back to article Touchy iPhone 6, 6 Plus chips prone to breaking down and giving up

Apple's swanky iPhones can suffer chip failures that can render the touchscreen unusable. This according to a report from DIY repair site iFixit, which says two controller chips on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus logic board can lose their electrical contacts, and when they go, the handset's touchscreen no longer works. The issue …

  1. James 51
    Childcatcher

    I wish the fair phone was more affordable. Microphone is going in my Q10 and have fallen back on my trusty N900 (case is cracked in a few places but still holding it together).

    BTW does anyone else have 69 minutes to edit their posts now?

    1. Captain DaFt

      "BTW does anyone else have 69 minutes to edit their posts now?"

      >Fnar< Maybe El Reg thinks you're too sexy for your posts?>fnar<

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fix the Headline :)

    The article says it's only the 6 and 6 plus, not the 6S.

  3. joed

    Hopefully one had left Siri enabled (but wishes for a mouse).

  4. -tim

    15 years ago the local Nokia branded repair shop had a soldering oven. With some times of failures, they would drop the circuit board in it for a while and then reload the firmware. It took them about a day and the phone was as good as new with new firmware and never had the issue again. I wonder how often that oven was used to fix water damage that now makes phones disposable.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't mind paying over the odds for apple hardware because I know I'm getting a premium product. *snigger*

    1. Sebastian A
      Devil

      SPeaking of which, did you get one of Kanye's new shirts?

    2. fruitoftheloon
      Happy

      @AC

      Ac,

      I am rather pleased with my recently purchased MBP would you be so kind as to advise me what I should have bought instead?

      Cheers,

      Jay.

  6. Tom 64

    oh dear

    looks like someone has been skimping on manufacturing costs again. Reminds me of nvidia's bumpgate days

    1. Tessier-Ashpool

      Re: oh dear

      It's largely a consequence of Apple's relentless obsession with making phones thinner. Thin = flexible = trouble = poor design.

      This madness has to end. Imagine if they made the phone as thin as a playing card. Do you really want to slide the phone off a table to pick it up, and hold it between thumb and forefinger?

      1. paulf
        Unhappy

        Re: oh dear

        @ Tessier-Ashpool "Imagine if they made the phone as thin as a playing card."

        Please don't give them ideas! Without some kind of miracle revolution in battery technology you know that would be achieved at the expense of battery life. Also it would be curtains for the lightning port - if the rumours are to be believed they're already gunning for the headphone socket in their quest to save another 0.1mm (which makes as much sense as shaving 1mm off the MBP only to leave it marginally too thin to support GbE port).

  7. Magani
    Unhappy

    Which one?

    Planned obsolescence or "You're holding it wrong"?

  8. djstardust

    That's what people get

    For buying a £149 phone.

    The fact it's sold for £700 is irrelevant. Cheap manufacturing to increase profit is at play here.

    Been saying this for years.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. Duncan Macdonald

        Re: That's what people get

        An analysis of the Iphone 6 by TechInsights gives a construction cost of $242.50 per phone - if Apple was content with the usual profit margin for the industry then the end user price would be around £300 - of course being Apple the price was more like £600.

        (The analysis by TechInsights can be found at http://www.techinsights.com/teardown.com/apple-iphone-6/ )

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: That's what people get

          "An analysis of the Iphone[sic] 6 by TechInsights gives a construction cost of $242.50 per phone"

          OK - Now add costs for factory tooling, R&D, shipping, distribution, warehousing, marketing, point of sale, import and export duties, local taxes... I'm not suggestion that Apple aren't making a tidy profit, but we see this conflation of manufacturing cost vs profit too often. There is more to a product than the assembled parts.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: That's what people get

          Shame, you made the classic schoolboy mistake of pricing an item based purely on its construction costs.

          I assume you think the research, design, development, sourcing & testing of hundreds of components, chip & software licensing, marketing, packaging, shipping, software development & testing, complying with every countries local laws and everything else that is necessary to get a product to market costs nothing?

          1. whatevs...

            Re: That's what people get

            Wow. A downvote each for the ACs that point out the bleeding obvious errors of tear-down-only pricing to determine what a companies profit margin is! You chaps should know that this is the only cost that exist when producing electronic devices. Shame on you. A regtard has decreed it!

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: That's what people get

              I think it's more a reaction to the attempts to justify selling the phone for nearly 3x what it costs to make by saying that the cardboard box is really expensive, all the while failing to mention the part that iTards usually crow about - where Apple is the most profitable company of all time.

              But you go ahead and protect poor Apple from all those nasty commentards

              1. whatevs...

                Re: That's what people get

                Yes. I am using actual facts. If you think that the component cost of a device is the only thing that should guide the sale price of a product is, I'd suggest staying away from any kind of commerce as a career. Also, you're not that bright, are you...

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: That's what people get

                  Apple reports their margins in each quarter's earning announcement. Historically they are just below 40%. If the $240 manufacturing price vs $650 selling price told the whole story, their margin would be a hell of a lot higher than 40%!

                  Granted, that's a much higher margin than anyone else selling phones (other than Samsung, pretty much everyone else has a negative margin selling phones, after all) but compared to Intel they aren't doing all that well. Intel's margins are in the neighborhood of 60%!

  9. Aqua Marina

    Sale of goods act anyone?

    In the UK this fault would be covered by the sale of goods act, and anyone with the faulty phone can return ir to the place they purchased it for repair or replacement. Granted they would have to start small claims court proceedings while the retailer sat around laughing, but the courts take a dim view of firms who shy away from repairing documented and well known faults.

    1. fruitoftheloon
      Happy

      @Aqua Marina: Re: Sale of goods act anyone?

      Am,

      Indeed, I recently returned a Lenovo U330 win 8.1 touch screen laptop, which fitted our needs just fine to John Lewis, on account of the wifi being f'ing useless.

      We have a bt home hub 4, which is fairly shite, plus the (internal) walls of our house are 2.5-3 feet thick, so I gave it the benefit of a doubt for a while. Then when in a local branch of Waterstones it wouldn't connect to their wifi (i was perched underneath the access point), so I took it back to John Lewis for 'repair'.

      I pointed out that Lenovo/their repair agent would probably say that it was just fine, but under the 'fitness for purpose' bit of consumer rights law it was effectively useless as a laptop, especially as it didn't have a cat5 socket (which i knew when I bought it). I also pointed out that as it was paid for by a credit card, if it wasn't resolved adequately, the missus' card company would refund the full cost and then they would argue the points with John Lewis.

      Well, six weeks later (very long story), John Lewis gave us a 100% refund, which wasn't too terrible as it was well over a year old by then.

      So we out that (£600) towards a new MBP.

      Cheers,

      Jay

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sale of goods act anyone?

      "return it to the place they purchased it for repair or replacement" - but they can take a "reasonable" amount of time to repair / replace, surely, which means it's pointless. Apple gets to decide what's reasonable (and if their pricing strategy is anything to go by, their repairs will take twice as long as the market average) ... leaving customer with no phone.

      1. Ian K
        Stop

        Re: Sale of goods act anyone?

        "Apple gets to decide what's reasonable"

        Not really; Apple can certainly say what it thinks is reasonable, as can the consumer.

        If it goes to the [small claims] court, though, it's the judge that gets to decide what's really reasonable and Apple/the consumer have to go with that.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We're Apple,

    Fuck you.

    Here endeth the lesson.

  11. snozdop

    D'Oh

    Does anyone at El Reg bother with fact or proof checking their articles before posting them?

    The title of this article states "iPhone 6, 6S" when actually it is the iPhone 6 and 6+.

    Then, the first line of the article states "Apple's latest iPhones", which the iPhone 6 & 6+ are not, they are almost 2 years old now. iPhone 6S, 6S+ and SE are Apple's "latest phones" (for the next few weeks at least).

    1. Archivist

      Re: D'Oh

      Yes you're quite right, and well said.

      Glad I read your comment before I expunged my criticism of this tabloid.

  12. Ru'

    I'm just amazed they waste board real estate with a 2 chip solution for touch. I'm no expert on current technology (and I do not have one of the affected iphones) but afaik it does not offer anything more than standard touch stuff, does it?

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