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That iPhone 5 you bought at great expense, that’s getting scratched and scuffed even though you’re being really careful with it? Yeah, that’s totally normal. At least, according to Apple’s Phil Schiller it is. It’s aluminium — deal with it.
Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Marketing, replied to a worried emailer, who queried whether Apple was going to do something about the “scuffs, scratches and chips” the black iPhone 5 seemed to be suffering from:
I guess it’s just like a black car — even small scratches will show up like a sore thumb compared to white or silver cars. So yes, scratching is normal for aluminium. If you don’t like it, buy another phone without a black aluminium back, or get yourself a case, I guess. Something tells me the iPhone 5′s not going to age as gracefully as some of the others did though. [9to5Mac]
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Oh dear, is anyone reminded of the “holding it wrong” fiasco?
Therefore we should expect a “other manufactures with aluminium backed products suffer the same problem” statement/video next.
Presumably they’ll also release an official Apple branded “holster” (aka a “case”) that they’ll ship out in order to rectify the “perfectly normal” problem.
And just as likely there will be a class action suit in the USA from people who think they could get loads of money from it, but who will end up with the selfsame “holster”.
It’s a feature!
Have Apple patented it yet?
Since the original iPhones metal back
Still
“If you put a case on it you are a stupid pathetic dumb loser”
-Jesus Diaz
It’s a delivered feature now. Awesome.
Also, is he trying to channel Steve there with his ‘No that big of deal’ reply…
It’s so normal, in fact, that they seem to be shipping some of them pre-scratched.
He is actually correct, aluminium is really easy to scuff and scratch, that is why most companies who use it put it through an intensive treatment process per and post stamping as well as in the paint-shop to prevent that.
If Apple are doing this, they haven’t got the process correct, if they aren’t then they are just cheaping out on their customers – much in the same what that Aston Martin’s aluminium body parts used to tarnish more quickly because they didn’t double-dip the stampings during production.
Hmm the back case on my HTC Titan is Aluminium and is absolutely fine over a year later with no case..
*Back Shell
HTC probably have a better treatment process than Apple which is keeping it pretty.
It doesn’t matter if it is cars, phones, or cans, they may use different specs of rolled aluminium sheet but if you don’t treat that aluminium properly before and after paint it will scratch and tarnish really easily.
Which means Mr. Phil Schiller is talking out of his arse
More a case of deliberately witholding information than total lies – what he should have said is “aluminium may scratch or chip with use but if treated correctly during manufacturing it would require extreme force or constant moderate force to achieve it”.
I was on about the “This is normal” part of it. Surely Apple were trying to coat it correctly, so the fact that his has scratched (presumably without excess force) means that this is NOT normal?
Oh yeah, that bit is nothing buty buttock verbalisation.
I’ve still not seen a photo of this occuring naturally – I believe the photo above is from somebody that went into an Apple Store and keyed the back of one of the display units, which isn’t exactly a fair illustration. Anybody know how bad it really is/got pictures?
There are a lot of reports of it, regardless of what’s shown in the image above. I’m pretty sure a number of people on Giz mentioned it in other articles. I’m guessing more will pop up in here too.
I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, more curious of it’s extent. I’ve always kept my phone in a separate pocket to my keys or anything sharp to prevent scratching so I’m just wondering what sort of damage would happen with that sort of care, or whether it’s only showing for people that just whack everything in there and bang it around.
And besides, the back of the iPhone 3G/3GS looked like shit when they easily scratched, and the shiny back of the iPods have always scratched noticeably – is this significantly more prevalent?
I think it’ll certainly be more obvious with this sort of design – having a black coating over shiny aluminium is going to contrast a lot more than a scratch on plastic or bare aluminium. It may also be easier to scratch, depending on what coating they’ve used.
Haha. Is it really that simple? Walk in, Pull keys out, Scratch, Click photo, Put phone back, Keys back in pocket, Walk out?
Seems to be. I believe this is the source of the photo:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=22813740&postcount=2320
With mine, the rim has a scratch on at the bottom. It’s very small, but it’s shiny, so I know it’s scratched off the paintwork/anodising. It was me (wasn’t there out of the box), but it’s still disappointing. My iPhone 4 took two years of abuse with no complaints – I don’t think this one’s going to last as long.
This is simply rubbish. Apple is a very consumer oriented company. This kind of profanely blunt replies are out of order. They need to sort this scratch problem out. Steve wouldn’t have been happy with all this!
You mean they should… *puts on sun glasses* …scratch this problem out?
Yeeeaaah!
Wabi Sabi!
Somebody send Apple an old Nokia N8. They were doing black & coloured anodised aluminium correctly back in 2010. Had one for six months without a case and it was still in perfect blemish free condition at the end.
i was all for calling apple out on this until people started “testing it” by rubbing their keys on them to “test the phone”
“uh yeah i scraped my keys along my new iphone and it’s scratched, why!?! UGH”
..uh because you just KEYED IT
You won’t get scratching like that on a Nokia 920. Please hurry up and come out. I need you.
..I want you, oh baby, oh baby
Did you see Microsoft have dumped Nokia and said the top of the line htc wp8 phone is the launch product?
Id be fucking raging.
I can kinda see why they did it though. There is a risk that Nokia get’s so dominant that the other OEMs stop trying. Better to get some competition going..
Oh aye.
My old BB Storm 2 was tougher than this. I threw it at a wall and the aluminium battery cover never scratched! Granted, the screen smashed and a few buttons flew out, but the back cover was immaculate
to be honest i would not put it past apple to of made it so it scratches easily to try stop sales of 2nd hand iphones so people go buy a new one and not want to buy a 2nd hand one thats scratched lol
they could of easily made it so it was more scratch resistant