back to article Judge: Apple not liable for dropped, broken iPhone screens

A US judge has ruled that punters who drop their iPhones, smashing the smartphone's glass screen in the process, can't blame Apple for it. Judge Edward Davila of the San Jose District Court this week rejected a local man's attempt to sue the Cupertino giant over a cracked iPhone 4 panel, stating "it is a well known fact of …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    He needs to sue Newton. After all he discovered gravity which caused the phone screen to crack and inspired the name Apple which created the iPhone that he happened to break.

    1. Tom Bradbury

      But which came first... apple or newton?!

      1. Thomas 18
        Boffin

        Prior art

        I believe Reality et al. invented gravity at the Big Bang event circa 13.7 billion BC

        1. Ian Johnston Silver badge
          Thumb Down

          Re: Prior art

          Even now Steve Jobs is suing God in the eternal courts for IP infringement.

        2. Tom 35

          Re: Prior art

          Yes, but Apple have the patent for Gravity on a mobile device. Completely different, prior art is invalid.

      2. Ilsa Loving
        Angel

        "But which came first... apple or newton?!"

        Why, the fig of course. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtons_%28cookie%29)

      3. RICHTO
        Mushroom

        Apple sell fragile crap that breaks at the slightest drop.

        This is why Nokia phones are so much better:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqB4UdpUoGM

        The fat git sits on them too....

        You can also use a Nokia as a hammer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf1fRu9YgfE

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I think you will find that apple currently holds a patent on Gravity.

      Well, it's actually a patent that describes an object that doesn't float when dropped

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Glass

      Will also break if hit by a hammer, however when you think about it logically, you wouldn't make the bumpers of a car out of glass, common sense would tell you it would not be a good idea.

      As for a glass phone, everyone who owns a phone must have dropped one during ownership at some time in the past. If your phone is made of glass you would be under no illusions would you?

      1. David Webb

        @AC

        The glass on my phone won't break when hit with a hammer, indeed you can use my phone as a hammer if you so desire and use it to knock in nails. Please do, it's a Lumia 800 so @&%$ you Nokia and making my new phone legacy a couple of weeks after I buy it.

      2. a_been

        Re: Glass

        The same could be said about wine bottles.

  2. M Gale

    Glass breaks when dropped.

    Wow, I never knew that.

    Far be it from me to be on Apple's side over anything, but this is up there with the RasPi free-sample chancer.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surprise - another US Court that fails to find against Apple...

    Although it's true that glass will break with given enough of a shock, Apple did exaggerate the toughness of the glass used on the iPhone and thus misled many a consumer, yet the iPhone glass often breaks when falling short distances, even on to relatively soft surfaces, unlike those competing products that really do use toughened glass.

    1. Dave 126

      Re: Surprise - another US Court that fails to find against Apple...

      er, Apple DO use Corning 'Gorilla Glass'.

      "Corning employees in Kentucky and New York who create the majority of the glass for iPhone,.." - Apple

      http://9to5mac.com/2012/03/02/apple-acknowledges-use-of-corning-gorilla-glass-on-iphone-means-gorilla-glass-2-likely-for-iphone-5/

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. deadbeef

        Re: Surprise - another US Court that fails to find against Apple...

        The problem with Gorilla glass is that most people believe that its "toughness" feature is to resist breakage when in fact it is to resist scratching. Gorilla glass is misleading in itself regardless of what product it it used on.

        My Galaxy S3 uses Gorilla Glass 2 and the screen is still extremely vulnerable to damage if it is dropped just like glass in general. That's why I bought a thin rubbery gel glove cover for it which absorbs some of the impact energy if it is dropped.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Surprise - another US Court that fails to find against Apple...

      Maybe its just apple phones being so rigid?

      i've dropped all three phones in the galaxy S range onto concrete from about a meter up (accidently falling out of pockets etc...) and none of them broke the screen..

      I suspect the plastic nature of the phone makes it absorb the impact better!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Surprise - another US Court that fails to find against Apple...

      Apple do use toughened glass. Exactly the same glass (in some cases literally) as the competition. Just another frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Apple zealot spewing your uninformed FUD in the desperate hope that some will stick if you just spread it on thick enough. I've got news for you sunshine, Apple customers are too busy enjoying their iDevices to give a flying fuck what you think. Now piss off back to mummy, there's a good chap.

      1. Steve I

        Re: Surprise - another US Court that fails to find against Apple...

        Literally? That must be inconvenient. How do you decide who's turn it is to use the glass?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Surprise - another US Court that fails to find against Apple...

        I've dropped my Nokia N8 from the first floor (2nd floor if you are in the USA) down a stairwell (in an attempt to get a phone upgrade out of my manager) and the bloody thing didn't break in any way.

        I'd say if you claim your phone is tough it should be tough in comparison to similar products not tough compared to something like a wine glass. I.e. the materials are only part of the equation.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Devil

          Nokias are indestructible...

          The number of Nokia phones that had full speed hurling impacts with solid objects as a result of my rage is statistically significant, not one of them was unusable afterwards and only one had screen damage, and it was a sliding N80, the slider mechanism of course was fine. The wall had a huge crater in it though...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Nokias are indestructible...

            Not sure about the recent ones. The older ones used to come apart, the battery door would fly off and the battery come out. This must absorb some of the energy.

            If you build things solidly they don't absorb the energy of the impact. They used to build racing cars to be solid and people used to die a lot. Once they realised that the cars need to crumple and break to absorb energy it improved safety.

        2. toadwarrior

          Re: Surprise - another US Court that fails to find against Apple...

          That doesn't mean anything. My friend and I both had G1 phones and I drop mine loads more on all sorts of surfaces including the pavement and didn't get any crackks for 2 years. His was cracked after dropping it a couple times.

          Same for my 1st gen gameboy. I had no issues despite dropping down stairs, on concrete floors, etc. My brother dropped his once on the carpet and it started showing a couple dead lines.

          Don't let me stop the fandroid circle jerk but your supposed evidence is meaningless.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Surprise - another US Court that fails to find against Apple...

        "Apple customers are too busy enjoying their iDevices to give a flying fuck what you think"

        I think you'll find that most Apple customers would by thrilled to give, or get for that matter, an iFuck, flying or not.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Surprise - another US Court that fails to find against Apple...

      When you talk about the toughness of a phone screen it's all about scratch resistance, not shatter resistance.

  4. Usually Right or Wrong
    Trollface

    It is simply a case of

    dropping it the wrong way, so not Apple's fault.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I still don't get why iPhone punters are so plagued by this. Surely all smartphones have glass fronts? Something genetic perhaps? ;)

    1. Lunatik

      Rarely do they go to and round the edges though. Drop an iPhone 4/4S at almost any angle and it will impact on a glass edge. Edges concentrate stresses, hence one knackered iDevice if the Gods are frowning. Having said that, wife's 4 has been dropped many times without incident.

      Most other phones have a bezel of sorts, meaning most minor drops might scratch/dent a case at worst.

      1. teapot9999
        Thumb Up

        Common sense from a judge - surely not!

        I have dropped my iPhone 4S several times on my tarmac drive and it is still ok,

        1. VinceH
          Joke

          Re: Common sense from a judge - surely not!

          "I have dropped my iPhone 4S several times on my tarmac drive and it is still ok,"

          You're dropping it wrong.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Unhappy

            Re: Common sense from a judge - surely not! @VinceH

            Perhaps my wife can help, having smashed her Samsung GS2, resulting in a £130 bill. For all the "iPhones break more than others" comments, I can assure you they all break when dropped right, regardless of who makes them.

            1. VinceH

              Re: Common sense from a judge - surely not! @VinceH

              " Perhaps my wife can help, having smashed her Samsung GS2, resulting in a £130 bill."

              She dropped it correctly.

            2. Anonymous John

              Re: Common sense from a judge - surely not! @VinceH

              I hope you realise your wife is responsible for Apple suing Samsung for copyright infringement by designing a phone that breaks when dropped.

    2. Eponymous Cowherd
      Thumb Down

      Back to Front

      It was the back panel he broke.

      The problem with an unprotected iPhone (well 4 and 4S) it that its glass all over apart from the metal band around the side. Furthermore the glass stands proud of the edge (front and back), so the fist thing that hits the concrete is, almost certainly, going to be made of glass and is likely to break if dropped onto concrete from hand-height.

      1. Steve Evans

        Re: Back to Front

        I do see a lot of broken glass on iphones, in fact I can't remember the last broken glass (front or rear) I've seen which *wasn't* an iphone (this excludes an acquaintance of mine who is on a mission to get an upgrade via his phone insurance and has been whacking his old HTC against a wall!). Glass is broken, phone refuses to die much to our amusement.

        There might be more success if someone tried the UK trading standard regulations. Unfit for purpose, aka badly designed.

        1. Seanie Ryan
          Pint

          Re: Back to Front

          holy crap , do people still debate this nonsense??

          simple test: put normal glass on the front of your phone , like drinking glass glass, or window glass. Drop it. See how easy it break.

          Now compare that to how (not-so-) easy the toughened glass on phones breaks. Big difference.

          There is not much difference in my part of the world to the % of people who own different types of phones that have broken the screens. If you *hear* of more iphones broken, then just check the propportion of users you know who use X phone. Colletate the data.

          And people sue Apple more than others becasue they are the perceived cash-cow at the moment.... this has always been the way since the beginning of time. Target where you are most likely to get the reward.

          OR, simply continue wasting the day away making pointless IF, ANDs and BUTS and throw cop on out the window.

          Beer time

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Back to Front

          Bullshit, when has dropping or throwing a phone at a wall been "normal use"?

          Try crashing a car and then suing the manufacturer because it wasn't drivable afterwards and see how far you get.

  6. Dave 126

    If the man had broken a Motorola Defy or an Xperia Go - both phones sold as being shock resistant and water resistant, he might have a point. It is notable that they both have smaller screens.

  7. dssf

    Frackin MORON JUDGE!

    Only an IDIOT would not find against apple in this regard. Jobs stood his ass up, brandishing the phone, touting how tough it was, claiming it was some 30x stronger than plastic, IIRC. When or how often do we see dropped plastic phones, delaminating, shatttering, exploding, or bursting like self-destructing cells?

    I cannot tell you how many must-be-embarrassing-to-show shattered iPhones I've seen, 3, 4, and 4s. Sure, the owners could have bought them at Best Buy and paid the extra $5-$80 per month for loss, theft, damage, destruction -- No Questions Asked -- if they paid BB and signed up with a carrier BB partners with. Then, such people could get a replacement phone, NQA. Imagine how one of my friends felt when he dropped his iPhone 4S, it slid, and then a 300lbs lady stepped on it because it slid faster than he could dive toward it. He was lucky it compression-shattered on the back ONLY. I've seen them shattered on both sides.

    One bonus for apple, though: I've seen front-shatttered iPhone 4, 4s, or other models still react nearly normally to touch usage despite the spidery look of the glass.

    That judge, though, needs his head examined. But, he knows that if he allows a finding in favor of the plaintiff, apple will make him pay dearly for opening the global floodgates against apple-- such a finding would erode probably 40% of apple's profits to date covering shipping both ways, insurance, labor, and new materials, and then the necessary testing, assuming they don't have a secret stash/cache of 8M spares for emergencies or loaners.

    Thanks for being a corporate pawn, your no-honor.

    1. dssf

      Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

      And, in case anyone wants to know, I have in anger at phone wonkiness hurled across the room TWO of my previous SAMSUNG phones, one multimedia flip phone from 2007, and my SAMSUNG Moment, from 2009. In both cases they had minor or non-annoying dents or scratches, and in neither case did the plastic shatter, peel, delaminate, buckle, warp, pop out, or otherwise deform in a way to make me regret hurling them. I doubt any iPhone would have survived the rage-induced hurling I gave my phones. And, I did it more than once. My Moment, a slider phone, kept sliding without of the tester-raped wobbliness one finds the display models to have suffered after a year of finger fracking by indecisive or abusive shoppers.

      Again, that judge needs to be made to rethink his decision or an outside-of-the-region judge needs to be brought into that court room for that particular door-opening-capable case.

      (The cause of my rage was either SAMSUNG or Android, where the inputs would just fuckng stutter or shudder and then spew key inputs like vomit rather than smoothly displaying as I typed. That kind of bullshit is annoying, whether it is hardware, OS, or network induced. Another form of rage inducement was when two backspaces would surge backwards and wipe out half a line, then a whole fucking line of carefully crafted 2-minutes of text. So, it doesn't take much imagination to figure how hard I must've hurled/flung those phones, bouncing them off walls, furniture, and onto the floor, and they kept working! It did feel like a dumbass, and I cringed while picking them up, then almost cried that they still worked because destroying them would have set me back by hundreds of dollars.)

      1. Edwin
        Trollface

        Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

        Based on your first post, I never would have guessed that you have anger issues...

        1. dssf

          Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

          HAHAHAHA!!!!

          You just gave me the best laugh I had all day, Edwin. Thanks! I gave you a thumbs-up for your comment! :)

          I do have occasional anger issues, but not anger management issues. I usually can vent in a few (maybe 10-20?) minutes, sometimes sooner if a nicer distraction materializes. If I lost control, I'd have rotted organs, gray hair, and maybe premature hair loss, at the very least.

          Again, cheers for the laughter you gave me!

      2. Aaron Em

        "The cause of your rage"

        -- judging by the way you write -- seems to be, not so much smartphone wonkiness, as an enthusiastic and insufficiently controlled stimulant habit.

        Settle down a bit, lad, and lay off the crystal meth or Vivarin or hi-test coffee or whatever it is you're sucking down so much of. It'll do a world of good, for your heart and your workmates both.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

        You call that angry? When my phone pissed me off, I built a railgun and fired it at the moon.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

          Can I Borrow the railgun?

        2. Franklin
          Thumb Up

          Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

          "You call that angry? When my phone pissed me off, I built a railgun and fired it at the moon."

          Yeah, but did it break? And if it did, did you sue the handset manufacturer?

      4. Tom 38

        Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

        And, in case anyone wants to know, I have in anger at phone wonkiness hurled across the room TWO of my previous SAMSUNG phones, one multimedia flip phone from 2007, and my SAMSUNG Moment, from 2009. In both cases they had minor or non-annoying dents or scratches, and in neither case did the plastic shatter, peel, delaminate, buckle, warp, pop out, or otherwise deform in a way to make me regret hurling them.

        You are G.W. Bush and I claim my $100.

        1. Simon Harris

          Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

          Naomi Campbell, surely!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

      Actually, he said it was 30x harder than plastic, not stronger, but never let the facts get in the way of a good rant, eh?

      1. dssf

        Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

        His words STILL had the effect of decieving not only his flock, but the general, non-engineering public. Plastic or glass, it is immaterial -- lots of people expected more from apple, and dropping a phone 3-6 feet on any hard surface should not be such a heart-shattering experience. So, it is no wonder that people come up with consipiracy theories about the repair costs, refurb vs new, and other thorns in the sides of consumers having that issue, non?

      2. Richard 120

        Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

        "Actually, he said it was 30x harder than plastic, not stronger, but never let the facts get in the way of a good rant, eh?"

        Completely OT, but did he really say it to mean that?

        Is that really a selling point unless you plan to use the thing to engrave something, or maybe as a drill bit?

        Did he say where it appears on Mohs scale? Presumably around 6/7.

        Just wondering what purpose a "harder" phone actually serves.

        Presumably that you'll only be able to scratch it with harder materials.

        That probably is it thinking about it, a typical marketing thing, say something which whilst accurate is going to be misinterpreted by pretty much everyone and isn't necessarily what a lot of people want.

        Apple do marketing well.

        I'd prefer durability to hardness, but it wouldn't be good marketing to say it's vastly less durable than this cheaper (albeit not as hard) plastic product.

    3. Steve I

      Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

      Calm down, Barry...

    4. Conner_36
      Happy

      Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE!

      Thanks for your vote of support man :)

    5. dssf

      Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE! WOW!!!

      68 thumbs down on a day's worth of posts... I must be doing SOMEthing right -- pissing off those who cannot bear to see their cherished company slandered or riduculed when it deserves it at a given moment.

      But, really, down-thumbs should have an enforced justification and account integrity/accessibility at-risk for those who reach back and justs in anger down-thumb every recent post of someone just out of rage or anger. So, go ahead, destroy my upvote/downvote ratio. It's just your piss-poor inability to accept the perspective of someone else without any way to comprehensably take someone to task. I'd hate to have a boss like you because no one would be able to rationalize with you when you are too pig-headed to just accept comments by another. Learn to ENGAGE, not frag, comments. That's the major flaw of rank-based social and news sites: most of them give frack all about making downvoters justify their positions, and it allows for rank (and ranking) abuse of those with strong, vociferous, yet non-violent, non-destructive opinions.

      And, in my other posts about citizens referring to the EC for recourse over the bureacrat allowing the cable boxes in... Who except a pro-bureacrat or an uber nationalist or plain irrational type would find a reason to downvote that?

      Sigh...

      1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE! WOW!!!

        Your first post was (1) unnecessarily confrontational, (2) used aggressive inciteful language ('Frackin MORON JUDGE!', 'IDIOT'), (3) confusing (was it a Best Buy rant, a Fat People rant, a Judge Rant?), (4) included DAILY MAIL CAPITALISATION, and to cap it all, was wrong. (Jobs didn't say 30x stronger than plastic).

        I can't imagine a post more deserving of downvotes.

      2. lotus49
        Thumb Down

        Re: Frackin MORON JUDGE! WOW!!!

        Actually no.

        You were downvoted because your posts were stupid. Everyone knows glass shatters including you. Stop being so vacuous.

      3. Aaron Em

        Nothing attracts more downvotes...

        ...than complaining about downvotes. Especially on a site where your up/down ratio a) means fuck-all, and b) isn't even visible to anyone save yourself!

        Downvoted for obvious reasons: specifically, I'm wondering whether it is possible to induce spontaneous human combustion through sheer apoplexy, and you seem an excellent candidate for this research.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    only an idiot(phone owner) would purchase such a product/would make such a claim.

    The judes response should have been "buy a better phone".

    1. dssf

      If he said that, he'd have been a Judas, heheh, and his quarterly dividend/annual bonus check would have been painfully slashed.

    2. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Coat

      Should that not be iDiot

      Sorry, couldn't resist.

      I'll get me coat

  9. skipper
    Unhappy

    They seem fragile to me...

    ...my wife managed to smash the rear glass on her 4S within a few weeks of having it.

    Yes - glass can be fragile, but to me a phone that can't take the occasional knock and drop is hardly fit for purpose in the real world. You wouldn't make a teapot out of chocolate, so why make a phone so fragile? I've dropped and generally abused my Samsung S2, and bar some scuffing on the rounded corners its so far unscathed (maybe due to luck admittadly).

    Given the attention to design Apple reportedly have, I'd expect better.

    1. Steve Evans

      Re: They seem fragile to me...

      Apple attention to detail is all about cosmetics and appearance. It rarely strays into the real world.

      Remember the G4 cube that looked nice, was quiet, but you could murder simply by putting something on the top of the case (as you do, my phone and N7 are sitting on top of my PC right now) and accidentally blocking the air-flow?

  10. dssf

    IDEA for Samsung...

    SAMSUNG should go to the US 7th District Court and on behalf of iPhone users who were jilted by apple, sue apple for apple daring to go to Korea and prod the local courts there for abuse of patent hoarding. Korean courts are not stupid. They fully are aware that the major and Chaebol companies holding patents have to file them, and there IS a deep, invasive Chaebol Family Map of sorts alread discoverable by the public and the patent filing ministry officers. So, even IF SAMSUNG is an illegal "patent hoarder", Korea doesn't NEED *apple* telling Korean courts how to handle domestic affairs. Besides, due to materialism and such, plenty of Koreans have iPhones, and I do not in 3 months recall seeing ANY KOREAN walking around with a SHATTERED iPhone. But, in the USA, I've seen puhlenty of 'merkuns casually whipping out their shattered iPhones, as if the shattered state was just a feature rather than an embarrassment, hahahaha..

  11. dotdavid
    Unhappy

    "A US judge has ruled that punters who drop their iPhones, smashing the smartphone's glass screen in the process, can't blame Apple for it."

    What if they pushed you?

  12. Paul L Daniels
    Angel

    Hell no, don't stop using glass!

    I make a nice income from replacing all the shattered iphones and ipods. The biggest pains I have are trying to get the dents out of the metal parts so that the glass bits can fit in properly without excessive force.

    Seriously though, iPhone 4/4S back glass is dead easy to replace (2 screws and slide off the back), the front/LCD otoh is a tormenting job involving about 10 different screw sizes spread across ~20 screws and random selections of tempermental clear adhesive sheets.

    Sure, it's 30x harder/tougher than plastic, which means it won't look like a scratch-fest motorbike visor at the end of the first month, but yes, they break fairly quickly as a consequence (for now, until materials science gives us something even better ).

    1. dssf

      Re: Hell no, don't stop using glass!

      OK, fine, I'll buy that you said it's "dead easy" to remove two screws to replace the glass. But, a Korean friend of my dropped his dotingly-loved iPad and cracked the glass in a small area of a corner. He went to one or more local Yongsan electronics stores to get estimates. They wanted a whopping W200,000 to replace the glass and do the labor. He could just wait a few more months for the upcoming iPad. THAT, I suspectg, is what galls some iPhone/iPad/iPod owners, knowing they will pay big time, whichever way they choose -- if they are among the price-sensitive iConsumers.

      In defense of apple, though, I suspecgt that my friend's iPad was not in its case when he dropped it. If he did have it encased, then he REALLY got unlucky to have a corner suffer the drop.

      1. hazydave

        Re: Hell no, don't stop using glass!

        There are no price sensitive iCustomers. Apple is a Luxury brand. Buyers know they're paying more, just as customers of Jaguar or Louis Vitton.

    2. Zedsquared

      Re: Hell no, don't stop using glass!

      "it's 30x harder/tougher than plastic"

      The trouble is that many don't seem to realise that "hard" and "tough" are *not* equivalent. Toughness is the ability to flex and absorb energy without sustaining damage. Hardness is a measure of how much force it takes to scratch something. Leather is very tough, glass is very hard... I wouldn't make a glass saddle or a leather chopping board.

      Marketing people have very tough skins which means they can bend these concepts around without fracturing their integrity :)

      1. Richard 120
        Thumb Up

        Re: Hell no, don't stop using glass!

        Zedsquared, that's the problem right there, whilst the marketing material might say it's 30 times harder the OP has reinterpreted that to mean tougher and added his own words in to the marketing statement.

        That shows how easy it is to mislead people with the truth.

        The marketing also says it's "ultradurable" which means fuck all in the real world, it's not a quantifiable statement like the hardness one.

    3. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Re: Hell no, don't stop using glass!

      Is it really that difficult to make a laminate out of a tough felxible glass, with a thin, hard scratch-resistant layer on top. After all, it's not like the same principle hasn't been used for over a thousand years for making swords out of layers of flexible iron and hard steel.

  13. earl grey
    Flame

    numpties

    They should have been sued for selling their iPawn to an idiot.

  14. jaycee331

    To be fair...

    I've seen at least two iPhone's where it's actually the glass like rear cover that has shattered like glass, not the screen itself. Which has yelled out to me "bad design", because that decision has increased the probability of leaving the consumer with a smashed phone by 100%.

    Of course I'm not saying that's sufficient to make a court case from. Ultimately the judge is right. If you drop fragile things, they break, durrrrrrrh. But it does beg the questions -

    Why intentonally make a product which is twice as likely to "smash" on an impact

    Why buy something so expensive that is easier to damage than alternatives that have rubberised backs or easily replaceable rear battery covers. Though I guess if you haven't it with your own eyes, you're unlikely to know.

    1. hazydave

      Re: To be fair...

      The backside of the iPhone 4/4x I'd glass, not just glass-like. Why? Typical case of Apple's dedication to form over function... like the one-button mouse, desktops with built-in screens, devices with unchangeable batteries, minimal I/O ports, etc. It makes for a cleaner design. The double glass is entirely impractical, makes the phone much more slippery, much more likely to break when dropped, etc. But look at the symmetry, front to back... pretty. Well, to some anyway.

      And that actually matters. Apple is selling you the Jaguar or Rolls-Royce of phones, a luxury item. Look and status matter on these things, often more than simple usability or durability. It has to be an object of desire to enough people, or Apple fails. Same reason they go to all that trouble to build (sometimes) attractive skeuomorphic UIs, why Apple was all over the slickness of the UI (a thing Android's only just now addressed), etc. They're selling the experience. Some want that.

      Me... I prefer a reliable and capable tool. Android does that. It's even looking nicer these days, as are some of the devices. Especially when they don't copy Apple, poorly, but go their own way. Like, if you want rugged, there's Motorola's RAZR... hard to drop, but moisture sealed and made of Kevlar.

  15. ukgnome

    Missing the point maybe....

    but what kind of feckless goons build a phone out of glass?

    1. dssf

      Re: Missing the point maybe.... hehehe

      You gave me my first laugh of the day, despite my being whack-a-mole-nailed downward 65 down votes over 10-or 15 posts in the past 12 hours. So, I gave you a thumbs up for that phrase "feckless goons".

      Cheers!

    2. lotus49
      FAIL

      Re: Missing the point maybe....

      The way they tricked everyone by not telling them that it was made of glass was disgraceful. It must have come as a real shock to all those people who bought iPhones only to discover that they were made of glass when they got them home. How could Apple have done that to its gullible customers.

      If only all those punters had known that the phone was made of glass BEFORE they bought them, how different things would have been.

      Oh, wait...

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A 'reasonable consumer' wouldn't buy such a stupidly designed phone.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The back is made of glass

    Seems like the back is made of glass, not just the front and that it is the back that the guy broke.

    1. Paul L Daniels

      Re: The back is made of glass

      The back is the easiest part to replace on the iphone 4/4s. $10 for the replacment, 2 star screws removed from the bottom of the phone, slide and lift off the broken glass-plastic laminate back, replace with new unbroken one, reinsert and tighten up screws. It takes 5 minutes and shouldn't cost much more than $40 USD or equivilant to have done. The front/LCD side though will take an hour or more and drive most people insane.

  18. Alan Denman

    Reasonable consumers. Where are they?

    As the judge said you can't blame Apple for having stupid customers.

    Apple supply the stupidity and we customer's then share it out on the world wide winker.

  19. chipxtreme
    WTF?

    As much as I hate crapple with a passion I have to agree with the judge on this, they can't be held accountable for smashed screens due to being dropped. I regularly change iphone screens for friends and the occasional back panel which keeps me in pocket money. In fact some are even on 2nd and even 3rd screen. Up to now though only had one smashed s2 and one smashed s3 screen. Oh and I know more people with galaxy's as well so proportionately its mainly the jesus mobe that breaks. But in every case its the user's fault, not manufacturers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They can, and should, be held responsible for making a phone which is prone to breaking under normal day to day usage- and I think you'll agree that accidentally dropping a phone or knocking it off a coffee table should be seen as normal when it comes to mobile phones.

  20. Alan Denman
    Holmes

    Did Apple patent the revolving door?

    It is obvious to me that in 4 years time Apple may well make more money from their recycling program than they do from actual new phone sales.

    Refurbished iPhone or iPad anyone, some crackingly good deals already out there.

  21. Lost in Cyberspace

    Maybe people care more

    When the phone costs £500.

    I wouldn't be bothered about a £30 phone breaking and I'd happily smash a blackberry to bits.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That is what the case is for

    Everyone I know with an iphone has a protective case for it. There is even a 100% Silicone "Hello Kitty" model. Myself, I can't afford any of the data plans for one.........................

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That is what the case is for

      So basically - Apple sell a phone that breaks unless you buy an additional protective case... sounds like a design fault to me.

  23. Local G
    Happy

    Okay. This is a hoax right?

    Suing Apple in District Court for an iPhone under $1000.

    Paying a lawyer to do so.

    The judge not throwing the suit out as frivolous.

    The judge giving the plaintiff the opportunity to come back and "revise his complaint to show specific examples of Apple's alleged deceit."

    The plaintiff's Christian name being Betsalel.

    My feeling is that the plaintiff is an executive at Oracle making over $700k a year, who wanted to see the title Williamson v Apple in the permanent records of the Federal Trial Courts. It's cheaper than a Ferrari. And lasts forever.

  24. JaitcH
    FAIL

    Another bent judge ...

    bought by and sold to Apple.

    My glasses are shatter-proof, why not Apple's glass?

    1. hazydave

      Re: Another bent judge ...

      Shatter proof glass is much softer. You can have that, and scratches, or the ha d but more brittle Gorilla Glass (and similar) that doesn't scratch but will more easily break. Or go even further, as some eyeglasses do, and go for polycarbonate, even more resilient, but softer still.

      This is a problem for all snartphones, at least until we get our, transparent aluminum or some other new tech screen. It's just Apple that decided to take the most breakable part of the device and double down on it. The fix is obvious: buy a better phone next time.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But...

    ... a reasonable person might expect that a mobile phone was actually strong enough to survive being dropped, or falling off a table, sofa etc. Make things of glass, or out of a lot of glass, and they start becoming as fragile as ornaments.

  26. stanimir

    Siemes ME45

    Back in the day (10+ years) I used to own Siemens ME45 and we used to play mini football with it in the office, dropping from 1.5m and it was rock solid - literally (but actually didn't try to crack nuts with). Probably would still use it except... one rainy night it was lost [or stolen] w/o trace. I think the same model was featured in Minority Report and one of the Bourne movies.

  27. lotus49
    WTF?

    It's glass - what's wrong with you lot?

    The front and back of an iPhone are made of glass. It doesn't make any bloody difference what sort of glass it is. You knew that when you bought it so don't pretend you are so stupid that you didn't know that glass breaks.

    How this idiotic case ever got before a judge mystifies me. I think it's about time that contingent fees were banned in the US and this preposterous and frivolous litigation would stop overnight.

    What a waste of everyone's time and money (except for the lawyers of course).

  28. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge
    FAIL

    Fails all around

    Well...

    a) The judge is a numpty. It *is* a well-known fact that glass can crack. But, the IPhone doesn't use glass, it uses Gorilla Glass. Both Apple and Corning have made a big deal about how tough Gorilla Glass is.

    b) Nevertheless, Apple doesn't owe dick. People have an option of buying insurance against damage from drops and such. If they didn't buy it, that is tough shit. I cracked the screen on my Droid 2 Global (uninsured). (This was after quite a few launches out of my shirt pocket). I didn't sue Motorola over it, it was an accident and it happened. Suck it up and pay for a repair like I did. (Well, then I replaced the phone with a newer, shinier 4G LTE model.)

  29. elaar

    You only ever seem to see iPhones with cracked screens now days, i've seen 3 friends recently with them.

    I can only conclude that either I see more because there's just more iPhones out there than others, or the screens are badly designed for impacts, or the users are just generally a bit more clumsy than average.

  30. John Tserkezis

    It's not the phone, it's the users.

    Firstly, I hate apple as much as the next geek, but this has nothing to do with the phone.

    iPhone glass is no better or worse than any other phone's glass. You're free to argue sematics, but I just don't care, they're close enough that brand to brand won't make a difference.

    However, anecdotal evidence (my daily commute) observes that of all the phones I see people using, by far, the most broken displays belong to some iPhone variant. (More than a dozen broken iPhones, verses two non-iPhones).

    My theory is that the _class_ of person who is likely to buy an iPhone, is the class of person who simply doesn't care about their hardware, or are klutzes, or both.

    1. hazydave

      Re: It's not the phone, it's the users.

      It's not just that. The iPhone of course has glass on both sides, which means, when you drop it, it's at least twice as likely to crack somewhere. But I claim that that design also makes dropping the phone more likely. The glass back is slick and perfectly flat. Other phones have rubber, textures, features, etc on the back that makes gripping much easier, dropping much less likely.

      Of course, it's harder to prove in court that iOS devices are specifically designed to be dropped. But they are. It's nit just the users.

  31. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

    Why so many broken iPhone screens?

    I think it would be interesting to see the statistics of number of phones sold vs broken screens. Anecdotally, I have seen a number of iPhones with broken screens (mostly the earlier generations of iPhone, but also the iPhone 4), but have never seen another smart phone with such damage. I don't know whether it is down to repairs / replacements being easier to get / cheaper with other phones, or whether it is down to Apple phones being more fragile in general. I suspect it is maybe a combination of several factors, including the sheer number of iPhones out there, but as I say, it would be interesting to see the raw numbers and see whether they bear out the anecdotal evidence.

  32. hazydave

    Please...

    It's common knowledge that Apple's iDevices are designed to be hard to hold on to. If you look at the similar "all screen" Palm PDAs that came before, they were slightly beveled to help on the grid. The Droid/Milestone had rubber on the back. Everyone knows how to make non-slippery mobile devices.

    So what does Apple do? Apparently, the iPhone 3GS just wasn't slipping and breaking as often as planned. So they fixed that in the iPhone 4, using glass on both sides to make it even more slippery, and to ensure that no matter how you drop it, it lands on glass, rather than something unbreakable. They may even have a patent on the breakability factor -- it's not widely copied.

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