Beware The Bend

You know that feeling when you buy a new gadget, and you're obsessed with keeping it every bit as sparkling as when you took it out of the box? I mean, I do — my brother's strategy is to immediately dirty them up, to shatter the illusion that keeping a new gadget in mint condition is even possible, but just no. What's apparently happening to some new iPhone 6 Plus phones, though, goes way beyond greasy fingerprints. As it turns out, the iPhone 6 Plus can bend while it's in your pocket, thanks to this new generation's wider screens and thinner units.

Honestly, the thought of it makes my skin crawl. I'm a long-term iPhone user, and briefly considered diving headfirst into the deluxe model, the iPhone 6 Plus. Even though I was wary of its somewhat absurd size for a phone, the prospect of that memory-rich top model was alluring — I mean, 128 gigabytes of space? Yes, please.

Now, though, I'm grateful that I didn't buy too soon. I can't think of anything — well, anything gadget-related, at least — worse than slipping a brand new iPhone into my pocket at the start of a busy day, only to find that it horribly disfigured hours later.

Unfortunately, that's what's been happening to some people.

As TechCrunch notes, this isn't a new phenomenon — the iPhone 5 and 5S both suffered the same problem, and really, it's a simple issue of engineering and physical reality. The same things that make the iPhone appealing — a slim, lightweight design with increasingly bigger screens — serve as its weaknesses. The finer and lighter the metal, the more easily it'll bend, while the bigger the screen, the bigger the area to inadvertently apply pressure to.

And that's a problem when it's your cell phone — that is to say, something that's normally in your pocket pretty constantly. The advice MacRumors gave iPhone 6 users to minimize the risk of a bent phone really hammers home the issue pretty well.

To prevent bending, iPhone 6 Plus owners may want to remove their iPhones from their pockets before sitting or bending. If a pocket is unavoidable, then customers may want to place their device in a roomier pocket that allows the device to slide out the way. A rigid case may also provide protection from flexing or bending, as well damage from dropping the device.

If it's even possible to put the gigantic iPhone 6 Plus in your pocket, that is.

Which is precisely why Apple should address this issue. With repair costs for a bent iPhone 6 — on top of the extravagant price tag for buying the phone to begin with, this is a mishap that's costing a bunch of people some serious money. YouTube show Unbox Therapy tried it themselves. Spoiler — it doesn't end well for the iPhone, nor the iPhone's owner.

It wouldn't be fair to blame every person's bent iPhone on the company (some people treat their phones very thoughtlessly, after all), but it was still up to Apple to design the thing, and the larger, thinner phone they decided on makes this sort of disfigurement more likely, not less.

Images: Getty Images (1)