Apple Knew the iPhone 6 Might Have Bending Issues

Remember bendgate? Oh, I’m sorry, I mean #bendgate. If you don’t, that’s fair enough, seeing how it’s been almost four years since the incidents occurred. In short, iPhone 6 models (normal and Plus) were susceptible to bending issues and would do so when placed in consumers pockets, especially when someone sat down with the phone in their back pocket.

Apple initially downplayed how widespread the issue was, saying that the incidents were extremely rare. Things only worsened for the company when the bending began to lead to touchscreen issues. The Internet was having none of it, and Apple has been involved in an ongoing lawsuit regarding the problem.

Now, internal documents revealed in that case show that Apple knew that the iPhone 6 was 3.3 times more likely to bend than its predecessor, the iPhone 5S, and the iPhone 6 Plus was 7.2 times more likely to bend.

As noted by Judge Lucy Koh, who’s presiding over the case, Apple then began to add extra epoxy to the iPhone 6 design to strengthen it. Obviously they didn’t strengthen it enough, and four years later the issue is coming back to bite them once again.

Between this and last year’s slow-down fiasco (which led to discounts and refunds), Apple has one clear lesson to take away from all of this: be transparent. The bending issue is a bit inexcusable, and the company should have down more rigorous testing before releasing the model in question, but the slow-down backlash could’ve been avoided entirely if Apple had just been honest from the beginning.