Some users find scuffs, nicks on newly-purchased iPhone 5s [u] - Page 6

Exactly - if the car is delivered with a scratched wheel, then something is wrong with the dealer process.  Similarly, when Apple states "iPhone 5 is made with a level of precision you’d expect from a finely crafted watch — not a smartphone.  Never before has this degree of fit and finish been applied to a phone", buyers don't expect scratches on a brand new iPhone 5.  Apple has set this expectation by not delivering previous generations of iPhones, iPads, iPods, and Macs with noticeable scratches.

That doesn't look like an iPhone 4s at the end... It doesn't have the old 30-pin connector on the bottom...

What gives.

Apple should have used polycarbonate
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Confirmed-the-Samsung-Galaxy-S-III-is-polycarbonate-not-plain-plastic_id30304

Bill Gates is gonna want a cut of Apple creating all these "gates"!

This is the charteristics of medals, accept this..

This is no way a cheap SHAMESUNG can do this as it is made out of a plastic .

Look at your cars, painting on a alumin cant avoid this.

 

He doesn't get a dime until iTunes starts charging people for items they didn't purchase.

But there AREN'T any cases yet!!!! What are these guys gonna do?

They are going to have to place the phone on a silk pillow next to their bed (right next to the facial tissues) until a solution is found. That's the price of being first.

I worked at an aluminum extrusion company for a few years. Matte black is the worst for scratches unless you use Hardcoat.. And that stuff is environmentally nasty to do correctly.. There's ways to "fake it" but they are not as durable. For the White, Apple should have used bright dip which makes it extremely glossy, and harder to see scratches, or put a really heavy etch and/or sandblast surface on it, like the MacBooks.

It's a fact of life Aluminum just isn't very hard. You can do things to make it better, but a phone is a pretty harsh environment. That was why they went with the glass backs last time, even though they break.

My opinion, wait for a really nice bumper case to hit the shelves before buying the new iPhone. Sometimes it pays to stay off the "bleeding edge"... They call it that fo a reason.

Edited by mstone - 9/22/12 at 9:38pm

Yesterday, we received three iPhones and all of them have surface finish flaws. Two of the phones have blemishes in the anodize near one of the antenna gaps. Analysis under a microscope reveals that the surface texture is intact, and that the anodize fades from black to clear, indicating a problem during the anodizing process. Two of the phones have scratches in the surface that penetrate the anodize, revealing the underlying raw aluminum and one of the phones has a gouge in the chamfered edge that is fully anodized, indicating that the surface was damaged before anodizing.

 

As a product designer, I'm aware that sharp edges invite cosmetic damage. I'm also aware that the darker the finish on a bright metal, the more obvious damage to the surface finish becomes. Apple has produced black anodized iPods in the past, so this is not news to them, nor to us.

 

 

None of the blemishes is terribly obvious, but Jony Ive's waxing rhapsodic over the level of fit and finish on this phone invites the kind of scrutiny it's been getting.

ME 2!! I have a tiny scuff on the right side of my phone and it came this way.. I love this new phone but I did notice this on mine as well !

I'd definitely get that switched out.


There were complaints about cracks around the edges of the button and camera holes.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/08/07/31/iphone_3g_owners_report_hairline_cracks_in_their_phones_casing

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/10/our-iphone-3g-cracked-too-what-gives-apple/

I don't know if it was necessarily cheap plastic. It did hold up very well to abuse.


I wonder what a plain plastic is. There are so many kinds, with so many different properties at lots of price points. PC is very soft for a plastic, easily scuffed, I wonder what their scratch protection treatment is. iPods had PC faces too, it came to be a problem when the first nanos supposedly had scuffing problems.

PC is extremely hard to shatter though, seemingly impossible. PC would metaphorically laugh at something that would totally shatter acrylic. More resilient than the aluminum I usually use. It can bounce a thrown hammer back at you with no evidence of cracking or distortion, where aluminum of the same thickness (6mm) would dent.

Well, black paint on anodized aluminum, is always going to scuff. I was thinking about that the second I saw them, as cool as they look. My guess is the white one will scuff less, with the natural back, but I am getting a black one, and rounding up good old Otter.

So, okay. If Apple's so horrible at manufacturing, how come mine is flawless?

awww beat me to it

If it has such flaws out of the box then replace it, return it. Problem solved. Just like you would do with any other device.

By accident?

I was always very impressed with the iPhone 4/4S and it's furious resistance to scratches. I thought Apple did a magnificent job with that product.

The very first moment I picked up an iPhone 5 the other day, I thought, "Oh no...really?"

There is no surprise here that scuffs and scratches will be rampant. Most iPhone 5 will look awful after just a few weeks. Truly a shame because it looks so nice out of the box.

In my opinion Apple made a poor choice in producing such a scratch magnet.

What would you suggest? It's either glass which shatters or metal like aluminium or stainless steel which scratches very fast. Carbon fiber? i don't think it's green enough to be used in such quantities.

Glass - Users complaint it breaks easily when dropped but more scratch-resistant.
Aluminium - Users complaint it scuffs easily when scratched but more shatter-proof.
Titanium (Future) - Users complaint it's heavy but scratch-resistant and shatter-proof.

There is NO perfect material in this world. Each material (and anyone into material engineering will know this) has its pros and cons, just like each material treatment process has its pros and cons.

Bottom line - It is all about sacrifices and trade-offs.

Is there any correlation in manufacturing location? That's the first three digits of the serial number. My iPhone 5 that had the cosmetic issue was made in location C38.

 

LiquidMetal (Future future) - It's light, scratch resistant and shatterproof, but users complain that the phone costs five thousand dollars. 

 

The way I make sense of it is this:  

 

- the most common agents producing the scratching are sand (quartz crystals) and key rings (the steel parts)

- this is the same for all phones released so far (and will probably be the same in the future). 

- all of the suggested materials to make phones out of are lower on the Moh scale than quartz and steel. 

- people will continue to have key rings and go to the beach for the foreseeable future. 

 

Ergo and therefore ... scratching will always be a problem, and the material they use doesn't really matter for that reason.  

 

People either need to be careful (and then just live with it when a scratch happens), or they need to get a case.  

 

Really, the only way around these inescapable facts, is if Apple comes up with some miracle materials that haven't been used before.  They've been working very hard on this for years, but until (or if) this happens, phones will always scratch and Apple's OCD customers will always complain about it. 

Or just be clean :) My 4S has zero scratches, at least ones that are big enough that i could see under bright light at a good viewing angle. I have a white version and no case. I had a case, but it just doesn't feel right with the case. So clean pockets and take care of the things you own and everything will be ok.

Paging Dr. Mohs... duh

My white 32 GB iP 5 is flawless.

If your phone is ok, why don't you put Zagg Invisible Shield Maximum Protection on it?  I had these on my iPad and Galaxy Nexus after a numerous chunky cases.  You will appreciate the design of your product.  Additionally it provides grip (It does not slip easily -a big plus).  

The clear protectors don't cover the edges of the phone completely, so they don't protect as well as a case does.

 

I think it's expected that the iPhone 5's aluminum finish won't be as durable as the stainless steel and glass on the 4/4S, but those who have scuffs on their phones from the factory are understandably upset. Some people are very careful with their phones and always use a case. If there are scratches on their phone out of the box, it's by no fault of their own and that's why I think it bothers them. Some of them have it pretty bad: http://scuffgate.net/

As soon as I heard Apple was "painting" the metal, I knew this would happen. One of the great design decisions by apple has been letting the native color of its materials shine through.

The iPhone 4 was probably as close to industrial design perfection as a phone can get. It's symmetrical front and back and even if you should happen to somehow damage it, it would be hard to notice due to no color change.

The decision to go black seems to be simply to differentiate from the 4.

But it was a mistake.

The silver color also added a classy high tech contrast that is now missing.

The only thing apple did with this design was to add manufacturing cost and complexity.

And aluminum isn't going to allow for less interference than s glass backing...

 

Which was black…

 

Nope.

There's something wrong with the anodizing processes if there is:

Discolouration and fading

A surface that its easily scratched

 

Anodizing is a process which 'grows' an oxide layer on top of the metal surface, the anodized layer provides protection for the metal finish and prevents corrosion when the surface is exposed to conditions which would normally result in damage to the underlying metal.  When examined under a scanning electron microscope the surface is far from flat, it has pits in it, which in a thin layer anodising process could reach the metal below.

 

Black dye is applied to the anodized surface during the treatment process, its not a paint, it is a colour absorbed into the anodized layer,  black anodizing is not easy to achieve, often coming out a very dark brown.

 

Not all anodizing is equal,  it all depends on the effort (=time and cost) put into the anodizing process,  you can have thin (5 micron) up to thick (30 micron and thicker),  thin isn't particularly effective at resisting scuffs and scratches,  a thick hard anodized coating (because hard anodizing is a different physical process from normal anodizing)  is effective at resisting key scuffs and grains of sand etc, it all depends upon the conditions,  drop your iP5 onto any non soft surface and its likely to suffer some damage. 

 

From the complaints and pictures I have seen, Apple has a quality control problem in manufacturing of the back panels, assembly, and final inspection - probably all driven by the need to get millions of phones out to customers with a very short manufacturing lead time prior to 21st September - no phone should be coming out of the packaging with dings, dents and scrapes or scuffs, aluminium is easily damaged in transit, especially if the finish required is near perfect (such as a mirror finish) so we used to paper wrap each length prior to shipping, naturally the customer paid for such care in handling, packing etc in the price they paid.

 

If the colour on an iP5 scratches off - its paint, not anodized, anodizing never produces a gloss finish and takes a lot of effort to scuff and scratch.

 

Why do I know this?- a BSc. degree in Metallurgy and Materials Science and a year in an Aluminium Extrusion plant... but I confess to checking a few details from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anodising as its over 30 years since I graduated and the little grey cells were a bit vague on quite how deep the anodised coating could be.
 

I guess he was referring to the edge, the antenna that wasn't black on the iPhone4/4S.

I don't think this is a problem that affects a limited number of units. I went to collect my pre-ordered black iPhone on Saturday and three consecutive units were unboxed with tiny scratches, and eventually the shop said that 3 was the limit that they could open for me, so I had to accept one or go back on the waiting list. I told them I didn't want it anymore. Posted about this on the forums, but it was promptly deleted.

Didn't happen to 4S at least not as wide spread as 5.  I think that's what people complained about.  5 should be better than 4S or at least the same as.  Don't you think so?

Aluminum was a dumb idea for a device that is handled on a daily basis.

 

Sorry, Dieter Rams would probably agree.

 

It's gonna scratch whether that be in production or when it makes contact with your car keys.

 

That said, is aluminum CHEAPER to mill than plastic is to mold?

 

Is Apple's reasoning to use aluminum solely based on costs to produce?

A couple people here know what they are talking about. I have not held this phone, but I suspect it is anodized and dyed. anything else would be substandard, except maybe powdercoat. A properly done anodized finish does not chip easily. It is dense aluminum oxide, a very hard substance used in abrasives. If you think this is an acceptable finish, please teach yourself about anodizing.

This process can go wrong anywhere from writing a crap finishing spec, to poor process control in bf China. If the bath is being pushed too hard, the current supply is cheap, the coating is too thin, or the finish is not sealed properly, you can get such a result. My guess is that apple or foxconn knew and shipped anyway. Because the way they are constructed does not make rework easy, and bratty consumers won't wait.

Not true at all. The way the packaging is designed, there is no possibility that the metal on the phone could get scratched inside that box, as long as the box is intact.

This is NOT a manufacturing process flaw. Instead, it is what you get with anodized aluminum. The problem can be minimized with "hard anodizing" but cannot be completely prevented.
 

 

Stupid laptops.

 

Unfortunately, you're not one of them.

 

There is no chance this is powdercoated. You don't need to hold the phone to know this. Anodized aluminum does not "chip" easily but does scratch relatively easily against another hard surface (yes, there is a difference between chipping and scratching). It makes sense that the relatively sharp edge of the chamfer is vulnerable to nicks.

 

Crap finishing spec for anodizing? Bad sealing the cause of scratches? "Dense" aluminum oxide (what would not not-so-dense Al2O3, pray tell)? Pul-lease do not make stuff up. Anodizing hardens aluminum but even if the process is perfect, it makes the surface scratch-resistant but NOT scratch-proof.

Edited by Harbinger - 9/24/12 at 1:25pm

 

Not to mention stupid water bottles, that stupid first iPhone, many versions of iPod/iPod Nano, flashlights, cameras, ...