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Apple FUD Ping!
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Posted on 10/09/2010 12:41:13 AM PDT by Swordmaker
Whether or not you've experienced the iPhone 4's famed death grip, or even believe it's a real phenomenon (and based on extensive personal experience I can assure you that it is), the whole Antennagate scandal undoubtedly left a deep scratch on the iPhone's squeaky-clean sheen. As we all now know, the story ended with a semi-contrite Steve explaining how all cellphones have "weak spots" and that iPhone 4 customers upset with their device's wireless performance would be entitled to a free iPhone case. The offer has since expired, but it had the desired effect: people pretty quickly shut up about the issue, and Apple got back to the business of selling a LOT of iPhones.
But there's another issue brewing behind the scenes that's sent Apple's iPhone engineering team back into the bunker for preemptive damage control. If you've been into an Apple Store (or visited Apple's site) recently, you might have caught a hint while browsing iPhone 4 cases (or lack thereof). Although Apple has just this week reestablished a wide variety of cases for sale, as of only a couple of days ago the only iPhone 4 case Apple even so much as mentioned on its site was its own first-party Bumper -- and still conspicuously absent from its lineup are slide-on cases. As it turns out, was by no means a cynical ploy to maximize profits.
See, the interesting thing about how Apple works is they make money on all angles of the ecosystem. Similar to how Apple acts as the gatekeeper for the software it sells in the App Store and then takes a cut of that software's revenues, Apple also officially licenses third-party companies to make accessories for its various products (which are designated MFI, as in: "Made for iPhone," "Made for iPad," "Made for iPod," etc.), often selling those accessories in its Apple Stores.
Although the numbers have never been disclosed, Apple supposedly gets 10-15% off the top of all officially licensed MFI accessories (in recent years this has said to have changed to a flat rate per accessory). Giving Apple a cut hurts margins, but it also opens up a big opportunity: if Apple chooses to carry your officially licensed product, it will give it shelf space in one of the highest grossing retail chains (per square foot) in the world. Of course, if Apple sells your gear in the Store, that means they also get to take another hefty cut of that margin (as would any retailer); it may sting, but as it happens most companies are desperate to have their products sold in the Apple Store, and begrudgingly put up with Apple double-dipping on their margins (in no small part because competition in the accessories business is so fierce these days).
Naturally, this is really good business for Apple. It means that the highly lucrative accessories market is even more profitable for Apple than any other individual company since they're skimming off the top of every licensed product sold -- which is part of the reason it was so bizarre to see so few iPhone accessories sold for the first time in years, and at a moment when Apple is selling more iPhones than ever before. Yes, the free case program could have had something to do with this shift, but there's a huge market for cases outside the standard fare (like, say, those with integrated battery packs). If the absence of these accessories seems as strange to you as it does to me, well, there's a reason why.
According to my sources both inside and outside Apple, after Antennagate the iPhone engineering team identified another potential design flaw that appears to have sent them into lockdown, and has them working behind the scenes in what's been described to me as something of a quiet panic to preempt any further tarnishing the iPhone brand. Apple has apparently found that non-bumper style cases -- specifically those that slide onto the iPhone 4, which are occasionally prone to particulate matter getting caught between the rear of the phone and the case -- can cause unexpected scratching that could quickly develop into full-on cracking or even much larger fracturing of the entire rear pane of glass. To put it another way: Apple is afraid you might buy a standard slide-on iPhone case, put it on your phone, and then discover the next time you take it off that the entire back of your device has been shattered by no fault of your own.
So before things escalated out of control and they had "Glassgate" on their hands, Apple swiftly moved to block sales of nearly all third-party iPhone 4 cases from its stores (which it just this week reversed, but only online -- physical retail stores still aren't yet stocking cases). Internally, I've heard the iPhone team has grown to be very concerned by this issue with slide-on cases, and has created a lab and large new test program specifically to investigate this further. (If the bumper seemed like kind of an odd concept for a case when it was announced, now its design, which doesn't come in direct medial contact with either of the iPhone 4's glass surfaces, seems to make a lot more sense.)
In the mean time, many third-party manufacturers with slide-on cases are all but dead in the water; accessory companies that invested heavily in developing and shipping these iPhone 4 cases now find themselves waiting indefinitely to get their products back into their top sales channel: the Apple Store. And as you might expect, Apple hasn't exactly been to clear about when -- or even if -- it's going to get back to business as usual selling the full selection of iPhone 4 cases. It should also come as no surprise that Apple representatives declined to comment on this story.
And then there's the matter of all those iPhone 4 owners. Whether Apple likes it or not, slide-on cases iPhone 4 cases will continue to be sold, and many even bear the "Made for iPhone" mark, presumably licensed before it went into Glassgate-lockdown. Apple surely can't ignore any iPhone 4s cracked -- with a certain dash of irony -- by those users going out of their way to protect their phone from undue damage, but whether they will (or can) find a resolution to what the what the company is treating as another design flaw is yet to be seen. Either way, something tells me there's a pretty good chance next year's iPhone probably won't have any glass on its back.
The glass on both the front and back of the iPhone4 is Corning Gorilla glass, known for its resistance to scratching, far harder than ordinary glass. . . I doubt that a few grains of dust would inflict such severe damage as to cause it to weaken the glass to let it shatter.
I find the timing of this single unsourced, "report," based totally on innuendo and being touted heavily by Gizmodo, to be suspicious, coming on the heels of credible reports of a Verizon iPhone in the offing. It has all the earmarks of a counter hype advertising hype campaign ploy... FUD in its purest form.
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i haven’t bought an iphone 4 because of antennagate and glassgate. Brittle Glass on both side was a bad idea. Yes its brittle
Seems a bit dubious and alarmist to me too, but I think I'd have to see the aftermarket case mounted on the iPhone along with a long term field test to give an educated opinion here.
If it's true there's a quiet panic about this at Apple, then they must have encountered this at least once.
Bleah. I have a clear sliding case on mine and I do not fear the Shatter.
I’ve used the iPhone 4 for a while, and even managed to drop it from about 3/4th of a foot from the floor.
The best part about glass is the unrivalled optical quality, with zero distortion artefacts that give its plastic-based competitor products their cheap, tacky look and poor wear resistance.
The phone I’ve had has jingled with keys and coins in the pocket for hours at a time, and yet, always manages to come out scratch-free. Try that with plastic.
Apple was right by going with glass. It’s what keeps its product’s physical build quality leagues ahead of the competition.
For the single-digit percent of iPhone users who might end up shattering the glass, too bad for them. For the rest, the superior physical quality is more than worth the disadvantages.
"Brittle?" 4Cane, do you have even a clue what Corning Gorilla Glass is?
No? I thought not.
Have you ever dropped a Corning Ware plate on a ceramic tile floor and watched it bounce? I have. That's OLD technology compared to Corning Gorilla Glass.
Gorilla Glass's Young's Modulus of 71.7 is higher than the YM of 67 of aluminum.
No, 4Cane, It is NOT brittle.
Still my guess is that you won’t have to wait a full year for an iPhone with a Liquidmetal back.
A few grains of dust or even sand may not scratch it, but I bet the diamond ring of someone’s wife would. Then you could make the claim that Apple shouldn’t have used the glass, and they end up with another media frenzy to quash.
why does this thing need
glass on the back?
amen!
But Gorilla Glass has a fracture toughness of 0.7 MPa*m^0.5 while aluminum has a fracture toughness of around 20 MPa*m^0.5. So given the presence of an initial crack, the gorilla glass is much more likely to fail in brittle fracture while the aluminum would be more likely to fail through fatigue.
Gorilla Glass has a high resistance to scratch damage compared to a soda lime glass and is thus less likely to initiate a crack by the user. However, if an initial flaw occurs at manufacture it will likely fail in a brittle manner.
One thing I’d be interested in knowing is if this glass is being made by Corning in China. If it is, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the problem with the glass is from manufacturing defects and not from user scratches. The glass might be failing when an initial flaw is present and someone puts the case on causing a load that raises the stress intensity factor at the crack above the fracture toughness of the glass. If so, my advice to Apple would be to have the glass made in Korea, Japan or the US and ship it to China for assembly.
The Apple online store does not have any slide-on cases for the iPhone 4. They do carry slide-on cases for the 3G/3GS, and I know that the Incase Slider for the 4 exists; I’ve seen it at Best Buy.
Those cases are an extremely snug fit, and on the older phones a grain of sand or grit could indeed scratch the back; I had a couple of deep gouges on the back of my 3G. The basic problem rings true, and it makes sense that Apple would at least ask questions about it — but I don’t know enough about the materials science to know how great the risk is, or whether a scored glass back would be more prone to breaking.
MacMall.com has a number of nice accessories for iPad, iPhone, etcetera on sale right now. I love the Apple Store, at retail and online, but they’re not the only source. MacMall’s been around for decades, first as a direct mail catalog and now online.
Korea...
My old iPhone (3G) got its first scratches on the back (plastic) from sliding in a case.
I have my new iPhone 4 in a speck case from Apple and don’t take it in and out.
Brittle? Antennagate? Are you sure you haven’t bought an iPhone 4 for other reasons - like you don’t want one or don’t like Apple?
When the signal test was opened back up, I had to try awfully hard to get the signal strength to diminish from the so-called “death grip” - it took specific placement of my fingers (I have big hands) to get the big drop in signal - it was a completely unnatural hand position for me. I might could see it being a problem for someone with small hands, wrapping their hands all the way around to hold the phone.
4cane, you are embarrassing yourself. If you intend to maintain any credibility at all on FR you would be well served to just slither away from these Apple threads.
I have the rubber skin on mine...works great
Skech slide case on my 3Gs is very nice and adds some girth.
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