A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses • Hacker News Board

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#51

Post by makomk » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:01 PM UTC

ebbv wrote: post #29

phelm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have another look at your numbers, you have assumed that there are only 100 repair shops in the word. I would imagine this number is much higher (a google search for 'iphone micro soldering repair shop' gives 473k results)

Read my comment again, I was positing perhaps the author of the article talked to 100 repair shops. Yes, there are certainly more repair shops than that worldwide. I was just drawing a line from what data the article has to what we could guess from it reasonably, each step trying to give the benefit of the doubt to the problem being as widespread as we can infer from the article. Number of google results for a keywor…

There's no particular reason to think that the repair shops which the author of the article chose to speak to are special in any way, so it's reasonable to assume that all the other repair shops are seeing similar numbers. It's definitely not reasonable to assume that the only iPhones that are failing are the ones served by that handful of repair shops.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#52

Post by ohitsdom » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:03 PM UTC

lukeholder wrote: post #24

I had this same issue with my iPhone 6 Plus screen not responding to touch as this article explains. Took it into Apple in Perth City (Western Australia) and they replaced the iPhone on the spot with a brand new refurbished. This article leads with a story about apple denying it to a customer, but I had my issue resolved within 25 minutes including running a last minute icloud backup. Apples legendary support is real…

The story in the article was about a phone no longer under warranty. Was yours still under warranty?

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#53

Post by pluma » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:04 PM UTC

y04nn wrote: post #44

Note that in Europe, whatever Apple says, you have a 2 years warranty for this kind of problem. Also, do the chip really need a replacement, or a simple reflow would work?

I'm not even sure how they would try to argue against it.

"Yes, the phone developed a fault under typical use within the warranty period and yes, a lot of other customers are having the same problem, but" ...?

Apple devices are luxury goods sold at a high premium. You expect that stuff to withstand at least the same everyday handling as their competitors' products in the same market segment.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#54

Post by anexprogrammer » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:04 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #41

davidiach wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no free lunch. What are the trade-offs? Do you pay more for the same devices than in other countries?

This extended warranty thing is common throughout the EU (in the UK it's 6 years for example). In the UK we pay more than the US for most things but it's hard to pin down the exact reasons and price differences.

In the last couple of years the Sale of Goods Act protections were weakened as part of bringing us into line with Europe. It's now been replaced by the Consumer Rights Act which although clearer gives fewer rights to refund from the seller.

Note it's the retailer rather than manufacturer who is liable, so we have much more confidence that what we buy is "of merchantable quality", safe and legal to sell. Quite a number of HN threads have made this advantage clear.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#55

Post by lorenzhs » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:08 PM UTC

tyfon wrote: post #43

davidiach wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no free lunch. What are the trade-offs? Do you pay more for the same devices than in other countries?

No, they seem to about comparable i think. Electronics is generally ok priced here. I have no idea about apple prices in general, but a "Apple iPhone 6s Plus 128GB Sølv (Silver)" is approx 1257 USD including 25% VAT. That is about 1/3 of an average monthly salary here, maybe a bit less. Edit: country is Norway

For comparison: it's $949 + sales tax in the US, and 1075€ ($1200) in Germany, including 19% VAT. So the German price without VAT is the same as the Norwegian without VAT.

Mandatory warranty in Germany is 2 years, where in the first six months the manufacturer has to prove that it wasn't defective when they sold it to you if they want to dispute your claim. After six months, there's a reversal in the burden of proof, but claims are usually accepted without dispute. I'm not aware of anything that requires more than two years of warranty here, even for durable goods expected to last longer than that.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#56

Post by hkjgkjy » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:09 PM UTC

tyfon wrote: post #26

"but said Apple doesn’t recognize it as an issue" Oh, I am so glad we have laws in my country to prevent asshole companies from doing things like this. Goods that is "expected to last long" has a five year mandatory warranty here and mobiles are included. The rest has two years. It doesn't matter if they recognize it as an issue, the phone is broken period.

While all us non-americans can gloat about what great consumer protection laws we have (and I'm very happy about them as a consumer!) it's not for no reason that all cool stuff is made by americans. They have the state of Delaware, and they have the government who prioritize business before social issues. Correlated (and if you ask me, causative (is that a word?)) is that most impressive companies and products are invented by Americans.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#57

Post by rwmj » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:10 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #2

It's (speculated to be) flexing PCBs under BGA chips again. This is a serious problem when making devices thinner: they become more flexible, but the joints are not flexible, so after a while you get a crack all the way across a joint and it either becomes intermittent or capacitively coupled. A decade ago I had a white plastic-bodied Macbook which developed a similar fault in the graphics. But it's not just Apple, t…

It's reminiscent of the iBook G4 problems with cracking RoHS solder (caused by heat, not bending). Apple denied up them until the National Consumer Agency of Denmark investigated and produced this excellent report:

https://web.archive.org/web/20071021235338/http://www.forbru...

It happened to my computer. Apple delayed and denied and charged me, but wouldn't fix the problem. Eventually I gave up, but I've never bought an Apple device since that failure.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#58

Post by raihansaputra » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:13 PM UTC

y04nn wrote: post #44

Note that in Europe, whatever Apple says, you have a 2 years warranty for this kind of problem. Also, do the chip really need a replacement, or a simple reflow would work?

It's said in the article that while it would fix it, but the problem tends to come back with reflow instead of replacing the chips.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#59

Post by microtonal » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:15 PM UTC

marksweston wrote: post #28

celticninja wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except with the RROD Microsoft admitted the issue and provided a replacement or repair service. Apple are just ignoring the issue and leaving the customer suck up the cost and hassle.

Are they? My 20 month old (i.e. out of warranty and with no Applecare policy) iphone 6+ started showing the symptoms a week and a half ago. The "Genius" at the Apple Store immediately recognised the symptoms and processed a free replacement (refurbished) phone without any prompting or negotiation on my part. So while it's true that they are staying very quiet about it in public, it does seem that knowledge of the pro…

Note: if you are in the EU, settle for nothing less than a new phone (rather than refurbished).

There was recently a lawsuit in the Netherlands where someone sued Apple after receiving a refurbished phone after replacement under warranty [1]. She won the case:

https://www.iphoned.nl/nieuws/rechtszaak-apple-garantie/

The judge based his verdict on a verdict of the European Court of Justice [2], so it's likely that the outcome would be the same in other EU countries.

[1] 20 months would still fall under warranty in the EU.

[2] http://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?language=en&num=C-404...

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#60

Post by emacdona » Tue, Sep 06, 2016, 1:18 PM UTC

phelm wrote: post #10

ebbv wrote: post #7

This is pretty breathless reporting for iFixit. We can all draw whatever conclusions we want based on anecdotes. For example, I know a lot of people who have iPhone 6 and 6S phones and none of them have had this problem. But let's look at some numbers; the article mentions that all of these repairers see "several a week." Let's round up and say that's 4 a week, or 208 per year per repair shop. They only mention a few…

Have another look at your numbers, you have assumed that there are only 100 repair shops in the word. I would imagine this number is much higher (a google search for 'iphone micro soldering repair shop' gives 473k results)

Googling for "iphone witch doctor repair shop" gives 263k results. So there are roughly half as many iPhone witch doctor repair shops as iPhone micro soldering repair shops?