#BENDGATE - The New iPhone 6 Plus Comes With An Unexpected & Unwanted New Feature: It Bends
It's being called #Bendgate and Apple fans aren't very happy about it. At 5.5 inches the iPhone 6 Plus is a rather large phone to be carrying around in your pocket.
According to Mark Rogowsky at Forbes, "One thing they nearly all have in common is where the bending has occurred: It’s around the side mounted volume buttons. The problem with all that cutting, of course, is that it weakens the single piece of anodized aluminum that forms the back of the phone. And that missing structure is concentrated in a narrow horizontal strip which means that any force applied at the top or bottom is particularly effective at bending in that region."
Yep, iPhone 6 Plus owners are causing the aluminum-glass phones to accidentally bend when they sit down with them in their front pockets and they're left there for a long period of time. You know, like any normal person expects to do with their phone.
Especially if that pocket is attached to some skinny jeans.
It seems to have all started when an owner of the new phone posted the following to the MacRumors forums:
I received my iPhone 6 Plus 64GB spacegray at about 3pm on Friday and set it up, but haven't worn it out that day, so it wasn't in my pocket.
Yesterday, I left at 10am with the iPhone in my left FRONT pocket of my suit pants. I drove 4 hours to a wedding, which also involved a lot of sitting during dinner etc but also 2-3 hours of dancing. I left at 2am and went to bed, driving home 4 hours back.
So in total, the 6 Plus was about 18 hours in my pocket while sitting mostly.
As I lay it on the coffee table and sat down on the couch to relax from the drive (yes, sitting again ), I saw the reflection of the window in the iPhones slightly distorted. Now I lay it flat with the display side on the table, take a look.
Maybe at 5.5" it is too thin?
Unbox Theory then did a test to see if the phone would bend under pressure, which you can watch above, and the video went viral.
And yes it does bend. But there was some controversy about the way the guy bends it in the video, because he was bending it with his hands and exerting a lot of pressure.
Tech blogger Marques Brownlee gives a great explanation for the whole #bendgate affair below.
But regardless the news quickly spread and Twitter got hold of it and the jokes came thick and fast—and bent.
I think the whole #iPhone #bendgate phenomenon is caused by Uri Geller desperately trying for a come-back by updating his old spoon trick
Do not try to bend the iPhone 6. That's impossible. Just know the truth. There is no iPhone 6. #bendgate #bendghazi
Q: Why is an #iPhone6Plus like an M Night Shyamalan movie? A: Because there is always a twist at the end of it.#bendgate
In the meantime, caution and common sense should apply. Don’t put the phone in tight pockets, don’t sit on it, and don’t try to impress your friends by bending it for them.
If you’re especially concerned, this might be an argument for the smaller iPhone 6 over the 6 Plus.
Or you could just buy an Android Smartphone.
In response to Unbox Theory's video, The Verge posted this as a retort:
But it doesn't matter, because the internet thinks bent phones are funny—and that's all that really matters.