Submitted by Bob Bhatnagar on
Apple's lawyers now have another fly to swat after a California man stepped up with a class action lawsuit over the iPhone 4's glass. According to Apple, the glass found on the iPhone 4 is "20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic." Apparently none of this matters when you drop the device on the ground from three feet up.
The plaintiff claims his daughter dropped his three-week old iPhone 4 from that height and the thing busted. In the lawsuit, he claims that "months after selling millions of iPhone 4s, Apple has failed to warn and continues to sell this product with no warning to customers that the glass housing is defective." His iPhone 3GS survived several similar incidents with no damage, so in his mind, the iPhone 4 should, too.
Whether or not dropping the iPhone constitutes "normal use" may be one thing, and the fact that he was lucky his iPhone 3GS didn't shatter into bits is certainly another. Some reports are referring to the lawsuit as "Glassgate" in a lame shout out to "Antennagate" and "Watergate," which took the country by storm in 2010 and 1972 respectively. Apple has no comment on the matter, although they have sold over 16 million iPhone 4 units in the past three months.
iPhone warranty company SquareTrade published a report in October stating that almost four percent of iPhone 4 users have broken their glass within four months of ownership, while only half that number broke the iPhone 3GS screen. Could it be that a 100 percent increase in glass on the iPhone 4 led to twice as much glass breakage?
The plaintiff in the lawsuit wants Apple to pay. All iPhone 4 owners would be refunded the purchase price of their device, as well as receive full reimbursement for any repair costs. Not only this, but Apple must make restitution to compensate customers for overpayment on defective iPhones. Good thing the iPhone 5 has been completely redesigned to avoid a sequel to Glassgate. In the meantime, don't let anyone borrow and drop your iPhone 4.
Comments
Anonymous replied on Permalink
I dropped my phone from three feet and it broke (big surprise.) Not my fault, must be your fault. You didn't build it correctly. I'll just sue you.
Where is personal responsibility? Oh, I forgot this is the X-Gen and the Y-Gen. Nothing is their fault, just ask a lawyer. He's got nothing else to do so he'll file a lawsuit knowing full well that the defendant will settle (it's cheaper) and he gets his money. The plaintiff? Oh, he gets a five dollar credit towards a new device.
What's wrong with this picture, people?
Anonymous replied on Permalink
The problem is that they (Apple) aren't taking responsibility for their mess up. I am currently in the same boat in regards to my phone. I just dropped it the other day and half of the screen is shattered. I was really shocked, mainly bc when i purchased the phone in August I was told that it was the same glass used for helicopters, personally whatever helicopter has this glass I don't want to ride in it. I'm so mad, so now I have to pay for a replacement device which is ridiculous.
Anonymous replied on Permalink
You dropped it. You damaged it. Why shouldn't you pay for a replacement? There's no warranty out there that I know of that covers user damage and misuse. You bought the phone knowing full-well that it's made of glass and that glass shatters when it hits a hard surface. You shouldn't have dropped it.
Be mad at yourself, not Apple. Consumers should be aware of the properties of the materials that products they buy are made of. It's not Apple's responsibility to tell people that glass can break. It's a well-known fact.
If I were the judge in this lawsuit, I'd laugh at the loser and tell him exactly the same thing.
EMIH replied on Permalink
Excuse me but Best Buy, Circuit City and most other chains offer and I have always gotten warranties on my laptops that cover accidental damage to the screen. If Apple knows that the glass compound it uses for iPhone 4s is fragile (and it must know that since the company it uses as its own warranty provider published a study saying that it had received 82% more broken glass claims for the iPhone 4 than for the iPhone 3), then at the very least Apple should offer iPhone 4 purchasers the option of getting with an extended warranty that covers broken glass claims. Apple could price the warranty at whatever it determines will cover its risk exposure. However, Apple does not do this; the extended warranty it does offer under Apple Care explicitly excludes claims involving accidental damage. If Apple offered a warranty that covered broken glass claims and a purchaser chose not to get it, Apple would have every right to tell the purchaser, "Too bad, but it's not our problem." However, Apple does not do this, so when all is said and done, it IS Apple's problem.
Anonymous replied on Permalink
what the problem is is the glass is very easy to break ... mine fell from about a foot high out of my pocket when i was on my knees on a linolium floor working and if it hits on the edge it will shatter .... since then it has takin 2 moe short drops like that and has broken in 2 other spots ... they can claim the glass is gorrila glass that they put in helicopters but when you make it as thin as they have it has no strength and they didnt protect it on the edges .... when i got mine about 3 weeks ago they didnt have the case out for it yet .... that may have saved it ... it may not have .... but regardless they didnt have it out yet
Anonymous replied on Permalink
Stupid...you may ask yourself.."Am I a human being?" actually its not coz u're Gen X,Y,Z or A,B,C you moron...as a Human being no matter how perfect u are can u avoid if the faith IF it stated that ur iphone will OR not dropped????? are u the Angel of "non dropped phone"? owh..if like that i would like to be ur slave...STUPID & SICK iPHONE lovers! Pls learn from S2..built for human NOT for an Angel like u.
globals replied on Permalink
im using Apple since year 2000, and i notice more and more BUILD quality degradation ...
Please dont let apple become generic -_- ''
Hoping apple lost this “Glassgate” lawsuit, and reinvented the quality of the long lost apple i used to ..
Anonymous replied on Permalink
wish i knew how to get in on this lawsuit ... my screen broke from less than 3 feet onto a lynolium floor on the back side when it slipped out of my pocket in my computer chair .... 3 days later one of my customers 4 year old kid ran up and gave me a hug and his head hit my pocket area and the front screen got broke .... not happy with how easy it is to break this piece of junk ....
Anonymous replied on Permalink
your a bunch of idiots Ive dropped my phone many times from 2foot up to 4foot hell its even been thrown across a room and all that ended in a little bit of paint stuck between the glass and the glass housing if your kid said 'i dropped it from 3foot' its more than likely shes scared she will get in trouble if she says i dropped it from above that or maybe even thrown it. same as my old ipod touch 2nd gen people said its easy to break the glass well mine didn't break after 2 years of dropping it every now and then so you must be doing something wrong with it I'm not that lucky
Anonymous replied on Permalink
Of course because IF it DIDN"T happen to you - you can't conceive of how it could be happening to others. Brand new Ipod touch slid off the edge of the bed 3 1/2 feet onto a carpeted floor but it landed a skew on one corner & it spider webbed.
Seriously, I know I set it too close to the edge. I was absolutely shocked when I saw what happened. I've had a laptop fall from that same bed without any problems. If this hadn't landed on the corder say across the whole bottom or flat it probably would have been fine.
I just need an option that's reasonable to fix it. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but Ipods are 4-5 times more expensive than basic mp3 type players and I won't me risking my money on another one.
Shesbossy replied on Permalink
Same here my phones 3G and 4G have dropped repeatedly with no damage. I've even flushed one before and it still worked. Even with all my carelessness my phones have not chipped or cracked and if I dropped it again on the concrete porch and it broke I wouldn't be surprised sometimes you dropped something and its fine sometimes it's not but I know the fault is usually mine. People need to grow up and stop expecting payment for everything that goes wrong in their lives. I should sue Aldo for making shoes that give me blisters when I don't wear socks or Starbucks when I walk outside and spill half my drink on my shirt or my daughter for giving me stretch marks on my belly because she needed room to grow. We should just start during everybody let's see who wins the most money. Lawsuits are a quick way to make a buck for ridiculous reasonS
Anonymous replied on Permalink
My television fell off a truck and shattered.. Is this Sony's fault?? They didn't tell me it would break if this happend... So they shall give me a new tv???
NO it is not their fault, same story. Stop crying and accept your own resposebility...
Unhappy user replied on Permalink
Looking at the enclosure around the iPhone 4, 4S, 5 and the iPad Mini is where there is design deficiency, it does not protect the glass edge like previous iPhones. (This also applies to corresponding iPods too) "Gorilla Glass", the name given to the glass used on all the recent Apple touch screen products is excellent in resiting scratching; however, that quality is the reason it cracks/spiders when subjected to even the slightest impact on an edge. There is no flexibility to the glass!
I suspect that if Apple's engineering test documents were supenied you would find that they were and are aware of this design failure mode and knowing this, they proceeded to manufacture these products. Keep in mind that a $.25 increase in manufacturing cost would result in Millions of dollars lost in profit since their target was a fixed price point. (Remember that any increase in manufacturing costs will reduce their profit margin). The only solution to avoiding this "sooner or later" breakage is to purchase a third party protective device such as an "Otterbox" . . . money that the customer shouldn't have to spend.
While i generally do not support class action suits, I now have a different opinion in this case since I have been the victim of 4 such breakages on 3 different devices and know other acquaintances that have experienced breakages too. Could I have been more careful, possibly, could Apple have done a better job in engineering to prevent such an occurance, you bet! As a result of my experience, I now encourage and would support a class action suit against Apple due to their lack of responsibility in taking care of the customer in this matter.