stevennb
Ok, But, Thats The Last Straw.
Premium
join:2001-05-08
Wayne, NJ |  [iPhone] Hairline cracks in the new Iphone....
I was reading the Consumerist website and came across this..
»consumerist.com/5031536/my-white···good-way
Yikes. |
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Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
 ·Embarq
| Simply more Chinese assembly line syndrome. Most people won't notice them with the black phones. Wonder if the Touch has the same problem. I'd better get out my magnifying glass ....
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Jahntassa
What, I can have feathers
Premium
join:2006-04-14
Conway, SC | reply to stevennb
Suddenly I have memories of the Cube.. |
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Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| said by Jahntassa  :Suddenly I have memories of the Cube.. I read about that one, but never saw one.
Yanno, these sorts of problems make no sense to me except for the ultra-secret agent development BS this company uses.
Once you've got what would be a 'gold' device (or whatever the F they call it nowadays), you run a small batch of a few thousand and distribute them to company people or dupes folks who sign some life-ending NDF or something, and you test the damn product for, at minimum, a few months and see what's up. Hell, do it in some foreign hole in the wall in an underground vault ... whatever.
But no. Everything has to be kept under wraps until release day, because evidently hype sells product better than product sells product. And then people find problems like this and they whine - and then the anti-whiner police come out with their corporate party hats on to fling dung upon the poor ButtMonkeys® who stood in line to fatten portfolios of the damn people wearing hats.
I think the amount of 'stuff' coming on shore - and at this pace -- should give Snoop Yobby-San pause to consider loosening up some test time. Have the chinese guys live locked in his house for a month or two ... something 
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russotto
join:2000-10-05
Collegeville, PA
| said by Titus Pullo :Once you've got what would be a 'gold' device (or whatever the F they call it nowadays), you run a small batch of a few thousand and distribute them to company people or dupes folks who sign some life-ending NDF or something, and you test the damn product for, at minimum, a few months and see what's up. Hell, do it in some foreign hole in the wall in an underground vault ... whatever. ROTFL. Obviously, a man with no experience at all with this sort of thing. This sort of stuff happens even if you test that first batch of thousands and it passes. (And neither I nor you know if Apple did so). After that first batch, materials get substituted (by the manufacturer), manufacturing steps get skipped, etc, QA gets skipped, etc. |
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Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| said by russotto :said by Titus Pullo :Once you've got what would be a 'gold' device (or whatever the F they call it nowadays), you run a small batch of a few thousand and distribute them to company people or dupes folks who sign some life-ending NDF or something, and you test the damn product for, at minimum, a few months and see what's up. Hell, do it in some foreign hole in the wall in an underground vault ... whatever. ROTFL. Obviously, a man with no experience at all with this sort of thing. This sort of stuff happens even if you test that first batch of thousands and it passes. (And neither I nor you know if Apple did so). After that first batch, materials get substituted (by the manufacturer), manufacturing steps get skipped, etc, QA gets skipped, etc. I'm guessing you're off the floor by now?
Good 
No, I don't have experience in manufacturing, that's true. But because the stories (and there are quite a number now re the cracks) involve white phones, I am left to deduce two things: either this has been a problem all along and the black phones hid the cracks, or the problem is unique to the white phones for whatever reason. If the latter, then there was no QA to begin with, eh?
Having said that, I do know one thing about manufacturing: the more you test the more problems you eliminate. Apple doesn't mass-test squat. Every *new* device is practically beta. It's their business model. Good or bad, whatever. Most of us would be dead if manufacturing processes that involved safety issues were handled as is this Chinese mafia shit!
And while I readily admit your reasons for problems such as this are perfectly valid, it sounds a bit like buck passing. They're Apple products. Period. I don't see the Chinese manufacturing plant's name on iPhones, so I don't expect folks will be in 'touch' with Chen Lee when and if it cracks.
As an aside, I've had both a lowly Genius and an Apple Inc. employee agree with me on this issue: closed development has led to increased QC problems with recent products. I don't know the exact reason. Maybe Chen Lee can tell us once his iPhone is connected ... 
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Midak
Doctors suck
Premium
join:2002-02-26
Yonkers, NY
| reply to stevennb
I just ordered a white one yesterday before seeing all this talk of cracking on the case. What really urks me is the stories of people going to the Apple Stores and being rejected by some "genius" as it being purely cosmetic and unimportant and most importantly, not covered under warranty. These things are less than a month old and they should not be showing this kind of wear from normal use. |
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wxboss
This is like Deja vu all over again.
Premium
join:2005-01-30
Jacksonville, FL
clubs: | If this turns out to be a true defect, Apple will change its return policy for this issue. |
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Midak
Doctors suck
Premium
join:2002-02-26
Yonkers, NY | How so? |
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wxboss
This is like Deja vu all over again.
Premium
join:2005-01-30
Jacksonville, FL
clubs: | Or at least provide a fix/repair option. Apple has a history of addressing issues similar to this with their products. |
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The Dv8or
DSLReports Forums -- The Mouse House 2.0
Premium
join:2001-08-09
Danbury, CT
clubs:
1 edit | reply to Titus Pullo
said by Titus Pullo :I don't see the Chinese manufacturing plant's name on iPhones, so I don't expect folks will be in 'touch' with Chen Lee when and if it cracks. They know EXACTLY where each phone came from because the serial number dictates what plant and what week the phone was produced. Just because YOU dont see a big label that says "Made in Ken Wei Plant in Shanghai" slapped across the back doesnt mean they dont have exact tracking of the source of each product.
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You're so vain... I bet you think this post is about you. |
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yabos
join:2003-02-16
Ingersoll, ON | reply to Titus Pullo
I can guarantee you they were testing them at Apple for a long time. Steve Jobs would have been using early versions as would have some employees working on it. |
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Dogfather
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Laguna Hills, CA
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4 edits | reply to Titus Pullo
The change between prototyping and mass production will lead to discovered quality defects if for no other reason than the sheer quantity produced.
Quality issues change between prototyping, bucket runs and mass production. All 3 have different defect rates and show different defects. If you have a crack defect occurrence of 1 in 10,000 for example, if you only produce 1,000 or even 10,000 for internal testing purposes, 0 crack defective phones may be produced or the few that are get missed by the testers who are looking at interface and call performance. With tooling being fresh, quality is better at the beginning of a part run vs the end of a run so they may have never seen this until the issues turn up in the field.
Of course Apple is still responsible for the obvious defect in workmanship and should replace/repair these devices without hassle. |
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Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| reply to The Dv8or
said by The Dv8or :said by Titus Pullo :I don't see the Chinese manufacturing plant's name on iPhones, so I don't expect folks will be in 'touch' with Chen Lee when and if it cracks. They know EXACTLY where each phone came from because the serial number dictates what plant and what week the phone was produced. Just because YOU dont see a big label that says "Made in Ken Wei Plant in Shanghai" slapped across the back doesnt mean they dont have exact tracking of the source of each product. I realize that. I'm talking forest and you're talking trees. Everything is traceable - even where you bought your last six pack. My point is an accountability one with offshore manufacturing; people don't blame or call Chen Lee when their Chinese gadget is of faulty design (for whatever reason) they blame the company behind the logo. In this case a popular American one.
I honestly can't fathom how that point was lost or this hard to see?
Wow
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Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| reply to yabos
said by yabos :I can guarantee you they were testing them at Apple for a long time. Steve Jobs would have been using early versions as would have some employees working on it. That's not nearly enough testing, IMO.
But, hey ... I'm no expert and I don't know how bad the problem is other than the number of hits for this problem is growing. How long did they test the 1st generation macbook palm rests? How long did they test MobileMe? It's hard to have large sample sizes when secrecy is such a big part of the marketing angle.
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Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| reply to Dogfather
said by Dogfather :The change between prototyping and mass production will lead to discovered quality defects if for no other reason than the sheer quantity produced. Snip ... Of course Apple is still responsible for the obvious defect in workmanship and should replace/repair these devices without hassle. Good explanation. I see your point. But I still don't see, once you have what you think is THE final product, why some mechanical contraption that simulates use couldn't be in place.
Is that so far out? Some robot that holds the phone, lays it on a table; takes it in and out of a pocket; shakes it a little, etc. And does it however many 1000s of times for every so many 1000s of phones. I guess I'm not very manufacturing literate. At all.
My mind that says "make a billion dollars with the most popular cell phone on the planet" also says "find ways to test it a million ways to sunday so it doesn't F-up if we change the color"
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Lorne
Premium
join:2002-02-10
Fort Worth, TX
| reply to stevennb
Totally off topic, but when I was working at Intel in 1997 we had a large number of wafers with die's (chips) that performed well under the average speed that was expected.
After a week the problem had been tracked down to an air flow pattern in a single wafer fab machine (one out of a dozen).
It's funny how things work sometime. |
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wxboss
This is like Deja vu all over again.
Premium
join:2005-01-30
Jacksonville, FL
clubs: | reply to Titus Pullo
I think most here agree with your view points. However, in a rapidly changing marketplace, I think the "speed to market' mindset overrides the QA measures that should be in place to ensure a quality (or relatively defect free) product. |
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Dogfather
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join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA
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| reply to Titus Pullo
You can't test every conceivable situation. And some of these issues are so rare that you can't test for them. Even if they could come up with a case cracking test, they would have to find the 1 phone in thousands that has the defect so they can identify it. They can't test every phone coming off the line. That is simply not possible, either fiscally or time-wise.
The best thing they can do is HAPPILY exchange the phone and then return the phone to the lab for the failure analysis. Then let the engineers fix the issue for future implementation. |
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