Apple's iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were plagued with issues. If you flash back to 2014, scores of customers complained about the phones' susceptibility to bending, with the durability of the new products called into question by YouTubers and the general public alike. Shortly afterward, the scourge of "touch disease" became a problem for iPhone 6 users, with the devices' screens periodically locking. The issues reached such a fever pitch that in 2016 Apple was taken to court.
While the tech giant repeatedly insisted that its phones were assembled with the same structural integrity as their predecessors, new court documents uncovered by Motherboard suggest otherwise. According to the documents, which were made public by US District Court judge Lucy Koh, Apple "determined that the iPhone 6 was 3.3 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s […] and that the iPhone 6 Plus was 7.2 times more likely to bend than the iPhone 5s." Despite knowing this, the company brought the phone to market anyway.
Apple didn't publicly acknowledge the bending and screen-locking predicaments until November 2016, Motherboard's report indicates. At that point, Apple offered to fix touch disease-affected devices for $149. The company's acknowledgement marked a reversal from its previous stance on bending phones and touch disease; in 2014, Apple noted that after performing "rigorous tests throughout the entire development cycle including 3-point bending, pressure point cycling, sit, torsion, and user studies. iPhone 6 and 6 Plus meet or exceed all of our high quality standards to endure everyday, real life use.”
The company has yet to comment on the newly presented court documents, but the major takeaway suggests that it deceived the public about a pretty huge design flaw.
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