Are Hopes for a Durable iPhone 4 Shattered?

[Michael Essany]

The new iPhone 4 isn't even available yet and already there are many blogger pundits pronouncing the updated Apple smartphone the "least durable" iPhone ever released. Within the last twenty-fours hours, photos have surfaced across the web depicting a shattered 4th generation iPhone. And if comments posted to many gadget blogs beneath the photos are true, a good number of prospective iPhone 4 buyers may not be so fast to purchase the new handset in fear of it being a veritable "shatter magnet."

But is that label for the new iPhone fitting or even deserved? Here's where the speculation was born. The fix-it gurus at "iFix your i," an increasingly well-known online presence that assists with Apple product repairs, claim to have obtained original iPhone 4 components. Got that? It isn't actually the new iPhone. It's a makeshift product using iPhone 4 "parts." Once fastened together - minus the circuit board, etc. - the team played a home-game version of Myth Busters and repeatedly dropped their creation in order to test how it handles impact.

The photo above shows the iPhone after three drops. It survived the first two without injury. The third strike (a drop from an elevation from 3.5 feet) proved sufficient to shatter the glass housing. This "evidence" seems to contradict the claim from Apple that the new iPhone is made from a chemically strengthened form of glass that is some "20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic." Naturally, the photos released by iFix your i have rattled some folks.

Even though the experiment is far from scientific, a mock iPhone 4 shattering so easily certainly isn't good news ahead of the product launch later this month. But we won't really know for sure how much of a glass-jaw, so to speak, the new iPhone has until the masses put some wear and tear on a device that Apple maintains is the most durable iPhone to date.

Image via iFix your i

[glassJAw]

Aye way

[qgshadow]

well some1 here said that "gorilla glass" is super scratch proof ect....
but can crack and shatter really easily, much like a car window.

[monk444]

Good post glassjaw

[DayumQuitPlayin]

I'm still gonna get one. I'll try hard to not drop it three times.

[virgozero]

They said it was as strong as sapphire crystal though..

[law111]

Yea definitely hold up.. This is one, the first, iPhone 4 to break. Mistakes are made and we all know in production not all can go perfect. So I think we do need to wait for the world to take their go at it.

[s1l3nt]

so the back of the phone shatters too?

[eZStaR]

The fix-it gurus at "iFix your i," an increasingly well-known online presence that assists with Apple product repairs, claim to have obtained original iPhone 4 components. Got that? It isn't actually the new iPhone. It's a makeshift product using iPhone 4 "parts." Once fastened together - minus the circuit board, etc. - the team played a home-game version of Myth Busters and repeatedly dropped their creation in order to test how it handles impact.

Read that?

[screamforme02]

3.5 ft is a death sentence for anything of that value.. im sure it will be ok..

new screen 0_o

dude its a glass screen, i droped my 3g a million times never broke. than i droped it screen first onto tile, shattered screen., its glass glass breaks..

[glassJAw]

Monk444 I know, right? I mean drop any phone face first three times on concrete and I'm sure there will be some type of dammage. I'm not scared cause I don't plan on doing that

[dr0herb]

ive NEVER dropped any iphone ive ever had.

But the iphone 4 hasnt been released yet. Maybe they didnt use the expensive glass on prototypes, and this broken phone is old style glass. As you will see from the gizmodo images; things have changed since that leak, ie: the chrome accents around the flash/camera lens. Im not woried and ive seen the video of the dell phone that uses gorilla glass. And iphone4 does use gorilla glass.

[ExileTEAM]

Aye way

your avatar and your post match up so good, lol at disappointment.

[dr0herb]

your avatar and your post match up so good, lol at disappointment.

haha facepalm

[niqolas619]

This test reminds me of one of my buddies I used to work at Circuit City with years ago. He was a cell salesman, and any time people were on the fence about getting a certain phone, he would say that the phone was designed to withstand a three and a half foot drop onto concrete. He told me that since this sounded like a scientific statement, it often got the people to buy the phone - nevermind the fact that he completely made it up!

Not sayin it's right, I'm just sayin...

[vegassteven]

please tell me you all understand this was not the real iPhone 4... But this sure gave this site a good surge in traffic

[awesomeSlayer]

Real news or actual manufacture defection?

[Excel Wiz]

This test reminds me of one of my buddies I used to work at Circuit City with years ago. He was a cell salesman, and any time people were on the fence about getting a certain phone, he would say that the phone was designed to withstand a three and a half foot drop onto concrete. He told me that since this sounded like a scientific statement, it often got the people to buy the phone - nevermind the fact that he completely made it up!

Not sayin it's right, I'm just sayin...

That's a salesman for you

[reggie6801]

Still planning on getting it. This not deter me one bit… maybe if I had mits for hands I'd reconsider.

[iLoveWindows&iPhone]

Just get a case