Yesterday, a video and photos surfaced showing what appears to be an iPhone 6 with its aluminum frame bent. The Internet quickly erupted with #BendGate tweets and photos. Some re-enforced the claims, while others lightened the situation. Insert your favorite dirty joke about pockets, bananas, and getting bent; but all joking aside, this is a major problem for the iPhone 6 and for Apple.
Your mobile device is one of your most used devices, so it shouldn’t bend after a week of use. Since many people carry them in their pocket, they definitely shouldn’t bend from your backside either. That said, it’s not a bad idea to create a bendable or flexible phone – the Motorola Razr had a good run as a top-selling flip phone, and LG created the LG G Flex, the phone with a curve so you can view the screen from every angle. But Bendgate is not something Apple had intended.
What do you do when you bend your iPhone 6? If you did put your iPhone 6 in your pocket and found it now has a slight curve to it, after exclaiming a few choice words (&%*$#@$), you should contact Apple. They may or may not replace it based on the situation. According to the Apple warranty as noted by TNW:
“The iPhone warranty covers failures caused solely by manufacturing defects” and “Catastrophic damage caused by abuse and interoperability caused by installation of unauthorized software is not serviceable.”
So Apple will have to determine if your bent device was caused by a manufacturing defect or abuse (e.g. in your pocket).
If your iPhone 6 is still as straight as the day you purchased it, you should try to prevent it from bending by protecting your precious device by encasing it in an armor shield (to help strengthen what appears to be a weak shaft).
Finally, if you’re like me, you didn’t buy an iPhone 6. You waited. Why? Because I learned from Apple with #antennagate when the iPhone 5 launched. So if you haven’t yet purchased an iPhone 6, maybe you should wait to see what happens… Let the 10 million others work out the kinks. That is, of course, unless you updated your seasoned iPhone to iOS 8 and it now functions better as a paperweight than as a smartphone. Fortunately, I haven’t done that either, because my phone doesn’t have 5.8 GB of free space without first deleting some apps and hundreds of my favorite photos and videos.
Oh Apple – I love you.
