Apple was aware iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus were prone to bending and yet it launched them

Apple was aware iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus were prone to bending and yet it launched them

he iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be remembered for the bendgate controversy after reports emerged shortly after their launch in 2014 alleging that the phones were susceptible to bending in people's pockets due to a design flaw. A new report now suggests that Apple knew its 2014 iPhones were likely to bend more than previous models and yet the company did not acknowledge it.

Motherboard got hold of some court documents that reveal that Apple's internal tests found the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were likely to bend more than the iPhone 5S. Specifically, Apple found that the iPhone 6 was 3.3 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5S while the iPhone 6 Plus was 7.2 times more likely to bend. US District Court judge Lucy Koh revealed some of this information to the public, writing "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 documents show that Apple was well aware of the iPhone 6's design flaw and yet the company never publicly admitted that the phones had a bending problem and instead claimed that the cases were "extremely rare." Soon after the initial reports, the iPhone 6 was plagued by the "touch disease" where the touchscreen display would not respond at times due to a flaw in the "Touch IC" chip on the motherboard, which repair experts concluded was caused due to bending iPhones. Apple, however, maintained that the issue was due to iPhones being "dropped multiple times on a hard surface and then incurring further stress on the device."

Koh added that Apple used epoxy to stiffen the logic board so that the issue would not crop up again. The Cupertino giant has not acknowledged whether it indeed made engineering changes to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Apple only acknowledged the "touch disease" in November 2016 following which the company announced it would replace affected phones for $149 instead of $349 as previously charged.