Apple Had Numbers on Bending iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Units →

Jason Koebler, writing at Motherboard:

Apple’s internal tests found that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are significantly more likely to bend than the iPhone 5S, according to information made public in a recent court filing obtained by Motherboard. Publicly, Apple has never said that the phones have a bending problem, and maintains that position, despite these models commonly being plagued with “touch disease,” a flaw that causes the touchscreen to work intermittently that the repair community say is a result of bending associated with normal use.

The information is contained in internal Apple documents filed under seal in a class-action lawsuit that alleges Apple misled customers about touch disease. The documents remain under seal, but US District Court judge Lucy Koh made some of the information from them public in a recent opinion in the case.

The company found that the iPhone 6 is 3.3 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s, and the iPhone 6 Plus is 7.2 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s, according to the documents. Koh wrote that “one of the major concerns Apple identified prior to launching the iPhones was that they were ‘likely to bend more easily when compared to previous generations.’”

The 6S and 6S Plus were more rigid than the 6 line, which resolved the bending issue for the most part, but customers are still dealing with the “touch disease” issue. It was caused by a chip on the logic board working its way loose over time. Apple opened a Repair Extension Program for the iPhone 6 Plus to address it.

Neither problem were good ones to have, but the information about how prone the 6 and 6 Plus were to bending is pretty rough.