BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Battery Woes Just The Latest iPhone Hardware Problem, But Is There Real Trouble At Apple?

This article is more than 7 years old.

In my "Apple is Doomed" post the other day, one of the many claims I noted that's been running around is: "Even Apple's hardware is terrible." And there have been high-profile hardware issues with both the iPhone 6 ("Bendgate" and "Touch Disease") as well as the 6s which suffered from battery issues. But while it should probably come as no surprise some of the hundreds of million of iPhones sold each year have hardware issues, the question is whether Apple's handling of this is evidence of some decline in quality -- however that might be measured.

Better late than never: See if your iPhone 6s battery needs fixing

A Galaxy of woes

In most years since the iPhone's introduction nearly a decade ago, Apple has released just one new phone annually. That puts a great deal of pressure on the company to get it just right. Back in 2010, though, the iPhone 4 was in trouble almost from the moment it was released. The "Antennagate" fiasco was caused by a design flaw that Apple initially remedied by a combination of blaming users, offering free cases, and then redesigning the iPhone in subsequent models.

Apple would then go 4 years before experiencing a truly embarrassing iPhone hardware fiasco. The iPhone 6 brought a brand new design, with a thinner chassis that had some very clear weak points. The result was that the phone was prone to bending if placed in back pockets. Apple generally offered replacements to affected customers and made some small but critical design changes to the iPhone 6s chassis to make it much more difficult to bend.

Over time, it seems an unfortunate side effect of the chassis flex -- at least for some iPhone 6 Plus users -- is that they later suffered a problem with their screens that became known as Touch Disease. Only very recently did Apple acknowledge the problem with a reduced cost repair program. Similarly, a long-known battery issue affecting some iPhone 6s owners was also recently given special status.

The elephant on the airplane

Anyone who has flown on a plane recently has been reminded the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is now as forbidden aboard aircraft as firearms and most 5 oz. bottles of shampoo . That brand-harming announcement is likely to be made for years to come, in no small part due to Samsung's slow and arguably inept handling of the exploding battery issues with that model. Not only was the Note 7 an actual danger, the public-relations nightmare surrounding it meant it had to be removed from the market entirely.

Compared to that situation, Apple hasn't experienced much trouble at all -- especially given that it has now sold more than 1 billion iPhones. But that isn't to let the company off the hook. For all the rapid response to both Bendgate and Antennagate, the more recent woes are noteworthy in that they concern 1 and 2-year-old models and only very recent official statements.

For all Apple's success is producing finely machined aluminum iPhones by the container load while maintaining high profit margins, the company hasn't apparently gotten much better at identifying problems that affect substantial numbers of users and offering solutions quickly. The company has hundreds of direct touch points through its retail stores as well as an active customer-support forum, a fairly new Twitter presence, and traditional e-mail and phone support. For all of this it either (a) doesn't have tools to quickly mine its data sources to learn about widespread hardware problems (b) doesn't have a strong inclination to create repair programs for dealing with them or (c) doesn't seem to find these situations as important as its customers.

First-hand experience

For what its worth, I had an iPhone 6 affected by the bad-battery issue. As a user of numerous Apple products, my visit to one of the company's retail stores to address it wasn't the first time I had visited a Genius Bar. It was, however, the first and only time I walked out shaking my head in bewilderment. The very short version of the story is that I had already spent a great deal of time troubleshooting the problem, was fairly convinced it was hardware-related, had a phone covered under the AppleCare extended warranty and was told to spend a bunch of time reinstalling everything on my phone for what amounted to the third time. Had the conversation occurred now instead of over the summer, my battery would have been replaced and I would have left happy.

The reason I'm sharing this anecdote is because its often difficult for those of us writing about customer frustration to truly understand it. In this case, though, I not only experienced the same pain of any iPhone user who relies heavily on the device daily but found it had become untrustworthy, but also can now look back and wonder. Was there really no way Apple could have understood by summer this problem was real? Should their not have been a procedure in place to offer a hardware fix to insistent customers and track the results?

For a smaller manufacturer, these would be very difficult questions. Tracking down hardware issues can be especially difficult when failures are infrequent and sales aren't especially large. But Apple doesn't sells an awful lot of iPhones. That most of them work flawlessly -- at least on the hardware side -- throughout their lifespan is a testament not only to the build quality but also to the design decisions that help make them long lasting. The recent move away from a physical button in the iPhone 7, for example, removes yet another point of mechanical failure and should help future iPhones to become even more reliable.

So while it's fair to criticize Apple's slow response to some of these longstanding iPhone issues and reasonable to ask if the company can't do better given its assets and resources, it seems like a stretch to argue iPhone quality is in a meaningful downward trend. If others feel differently, let me know in the comments or on Twitter.

Updates: A Chinese government consumer watchdog group released an official statement calling Apple out over continuing iPhone battery issues, FORBES coverage is here. Apple has been contacted with respect to this story as well as that one. Any replies provided by the company will be reflected in updates to this post.

Follow me on Twitter