Bend it like iPhone

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psoham777

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Doesn't matter, in upcoming years wp will surely overtake iPhones in market share. For an OS to excel it always needs low end phones, which apple won't consider.
 

a5cent

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Well, there are significant differences in the brands of aluminum foil. The cheaper store distributed brands are certainly not as good as the Reynolds brand, nor are they as good as the food service grade foil. I can see his point on this one. You could reasonably assume Apple choose a grade to keep those profit margins intact.

For a company like Apple that pays for aluminium by the hundreds of tons, the "brand" of metal means nothing. They don't buy metal in the grocery store. What Apple pays for is chemists or metallurgists who decide what type of alloy best suits their needs, and then they buy an aluminium mining company that produces it for them (yes, Apple own mining companies). Any surplus is then sold on the open market.

Furthermore, if you are going to claim that one aluminium foil is "of higher quality" than another, I'm going to say the onus is on you to explain which properties of the two products leads you to that conclusion, and how it is that the employed alloys are responsible for any perceived differences. In this context, the term "quality" is far to vague to mean anything. For all I know you might as well be judging two types of aluminium foil that are identical in every way except thickness.

I understand Sam's point. I just disagree that it makes sense to judge the employed metal solely by its yield and tensile strengths. If those were the only two properties that mattered, then Apple would be absolutely stupid to choose aluminium in the first place, because most metals are both cheaper and better performers on both counts!

I'm not sure why this point isn't getting across, but apparently it's not easy to grasp.
 

salmanahmad

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Using metal has nothing to do with this, the same test conducted on the HTC One M8 revealed little or no bend.

I have no problems at all with Nokia using high quality plastic, but you can't blame the bend on metal because not all metal phones bend like this.

With that said, I feel really sorry for iPhone 6 Plus users.
 

fatclue_98

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It's not the choice of materials, it's the engineering behind it. Any structure with that kind of length/width ratio requires supplemental bracing. In its efforts to make the phone slimmer, Apple did not account for this. Normally, the display could be used as stiffening panel but LCDs are "floating" members in that they're bonded with elastomeric adhesives.

Bad engineering has a way of rearing its ugly head, and that right quick.
 

radmanvr

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There are pocket gnomes out there, sneaking into people's pockets and bending their iphone. We're going to find them, and bring them to justice.
 

rhapdog

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Serious Part:
Many people seem to like to infer that Apple didn't consider the possibility of bending. There are trade-offs in every aspect of designing a phone. Large and thin will make a phone more bendable, but it was a trade-off to give the public what they wanted. The public also wanted "light weight" and "pretty", so they got the aluminum phone. Extra bracing would have just added weight that Apple decided the customers would not have wanted.

Less Serious:
Since this is what consumers seem to want, then it the iPhone user's fault for sticking that silly phone into their skinny jeans. I say Apple should just ship a pair of cargo pants with every iPhone sold. That would solve the problem.

More Fun than Serious:
Of course, if you want to talk about a better metal alternative, yes, adamantium would be tougher, but a nice gold-titanium alloy like Iron Man uses would be cooler, and Apple would pick up a whole new slew of customers who are comic book geeks in the process. Not to mention, an iPhone made of that material could handle icing much better when subjected to the lower temperatures in the extreme upper atmosphere. :) Throw in a miniature arc reactor to power the thing, and it would never need charging. Heck, I'd probably even buy hardware like that. Wonder if Nokia can incorporate a miniature arc reactor inside a 1530?
 

mister2d

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...

Furthermore, if you are going to claim that one aluminium foil is "of higher quality" than another, I'm going to say the onus is on you to explain which properties of the two products leads you to that conclusion, and how it is that the employed alloys are responsible for any perceived differences. In this context, the term "quality" is far to vague to mean anything. For all I know you might as well be judging two types of aluminium foil that are identical in every way except thickness.

...

I'm not sure why this point isn't getting across, but apparently it's not easy to grasp.

The differences aren't perceived. The food service grade aluminum foil I mentioned is used in a family member's business (food service). I don't know the properties, but it certainly is of better quality than what I have in my kitchen at home. That was my only point. I'm not equipped to get into an engineer's discussion about aluminum foil. Just real world application.

...

Less Serious:
Since this is what consumers seem to want, then it the iPhone user's fault for sticking that silly phone into their skinny jeans. I say Apple should just ship a pair of cargo pants with every iPhone sold. That would solve the problem.

...

It's the customer's fault for this? Wow. Well at least that's consistent with Apple's responses for engineering faults of their products. Can't say I'm surprised.
 

JamesPTao

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The differences aren't perceived. The food service grade aluminum foil I mentioned is used in a family member's business (food service). I don't know the properties, but it certainly is of better quality than what I have in my kitchen at home. That was my only point. I'm not equipped to get into an engineer's discussion about aluminum foil. Just real world application.



It's the customer's fault for this? Wow. Well at least that's consistent with Apple's responses for engineering faults of their products. Can't say I'm surprised.
There are in fact different grades of aluminum that greatly effect how strong and resistant to bending/damage it is. Ask any tool maker or custom fabricator. You are right and a valid point!
 

fatclue_98

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There are in fact different grades of aluminum that greatly effect how strong and resistant to bending/damage it is. Ask any tool maker or custom fabricator. You are right and a valid point!

Bauxite doesn't come in different flavors. Jamaica's best only gets clouded when different alloys are used. Much like Stainless Steel, T304 has higher Chromium and Nickel but T316 (higher grade) has Moly for corrosion and acid resistance, but reduced Cr and Ni.
 

rhapdog

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It's the customer's fault for this? Wow. Well at least that's consistent with Apple's responses for engineering faults of their products. Can't say I'm surprised.

I hope you realized I wasn't being completely serious blaming the end users. However, as some in this thread have stated, it does make me cringe when I see someone with a bare phone stuck in their back pocket. It's just careless. Sit on a nice, hardwood chair and... well, like in the old movie Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn, the character David found out quickly that some things should not go into a back pocket when he sat down on the champagne glasses he put there. Ouch!

The Lumia 520 is nice and thin (compared to other phones I've had), and the first thing I did was to buy a case for it that would give it a more rugged feel, and a tempered glass screen protector. Cost me nearly half the cost of the 520 to do it, but I didn't buy the 520 because it was cheap (maybe partly), I bought it because it had the features I was looking for without a lot of features I didn't want. (I absolutely did not want a front facing camera, and I didn't want a large phone.)

When you spend a lot of money on something, you should take good care of it. Whether it is a phone, or a car, or whatever. To me, putting a phone in your pants pocket is like driving your car for 500 miles after the "check oil" light comes on. Okay, maybe not, because the car would never make it 500 miles before the engine locked up and had to be replaced.
 

mister2d

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I hope you realized I wasn't being completely serious blaming the end users. However, as some in this thread have stated, it does make me cringe when I see someone with a bare phone stuck in their back pocket. It's just careless. Sit on a nice, hardwood chair and... well, like in the old movie Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn, the character David found out quickly that some things should not go into a back pocket when he sat down on the champagne glasses he put there. Ouch!

I realized it. You did say "Less Serious" in the title.

We need more phones crafted with the mindset of the Vertu. I'm a bit tired of these fragile, slippery phones that you have to worry about scratching or cracking. I will pay the money for them.
 

a5cent

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The differences aren't perceived. The food service grade aluminum foil I mentioned is used in a family member's business (food service). I don't know the properties, but it certainly is of better quality than what I have in my kitchen at home. That was my only point. I'm not equipped to get into an engineer's discussion about aluminum foil. Just real world application.

It's the customer's fault for this? Wow. Well at least that's consistent with Apple's responses for engineering faults of their products. Can't say I'm surprised.

Look. I believe you that one foil is "better" than the other. The question is why? You say only that one is of higher quality, but that is so vague it means nothing. Does higher quality mean better temperature resistance? Shinier? Easier to "un-crumple" and reuse? Less likely to tear? It could mean any number of things, and then the question becomes whether that difference is attributable to the use of a different aluminium alloy, or something else like foil thickness. If it's the later, then your "quality" difference is unrelated to the type of alloy, which is why I say your impression of a "higher quality metal" may only be perceived (other possibilities exist too). That doesn't mean I don't believe you, that there is a difference in practical use.

I'll say it one last time. For something like an iPhone frame, just like with your aluminium foil, what constitutes "better" or "higher quality" isn't set in stone. It depends on what you want from it. If I don't want aluminium foil to conserve food, but rather to use as electromagnetic shielding, then our definitions of what constitutes "higher quality" will be completely different. What you think is the perfect foil might for me be the worst possible option. Furthermore, as with everything in physics, you can't optimize all desirable properties at once. Improving one aspect of any metal will have negative consequences in other areas, so engineers must find what they think represents the best possible balance for their particular usage.

That is why the notion of "quality", by itself, makes no sense. You need to at least also specify the exact usage, as in, aluminium alloy X is best to used to make foil for the food industry because it has properties X, Y and Z.

So, as I said, just the fact that Apple is even using aluminium proves that they value a light device over a sturdy device, because most metals are both cheaper and stronger than aluminium. It's about trade offs. In this case less weight at the cost of strength. For Apple, that trade off means "higher quality", otherwise they would have used steel. Until someone shows that Apple deliberately chose an aluminium alloy they thought/knew was inferior, just to save two or three cents per device, I think it's more realistic to assume they chose what they thought was the best alloy for the job, but just screwed up during product design and stress testing.
 

JamesPTao

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Look. I believe you that one foil is "better" than the other. The question is why? You say only that one is of higher quality, but that is so vague it means nothing. Does higher quality mean better temperature resistance? Shinier? Easier to "un-crumple" and reuse? Less likely to tear? It could mean any number of things, and then the question becomes whether that difference is attributable to the use of a different aluminium alloy, or something else like foil thickness. If it's the later, then your "quality" difference is unrelated to the type of alloy, which is why I say your impression of a "higher quality metal" may only be perceived (other possibilities exist too). That doesn't mean I don't believe you, that there is a difference in practical use.

I'll say it one last time. For something like an iPhone frame, just like with your aluminium foil, what constitutes "better" or "higher quality" isn't set in stone. It depends on what you want from it. If I don't want aluminium foil to conserve food, but rather to use as electromagnetic shielding, then our definitions of what constitutes "higher quality" will be completely different. What you think is the perfect foil might for me be the worst possible option. Furthermore, as with everything in physics, you can't optimize all desirable properties at once. Improving one aspect of any metal will have negative consequences in other areas, so engineers must find what they think represents the best possible balance for their particular usage.

That is why the notion of "quality", by itself, makes no sense. You need to at least also specify the exact usage, as in, aluminium alloy X is best to used to make foil for the food industry because it has properties X, Y and Z.

So, as I said, just the fact that Apple is even using aluminium proves that they value a light device over a sturdy device, because most metals are both cheaper and stronger than aluminium. It's about trade offs. In this case less weight at the cost of strength. For Apple, that trade off means "higher quality", otherwise they would have used steel. Until someone shows that Apple deliberately chose an aluminium alloy they thought/knew was inferior, just to save two or three cents per device, I think it's more realistic to assume they chose what they thought was the best alloy for the job, but just screwed up during product design and stress testing.

Wow you are trying way to hard to tear apart their argument. Look I'm not an engineer but my friend had a machine shop make him a custom mount to attach to his camera so he could use his old hasselblad mounts with his canon 1ds on his tripod. I remember he was really surprised the guy used such a high grade aluminum. After seeing it dragged across brick with force and not a damn scratch on it. I saw the difference. And its resistance to bending for its thickness is ridiculous. There is a difference. So lets not pretend were engineers. If you want to understand the difference between grades and why a stronger grade is better then google it and stop wasting our time.
 

N_LaRUE

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Wow you are trying way to hard to tear apart their argument. Look I'm not an engineer but my friend had a machine shop make him a custom mount to attach to his camera so he could use his old hasselblad mounts with his canon 1ds on his tripod. I remember he was really surprised the guy used such a high grade aluminum. After seeing it dragged across brick with force and not a damn scratch on it. I saw the difference. And its resistance to bending for its thickness is ridiculous. There is a difference. So lets not pretend were engineers. If you want to understand the difference between grades and why a stronger grade is better then google it and stop wasting our time.

Speaking as a designer and someone who works with engineers on a daily basis a5cent is absolutely correct in what he's saying.

In engineering and design there are trade offs. The machine shop guy made a 'one off' piece so he'll make it strong and durable as your friend was willing to pay for it.

All consumer/industrial engineered products are designed with a life span. When companies pick materials they do so based on certain criteria and will choose those which are 'best fit' for price and life span. Considering the planned obsolescence that Apple puts into their mobile products they probably only consider something lasting 3-4 years max.

Looking at this from a design perspective I think the weak point in the design was probably overlooked. It happens. Considering where it bends happens to be a weak point in general, the chassis seems to have split point there as well, my guess is between the battery and the other electronics, which allows the frame to be bent. It's probably an easy thing to miss in the overall scheme of things.

Looking from a consumer point of view I can understand people getting upset. To me though, any large phone of that size is going to have weak points and I certainly wouldn't buy one without getting a case for it, regardless of who made it.

My last point in this, and it's an opinion and guess, is that I think sitting on the phone is rather rare for them bending and that people have purposely bent the phone out of curiosity is the more likely the reason for the number of phones being bent. I also wouldn't be surprised if there is a run of defective units which are more easy to bend due to manufacturing faults. It happens.

Not that I'm excusing Apple in anyway mind you. I'm just pointing out the realities. The phone should have been more rigid. I'm sure they'll survive and I'm guessing they're already looking at solutions for the next run of the 6+.
 

rhapdog

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Loved the video. Very entertaining, and brings out a valid point. Everything has a breaking point.

I do have to say this, though... Even with all the press the iPhone is getting about bending, it doesn't bend easily, at least not as easily as some purport.

Out of 10 million phones sold in the first 24 hours, only 9 have been reported so far to bend. Sounds like a pretty low risk factor. That's still less than 1 in a million phones having the bending issue.

From checking one out in a store recently, I would imagine my hip would bend before that phone, but it would be too uncomfortable for me to put it in my pocket considering the size. Also, my pockets just aren't that big.

Still, I'd rather have my Lumia 520 over an iPhone 6+, because there are so many things I can do with the money I saved... by the time I buy a 2nd 520, I can afford to pick up a new SP3. That would be money well spent. :)
 

fatclue_98

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Wow you are trying way to hard to tear apart their argument. Look I'm not an engineer but my friend had a machine shop make him a custom mount to attach to his camera so he could use his old hasselblad mounts with his canon 1ds on his tripod. I remember he was really surprised the guy used such a high grade aluminum. After seeing it dragged across brick with force and not a damn scratch on it. I saw the difference. And its resistance to bending for its thickness is ridiculous. There is a difference. So lets not pretend were engineers. If you want to understand the difference between grades and why a stronger grade is better then google it and stop wasting our time.

Read my posts (#'s 105 & 110) and you may get some insight. There are so many variables from a design/engineering standpoint that you won't be able to get by just Googling. For example, cast vs. forged pieces. Laminated or solid billet. Virgin or heat treated. I can't list them all, but if you think the grade of material makes the difference you're very mistaken.
 

a5cent

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So lets not pretend were engineers. If you want to understand the difference between grades and why a stronger grade is better then google it and stop wasting our time

I'm not pretending to be an engineer. I am one. I just wish that wasn't relevant, because I'd prefer my explanations to be compelling on their own, without having to back them up with credentials or authority.

I realize that in this instance my explanations are not compelling. I just don't understand why not, which is what I'm trying to find out. So far I've found everyone's posts valuable, except yours of course.

If you lack both the education to realize how little you know, and the required intellectual curiosity, then yes, I'm wasting your time, in which case I suggest you just ignore my posts in this thread.

Finally, every serious document on material science ever published will back up my claims. I suggest you take your own advice and google it.
 
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