
Apple confirms some iPad Pros ship slightly bent, but says it’s normal - lisper
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18148957/apple-ipad-bend-pro-2018-shipping-manufacturing-confirmed
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gnulinux
I don't understand... Apple is supposed to be the company that produces
premium technology, their products supposed to signal status, it's supposed to
be the epitome of aesthetics. How come in the recent years they're doing these
easily preventable mistakes? I don't think Apple doesn't have a well-paid QA
team. They probably do. So they found this bug and decided to ship it?

~~~
psychometry
Their obsession with thinness and lightness has stretched their manufacturing
QC beyond its breaking point. Almost all of the widespread hardware problems
Apple is experiencing these days could've been avoided if they would just
allow themselves an extra millimeter or gram here and there.

~~~
Guereric
>Almost all of the widespread hardware problems Apple is experiencing these
days could've been avoided if they would just allow themselves an extra
millimeter or gram here and there.

That's a bold claim. Can you back up it?

~~~
izzydata
>That's a bold claim. Can you back up it? They made similar products in the
past that were thicker and not easily bendable. That seems to speak for
itself.

~~~
ken
Apple also changes materials and processes all the time. Despite being thicker
( _and_ shorter), the iPhone SE bends more easily than newer iPhones like the
6S [1], 7 or 7 Plus [2].

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRnDVcfA3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRnDVcfA3g)
[2]: [https://www.squaretrade.com/press/SquareTrade-Labs-
iPhone-7-...](https://www.squaretrade.com/press/SquareTrade-Labs-
iPhone-7-Generation-Makes-Splash-Water-Resistance-Still-Falls-Hard)

~~~
eridius
Every device that supports 3D Touch is highly resistant to bending, because
AIUI the way 3D Touch is implemented basically puts a metal plate inside the
phone. This is why the iPads never got 3D Touch, because they’d end up too
heavy with a metal plate that large.

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CydeWeys
These iPads can easily be bent in half with bare hands:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUBsxCcJeUc&t=385](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUBsxCcJeUc&t=385)

Doesn't bode well for them holding up in, e.g., a backpack or briefcase that
ends up being sat or stepped on. Or even just being shoved into an overhead
compartment or beneath a seat.

~~~
reaperducer
_These iPads can easily be bent in half with bare hands_

Why would you want to?

I just don't understand the way people treat their tech devices these days. I
see millennials putting iPhones in their back pockets and then wondering why
the screen shatters when they sit down. _You are putting a piece of glass
against your butt and sitting on it!_

I remember when flip phones, digital cameras, floppy disks, and even Atari
2600's were handled with care. Because they would break, and were expensive to
replace!

Do people act this way because stuff doesn't cost enough? Because paying for
stuff with credit makes it seem like it's free, and therefore not worth
anything? Or has the magic just gone out of tech for the average butt-storing
phone user?

~~~
vorpalhex
You shouldn't have to treat a $1000 device like it's going to turn into dust.
Sure, don't chuck your phone at concrete walls, but in general a phone needs
to be able to take a spill occasionally or have someone sit on it because
those things happen in real life.

It sounds like Apple has sacrificed too much in the name of being thin, and
really botched their structural integrity.

Devices exist to be used, not kept in a museum.

~~~
reaperducer
_You shouldn 't have to treat a $1000 device like it's going to turn into
dust._

I don't understand the link between price and resistance to damage.

If I buy a Faberge egg for $4 million, I don't expect that I can sit on it
without causing damage.

A friend recently spent $20k on new windows for his house. I don't expect them
to be baseball-resistant because they cost more than his previous, cheaper,
windows.

 _It sounds like Apple has sacrificed too much in the name of being thin_

I don't disagree with this. I'd rather have a little thicker laptop in
exchange for a better keyboard. But because my laptop cost $4k, I don't expect
that I can treat it anyway I like. It's a computer, not a rock.

~~~
wilg
> I don't understand the link between price and resistance to damage.

People expect tablets to be somewhat durable, and they expect the best tablets
to be especially so.

~~~
reaperducer
_People expect tablets to be somewhat durable, and they expect the best
tablets to be especially so._

Then why is there a massive market for protective cases and screen protectors?

------
mjlee
> The bend is the result of a cooling process involving the iPad Pro’s metal
> and plastic components during manufacturing, according to Apple.

So it's a manufacturing defect. Calling it a "side effect" instead is just
semantics.

~~~
eridius
A manufacturing defect implies it’s an unexpected outcome. This is an expected
outcome.

~~~
qyv
Really? So apple intended to ship non-flat tablets? What is the rational for
intentionally making _only some_ of these non-flat? What advantage or
innovation does the non-flatness of a certain percentage of ipad's allow? I
mean it totally seams plausible that they simply neglected to mention how non-
flat tablets are the next big innovation when they were announced.

Or, perhaps this is just damage control because it is fucking embarrassing on
a "premium" device.

~~~
eridius
You’re confusing “designed” with “expected outcome”. Obviously Apple didn’t
design the iPad to be pre-bent, and presumably they’re not thrilled about
this. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t an expected outcome of the
manufacturing process. It’s not a desired outcome, but it’s one that I guess
Apple decided was acceptable in order to meet the other goals they had for the
process.

------
oflannabhra
I am an ardent Apple fan, to the extent of sometimes defending them in public
or private forums.

This is maybe the most bone-headed, indefensible response I've ever seen from
them.

I get that these are really large, thin devices. I get that they are totally
different than the iPad 2 someone might wrap in a case and give to a kid. But
saying it is a feature, not a bug, is ridiculous.

Their response has immediately made this twice as bad from a PR perspective.
Unbelievable.

~~~
eridius
Where did they say “it’s a feature”?

~~~
gnulinux
"it's not a bug, it's a feature" is sort of a phrase/meme referring to bugs
that have been tried to not like a bug by PR departments. In this case, we see
that this is a bug (iPads are supposed to be flat), but Apple claims "it's
normal" to sell their device: classic "it's not a bug, it's a feature"
attitude.

------
macjohnmcc
This seems like a cop-out to me. I love Apple products but dismissing
manufacturing issues as something we should accept as okay is just wrong. I
recently bought the iPhone XS Max so I'm not anti-Apple but I expect premium
quality for a premium price.

------
MagicPropmaker
My Yoga Book (Lenovo) and Surface Book Pro (Microsoft) are perfectly flat, and
they've been around the world several times.

~~~
rjplatte
Lenovo consistently blows me away with build quality. They're simply insane,
especially the Thinkpads.

~~~
SyneRyder
Can't say I'm having that experience with my Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga 3rd Gen.
The speakers are the worst sound I've heard in a laptop in a long time, the
Dolby HDR screen isn't calibrated out of the box (it has a terrible +10% red
tint), and it doesn't charge if the device is switched off - it has to be in
sleep mode. I'm regretting my purchase.

But that said - it's replacing a MacBook Pro that had to be fixed by Apple 6
times, each time for a faulty SATA flex cable that failed every two months so
it couldn't boot from the internal drive. So far the X1 Yoga hasn't had that
kind of problem.

~~~
MagicPropmaker
And it's not bent, is it?

------
bangonkeyboard
The Magic Keyboard has exhibited the same problems since last year:
[https://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/12/07/the-magic-keyboard-
with-n...](https://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/12/07/the-magic-keyboard-with-numeric-
keypad-is-apparently-bendy/)

This is a pattern.

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Hermel
The thin glass screen of our iPad Pro broke only three weeks after we got it.
It fell onto the floor from a height of about 50 cm. Of course, the screen is
not covered by the warranty and cannot be repaired. I would not recommend the
iPad Pro to anyone who expects premium products to be at least as robust as
the average tablet.

------
memco
I accidentally sat on my 2017 iPad and bent it a bit. It was fairly easy to
bend it back. Depending on the extent of the bend it might be possible to
straighten these out as well. Of course this isn’t ideal, but it should be
possible to create a procedure to iron out the bend.

------
foxyv
Just bought a Pelican case for my work Macbook since I bike and have to travel
with it. I'm so scared of liquid damage to the diagnostic port just inside the
vent. All it takes is one drop to short and kill the MUX chip. Mac products
are stupid fragile.

~~~
PascLeRasc
What backpack do you use? Both of my Timbuk2 bags have incredible water
resistance. I've been out with them in dozens of thunderstorms - the kind
where you get home and have to change out of all your clothes - and I haven't
had so much as a notebook page get wet.

------
whizzkid
Just a speculation;

Apple must be working something really big for years with a lot of engineers
shifted to that secret project. I am seeing lots of products not getting
enough attention for the last 2-3 years.

\- Safari is moving really slowly and not improved a lot except security-wise.

\- iPhones haven't gotten a revolutionary feature for a long time.

\- MacOS did not get significantly better comparing to last 3-4 years.

\- Siri looks like a paused project.

and so on..

~~~
justtopost
Or just becoming bloated and complacent.

~~~
whizzkid
Very possible and I would be sad in that case.

------
tmd83
I sometimes what would happen if the Samsung battery kind of issue happened
with Apple. I'm sure that they would give some logic and majority of users
would still accept it. For the most people at this point it seems it's not
what apple did wrong, it's what I did to cause their product to fail.

------
Dirlewanger
"You're holding it wrong"

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sebazzz
JeremyRigsEverything showed that you need substantial force to bent an iPad.
Isn't this just a single batch that had some bad luck in the factory?

~~~
Johnny555
It didn't look very substantial in the video posted here earlier:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUBsxCcJeUc&t=385](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUBsxCcJeUc&t=385)

~~~
sebazzz
I have seen that video. Look at the color of his thumbs as he bends the
tablet, they are quite white so I think the force is larger than you think. Of
course, without comparison, it is hard to tell.

~~~
gnulinux
Are you trolling? That person bends a $500 machine with 2 thumbs. This is
unacceptable.

