Shattered iPhone 4 photographed to challenge Apple's durability claims - Page 2

Looks like an early prototype shell with the screw holes on the bottom. For all we know it was just "normal" glass in the early prototypes. Being empty would significantly weaken the glass since it has very little support. What a moronic thing to do... Get an early proto and break it for no reason beyond attention whoring.

Durability != invincibility.

Utter Bull.

This isn't a finished model, it doesn't have any internals, it's not built to final specifications and probably isn't even using the final materials. Quit the speculation and wait for this thing to be released.

The Apple-doubters are beginning to bore me. The iPad will fail. Wrong. The iPhone 4 will be a disappointment. Wrong. People are simply making themselves look stupid, it's the same posters with the same criticisms at every product launch, who then simply fade away and find something else to criticise.

A drop or impact, obviously, is a complex physical event with some element of LUCK. Forces can strike the phone in a zillion ways. An iPhone could survive a catastrophic event, or shatter from bad luck in a drop that seems minor, just because the right force got concentrated in the right way (like a karate master breaking boards with what seems like a small motion).

That’s why you test product durability with statistics—MANY drops/impacts on many units—not a single anecdote that’s mainly good for link-baiting. (And if the test is real, the fact that the iPhone survived two such drops is impressive, actually. Even if it eventually shattered under repeated abuse.)

Strengthening the iPhone and the glass is a matter of improving your CHANCES of a good outcome, not a matter of making the device magically impervious to damage even after repeated drops onto hard surfaces. What device from any company is immune to the laws of physics?

If you drop 100 iPhones and 100 Blackberries (or older iPhones or whatever) and the iPhone doesn’t show any better survival statistics, THEN you can say Apple’s exaggerating.

(As for it being in a “class by itself,” well, if the manufacturing process is new, then that statement is true even before tests are done.)


That’s not a good real-world test. In normal usage, an iPhone is likely to be run over by tanks, semi trucks, and houseboats, not passenger vehicles.

I don't buy this either, but bending something is much different than applying instant force.

Only way Apple is going to get out of this one is to do like the old Dell commercials & show their own video footage of a new iPhone being dropped onto concrete. Even if the story is bogus I think it's about time Apple backed up their durability claims with actual test data.

Here we go again...... Watch the financial blogs run amuck with this crap story. Some Russian claims to be an expert and it makes the frontpage......

I'm not making any accusations. I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me if the "reputable company" was not hastily put together for this very purpose. Further, wouldn't it be interesting is said company was owned by Google, MS, HTC? Raising durability fears is the only weapon these guys have left.

By the way, where is the torrent of complaints and photos of damaged iPad screens? Wasn't that huge piece of glass supposed to be problematic?

Or a "deliberate".

Okay to be fair, AppleInsider DID question their testing several times. read...

"Without explaining how..."

"The firm did not disclose the surface onto which the unit was dropped, nor did it perform any investigation into whether the device was more susceptible to damage sans its internal components..."

"While iFixYouri's one-off test should be considered anything but conclusive..."


But let's evaluate ifixit's testing shall we?

1. No real experiment details
2. No video
3. No iphone4 used (uh yeah sans internals means it's not an iphone4)
4. No third or fourth party validation

There are about 100 million iDevices in use today. I think the test data is in.

Did you read the article? It clearly states that it had no guts.

I think it is very important to note that ALL the pieces work together to give it structural integrity - this test is garbage. (Kinda like buying a new house, ripping out every interior wall and then bitching that it wasn't built right when it falls down after the first storm.)

I saw pictures of this and while I am not broken glass professional by trade I call BS on this just being dropped.

And what about Incase, Griffin etc. $29.95 is the base line price for all their cases



They are very open that it broke on the third attempt. and on the site they saw basically that they were dropping it face down.
Also no video and no shot of the back to prove it is an iphone. which they claim they had a real phone. somehow I'm thinking not even Powell had the exact phone but was testing internals and software and probably using the same old glass as the 3gs which is why what's his name didn't figure it out right off.

Glass breaks? OMG!

To be fair, Apple Insider faces the dilemma of whether to publish every bullshit story that surfaces about Apple or ignore it. I would have ignored this story, but the interesting thing is that they had to drop the iPhone THREE TIMES before it broke!

Message to users of Apple products: take good care of your devices. They are as durable as Apple can make them, so you might get lucky if you drop one once. Try to ensure it doesn't happen again, by careful handling and by using a protective case. If you drop one twice, be aware that you are lucky.

Apple users with demonstrably lower intelligence than you have gone one step further and shown that it is possible to destroy an electronic product if you physically abuse it enough. Just don't expect us to replace it under warranty.

Tensile strength (the bending) and shear strength (drop it on an edge) are pretty different. shear strength for any glass is much, much lower than tensile strength.

" sudden impact, which is "what causes 95% of glass shattering. Not because you bent the glass in your pocket, not because you dropped it and it bent, but really because of sudden impact." "

Seriously??!! No WAY!

it wasnt the jumping off the building that killed him, it was the sudden stop at the end.

Freaking Genius's !!!

wonder how the conversation in their office went...:
A : "lets drop the phone a few times and report what happens"
B : "no-one will report that the phone was fine after dropping it"
A : "I know, hand me that lump hammer, and ......&*&^% .. there... now tell them we dropped it"
B : "We'll be RICH !! "

I'll repost what I wrote on Gizmodo:

I guess my first question would be this: while the no-internals iPhone 4 they have might be the real deal, is a real deal development prototyp or production prototype, or is it exactly what you can buy on the 24th? If it's not a production version of the iPhone 4, it might be possible that the glass isn't made to the final spec, since it is more expensive than traditional glass.

Also, it doesn't really matter what kind of glass you use in a phone when you drop it and it impacts on the edge of the glass. First of all, people keep saying, "hey, why doesn't Apple use Gorilla Glass?" FYI, Gorilla Glass IS an aluminosilicate glass and very well could be what Apple is using in the iPhone 4, just without the brand name- you know how Apple is with touting other brand name components they use in their products [www.corning.com]

Compared to one of Corning's other better known products (Pyrex) as well as more typical glass, the mechanical properties aren't too different:

Young's Modulus (tensile modulus-how well it handles tensile and compressive loads, i.e. bending): Pyrex(borosilicate)=65 GPa, Gorilla (aluminosilicate)=73.3 GPa; Soda-lime Glass (stuff bottles and containers are usually made of)=72 GPa

Fracture toughness: Pyrex=0.77, Gorilla=0.7;

Shear Modulus (what comes into play when you drop glass on a corner):Pyrex= 28.2 GPa; Gorilla=30.1 GPa; Soda-lime=29.8 GPa.

As you can see, the strength of all of the glasses that determine how easily it braks it you press on the screen, they're all pretty close but the aluminosilicate Gorilla glass is slighty higher. The shear strength for ALL of the glasses is only about 40% of the Tensile strength, so dropping any of them on a corner will generally result in bad things. The structure of any glass is such that it doesn't handle shear loading on its edges very well, even if it has been chemically been strengthened to add scratch resitance and resistance to failure under bending or impact loads on its top surface.

Gorilla Glass could be susceptible to this kind of damage if dropped on a corner. The only tests I've ever seen of Gorilla glass is your standard rub a key over it's surface or hammer a nail into it and see how it doesn't scratch or catastrophically fail. Never have I seen an impact test from over 3 feet with it repeatedly landing on the corner.

Now, I don't know if what Apple is using is DEFINITELY Gorilla Glass, but it is very, very, likely, it's nearly identical. So, there goes that argument. There isn't any glass right now that Apple could use that wouldn't result in this kind of failure after repeated impacts on the edge of the glass. While it may be more prone to this type of damage since the glass edge is exposed, which is an Apple design choice, I don't think this is at all a case of Apple not living up to the promises it made about it being stronger- it is, just within the limitations of glass. Sure, they could have used plastic or metal, but we already know the issues with those.

I really wish people would do some more research before simply regurgitating one source (that has a bias towards fixing iPhones) or proposing solutions.

Most people don't realize that harder does not mean more shatter resistant. For example, the sapphire glass that is used in some watches is harder and therefore more scratch resistant than a substance called Hardlex used in Seiko watches. However, it is easier for sapphire to shatter or crack from direct impact than it is for Hardlex.

Yea same here. 3 or 4 weeks into owning my 3G, I rested it on my lap as I was driving, forgot it was there and got out of the car My iPhone landed on the gravely parking lot ground and I nearly had a heart attack. The bezel was quite marred, but the glass was spotless!

It is bending it slowly though, impact isn't always the same.


Some plastics are incredibly difficult to break too, such as polycarbonate. I can irreparably bend a 1/4" thick plate of aluminum with a good hit with a dead blow hammer. I did the same thing, same hit over the same span with the same thickness polycarbonate, and it just threw the hammer back at me and returned to its original position without any damage. But PC is very scratch-prone, it would need a special coating to protect it, which is available.


I don't think any one plans on dropping their phones, but it happens, which is why this comes up.

Anyway, we'll see how this holds up with a complete device.

Completely bogus test.

First, it's totally worthless to test the durability of a device when a major part of it is missing.

And second, if they only were able to get a partial phone (?) how do we know that it is the final shipping materials and not an early prototype made of something else?

I'm surprised AI even ran this.

That shatter pattern doesn't look right. It seems more like there was a single impact in the upper right corner, more like a hammer than a drop from some height. This is hinky, and I'm choosing to ignore this claim of theirs.

I don't know that it's that much but the site is questionable.

There's spelling and grammar mistake all over it.

It's made on Wordpress which I'm fairly sure you can back date entries just like on Blogger so were those Jan 2010 entries really written then? Hard to know

They offer services that are questionable as they are not done by Apple or any other Apple authorized provider. They don't mention being an AASP either. So anything they do would void your warranty.

They are clueless about tech to the point that they have no clue about 'real world testing' and make a firm statement that Apple leaked the phone etc.

There are several opinion sites that are missing them or have them ranked in the far reaches.

The site owner, according to whois, has 45 other domains. I'm guessing they all hawk his services.

He's been known to hit up boards, especially on Apple and refer folks to this great company, which saying it is his.

Forget about the iPhone. This test is more concerning to the hundreds of thousands of people who ride in bullet trains using this type of glass! It's too bad no one conducted such a test before they started using this glass.

After studying crack lines from the picture, more like it's been abused. reminds me when ipad released some dude drop and hit it in front of best buy store and was that bad like this post pictured. as we know ipad is a lot heavier than iphone.

that just from a stupid dudes try to put their name out as ifixyouri? plain stupid.

This test is Moot. a non-fully assembled phone, no control subject, no details on the test, no video, and a website that is clearly non original by trying to play off of iFixit's name.

The test is about as good as the iPad test performed by the mentally handicapped guy at PC World.

NExt we will find out that the new iPhone can't hold up to hot coffee and being run under water.

Here is an idea, they got this somewhere, and it has no internal components, what could this have been for, it is probably an ID mock up for photo shoots and visual demo's so who is to say the glass on the front is the final product it maybe some cheep glass they made up for this mock up.

For those of you who read into this, you are more of an moron than those at ifixiyouri.

Not sure what their motivation is, but what would someone attempt to smash a mock they just got their hands on, there is probably lots of things you could have done first but these idiot choose attempt to smash it on the ground.

The case has no internal components, nothing to sure up the glass, LOL, it's a hollow glass box they dropped (threw?) down until it broke, hardly a real world test. What a joke.

oh wait they ifixyouri has a 4G glass repair kit, how did they come up with that already. Maybe the glass that broke in their light FUD demo was they cheap glass they are temping to sell people.

http://www.ifixyouri.com/36-iphone-4g-glass-repair-kit

They even will fix your phone that took a swim, they charge you $100 to put it in an oven at low humidity and dry it out for you... People you can do this yourself in your own oven by setting to 125C to 150C and dry it out over a few hours and if you are lucky nothing shorted out and it works again.

I came to mention the same thing. I don't mind Apple stating it's harder as that counts when you are referring to scratching. I also don't mind Apple's marketing clouding the issue a bit. However, I would have expected AI, on and article about strength not including the comment about hardness.

I seem to recall Jon Ives stating that it's (paraphsaing) "it's comprable to sapphire crystal in strength and 30 times harder than plastic." I have no idea how strong sapphire is but I seem to recall it scores a 9 on the Moh's hardness scale, just under diamond. Like I said, i'm find with the fancy buzzwords and marketing doublespeak so long as it's technically accurate.

Still, I've never had a problem with my iPhone cracking and I assume this one will be even stronger.

edit: I found this nugget on Wikipedia:

One application of synthetic sapphire is sapphire glass. Here glass is a layman term which refers not to the amorphous state, but to the transparency. Sapphire is not only highly transparent to wavelengths of light between 170 nm to 5.3 μm (the human eye can discern wavelengths from about 380 nm to 750 nm[26]), but it is also five times stronger than glass and ranks a 9 on the Mohs Scale, and much tougher than tempered glass although not as much as synthetic stabilized zirconium oxide (such as yttria-stabilized zirconia). Along with zirconia and aluminium oxynitride, synthetic sapphire is used for shatter resistant windows in armored vehicles and various military body armor suits, in association with composites. Sapphire "glass" (although being crystalline) is made from pure sapphire boules by slicing off and polishing thin wafers. Sapphire glass windows are used in high pressure chambers for spectroscopy, crystals in high quality watches, and windows in grocery store barcode scanners since the material's exceptional hardness and toughness makes it very resistant to scratching.
edit 2: Apple's website states:

Engineered Glass
All the breakthrough technology in iPhone 4 is situated between two glossy panels of aluminosilicate glass — the same type of glass used in the windshields of helicopters and high-speed trains. Chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, the glass is ultradurable and more scratch resistant than ever. It’s also recyclable. I have to think that it's pretty damn strong.

Check this out. My friend is an industrial designer. He said those marks are caused by a small Dead Blow Hammer.

You can SEE the hammer head in the upper right hand corner of the unit. They used a hammer on the screen for sure. He uses these hammers on glass and plastic plates every day to test out durability and says this site ain't fooling no one. Someone straight shotted this unit with a hammer. Any fool can tell if you are educated about industrial materials.

http://www.labsafety.com/images/xl/E..._LBM74728Z.jpg

There's your culprit; again, the hammer head imprint is in the upper right corner.

Well, it is Apple. You other "designer" products, you may a large premium for the name.

Personally, I'd like to see tests from more respected sources on the 4's durability.

My wife dropped an old iPhone on the sidewalk once and it shattered the glass. Since then we have always had a rubber on the iphones and haven't lost anymore after many drops.
I would never have one of these very expensive gadgets out in the world without a rubber.

I guess we can expect Apple to be raked over the coals from here on out. Success is a funny thing.

Of course it wasn't a fully assembled unit. Did you read the article?
It states, "a complete iPhone 4 shell with its glass face in tact, but minus its internal componentry".


Fitting of what? It was an empty shell.

Why are these bogus companies seem to be coming out of FL this is like another www.psystar.com and this guy owns a bunch of i(insertname).com companies.

they were all started up in a last few months

Garbage article. I can't see any value in an unsubstantiated claim by some party out there in the world. Was it posted here simply for advertising revenue from traffic? At least some token throwaway suggestion was added to take it with a grain of salt...

If it was that fragile there's no way Apple would have allowed it to reach production. The PR would be too terrible. We'll get a good idea of how durable it is once it actually hits consumers.

I saw it at http://www.apple.com/iphone/design/#design-video
around 5:20.
Pretty impressive to bend like that and be hard too.

I just want to know, Will It Blend?

Nope, the real deal has the screws back - seems the one without the screws was the prototype. Or maybe both were and they chose the one with screws as easier to manufacture/stronger or whatever.