Uh oh! Connection made I ran for the dryer.
Incredibly: my phone waterlogged, steamed, and fogged, looked to be done for. But no! I pulled the thing apart and set it to dry on the window sill. The next day it worked perfectly!
It was a Motorola flip phone. I don’t remember the model or type, but I must say I was impressed.
A great tale, well told. Thanks JT.
Dunno if an iPhone would cope with that — as for pulling it apart, until recently, all one needed to take the back off an iPhone 4 was a small Phillips screwdriver — Apple recently switched to a pentalobe (sp?) screw for some reason. Tricky.
http://twitpic.com/3rt9sa