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Some iPad Pros ship a little bent, and Apple says that's normal
Gadget-makers have long played with the idea of bendable displays, but this isn't what they were going for: Apple has confirmed that some brand-new iPad Pro units have a slight bend to them—and this is expected and not a defect.
There are numerous stories and images of very slight bends on brand-new devices on the MacRumors forums, and The Verge's Chris Welch observed the same issue in his own iPad.
When The Verge reached out to Apple for comment, the company told the publication that the bending is "a side effect of the device's manufacturing process and shouldn't worsen over time or negatively affect the flagship iPad's performance in any practical way." (The Verge's words.) Apple says the bending happens as a result of a cooling process used on the components when the device is manufactured.
Defective gadget return policy:
- Have you recently purchased a nice shiny "defective" gadget? Good, it should be under warranty.
- Is it actually defective? Maybe it's bent or has some other flaw? Good, good, we wouldn't want to be selling you something broken.
- Did you purchase it from Apple? Specifically, did you buy a nice, shiny new iPad Pro? You know, the one that can cost you upwards of $1k? Don't worry, it's supposed to be that way. You didn't get a defective device or damaged goods. You got what you paid for. A bent iPad Pro.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 21 2018, @05:48AM
We see this. We have parts that are moved straight from the mold, onto a table, and clamped down onto the flat, level table surface, to cool. And, we still get some that are bent a little bit after cooling. That much is perfectly true.
From that point, the story not being told is, that QC checks those parts for straightness, and approves or disapproves of them. Not all of our QC actually use a straight edge, instead just eyeballing the parts.
If we are ahead on production, the talking heads will almost always reject the parts that QC barfed over. If we are behind, and under pressure to ship parts, some of those bent parts are assembled into the finished product.
And, fact is, our parts can be warped quite badly, and still perform the intended function. Many of these items pass final inspection, with the final purchaser, some don't. We do get some back, but not many.
How a little warpage might affect the functioning of a cell phone, I can't say. Depending on assembly, it might destroy the board, or it may not affect the board at all. Ultimately, each phone will have to be tested, to ensure that it actually works. That's what QC is for, after all.
If I had a phone that was warped, would I give a damn? Not unless it were warped into a near pretzel shape. If you dropped it, and it rolled, and rolled, and rolled, you might get upset too. Especially if it fell through a storm drain as it rolled along.