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A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

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Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#121
post #9

I actually had this issue show up on an iPhone6 right after the warranty period expired. I had phone support multiple times and took it in two different Apple Stores and they acted like they'd never seen the issue before. They eventually gave up (after a myriad of other fixes they had us try that didn't work) and said we'd have to get a new phone. Luckily, we had insurance on it, but it was still a $99 deductible. It…

My wife had the issue, it stopped for a while, and then popped up again right after the warranty ran out. She needed a replacement ASAP (otherwise I would have shopped it around at multiple stores) and they refused to acknowledge that it was a known defect.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#122
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 depends. It may work with just a reflow, if the board is reinforced so that it is stiffer and doesn't put stress on the balls.

If you take off the chip, you could theoretically re-ball it and put the same one back on, but that requires even more specialized equipment.

I was amused to see in that interview with the Laura the repair person, the new chip was put on slightly crooked. It will still likely work, but isn't optimal.

I don't tend to face these sorts of problems myself, because my phone is always in a case in a holster, so that it doesn't get bent or whatever under normal conditions.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#123
post #56
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 in…

You might be interested in a book called The European Revenge, written in 1973 by two writers from the Economist magazine. It made the argument that some day in the near future, European auto makers, such as Mercedes Benz and BMW, would be able to make automobiles that were as good as American automobiles.

And they were correct. Mercedes Benz and BMW did eventually catch up to the Americans. Nowadays, many people would argue that Mercedes Benz and BMW represent a level of quality that is much higher than what you can get from American automobiles.

If Europe hasn't yet caught up to the USA in consumer electronics, perhaps that is because Europe hasn't yet made the concerted effort to catch up.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#124
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doable, and might even be a good idea for long thin PCBs, but it messes with both your routing and placement and therefore consumes PCB area. Also upsets your controlled-impedance traces. And adds an extra assembly step. To estimate doing this, take the PCB image and Paint and try to clear a 3mm gap in it. How many components do you have to move? Do you have to make the whole thing 3mm longer? Aren't most of them dec…

And after all this discussion I'd bet Apple already fixed this with the 6s by simply stiffening the actual case...

In the article, it's mentioned that in the 6S, the chip location has moved to where it's not near the most flexed area.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you're right. Vizio is great. Just bought a 50" 4K TV from them. It only supported Dolby's HDR out of the box. Firmware update added HDR10 support. The last time Sony, Samsung, etc decided to put the customer first in a stupid format war was... when exactly?

> Yeah, you're right. Vizio is great. You might have missed this headline from July: "Vizio acquired by Chinese tech company LeEco for $2 billion"[1] 1. http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/26/12286756/leeco-buys-vizio-...

Well son of a...

Yeah, I missed that.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#126
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did work just fine, it actually had the best antenna of any phone on the market at the time - dramatic improvement on the previous models. Yeah it lost signal when held wrong but was still superior to other phones. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2

> Yeah it lost signal when held wrong but was still superior to other phones. My definition of 'superior' doesn't involve having to hold a phone a particular way for it to make a call.

It lost signal when held that way. It didn't drop calls. As explained in the anandtech article, they couldn't get it to drop a call once.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> Mandatory warranty > the manufacturer has to prove Just nitpicking: the mandatory warranty ("Gewährleistung") is supplied by the seller , not the manufacturer . As a consumer you don't need to deal with the latter no matter what the former is trying to tell you. In the same line, the burden of proof after six month is on the seller not the manufacturer. A manufacturer often has an additional voluntary warranty ("Ga…

Oh yes you're absolutely right - it's easy to conflate or confuse the two, even if they're quite different.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#128
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

> it's not for no reason that all cool stuff is made by americans Damn straight - American TV's sure are the coolest of all!

Are you being sarcastic?

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that both Bell Labs and PARC were owned and operated solely by large corporations (AT&T and Xerox, respectively). Do you have a source on government funding of either?

I Wouldn't be surprised if the DOD was the biggest customer for both.. "subsidy" doesn't mean they were owned or directly financed.

PARC never had substantive DOD funding, it was funded by the largess of Xerox. Bell Labs did do government work, but was largely funded by the Bell Operating Companies, in the form of a royalty.

Re: A Design Defect Is Breaking iPhone 6 Pluses

#130
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doable, and might even be a good idea for long thin PCBs, but it messes with both your routing and placement and therefore consumes PCB area. Also upsets your controlled-impedance traces. And adds an extra assembly step. To estimate doing this, take the PCB image and Paint and try to clear a 3mm gap in it. How many components do you have to move? Do you have to make the whole thing 3mm longer? Aren't most of them dec…

And after all this discussion I'd bet Apple already fixed this with the 6s by simply stiffening the actual case...

They did, they even said in the keynote that they're using a new aluminum alloy[1], and it's mentioned on the website as well[2]

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/12/9315471/iphone-6s-new-alum...

[2] https://www.apple.com/iphone-6s/design/

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