iLounge

1

I’m not going to come out and say this was lawsuit worthy, skeptical of that myself, but I am going to say that the judge was obviously biased in the reasoning given.

Apple made claims about the strength and durability of the glass that weren’t just exaggeration, they were shown to be outright lies in practice when breakage statistics were looked at. I’m not sure how one goes from the “common sense” that glass breaks to a complete pass for marketing and selling a product with the promise that it was stronger and more durable than normal glass or plastic when it was actually the opposite.

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on September 6, 2012 at 10:27 AM (PST)

2

You say “strength and durability” but infer that to mean less likely to break.  “30 times harder” means the coins in your pocket won’t scratch up the screen like happened with old iPods. And “stiffer” means doesn’t bend; in fact stiffer things are more prone to breakage. But a stiffer iPhone means it “feels better” in your hand, with no flexing.

Given that the iPhone 4 has *TWO* pieces of glass, one might argue that all things being equal the breakage rates should have been 100% higher instead of merely 84%. I conclude that the harder/stiffer glass, therefore, *is* more rugged.

Posted by RLH on September 6, 2012 at 11:01 AM (PST)

3

@2: I inferred nothing of the sort, I merely pointed out that Apple was clearly deceptive in the advertising. If it takes the sort of parsing (and standing on your head over the two vs. one pane of glass) you just engaged in to explain what Apple “really” meant in their ads and product description, that IS deceptive to the average consumer and does not deserve the sort of blanket pass they got from this judge.

Play the engineering semantics game all day, clearly most people will indeed infer that saying something is stronger and more durable means it is less likely to break. When it turns out that it is, in fact, more likely to break than the product it was stated as being stronger and more durable than, well, you’ve got to be an apologist on the level of sb not to see that Apple was being deceptive in some way.

Again, I don’t necessarily disagree with throwing the case out as a class action lawsuit, I just find the white wash given to Apple in this scenario disturbing, particularly in light of these issues with past products (e.g. first gen nano).

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on September 6, 2012 at 12:13 PM (PST)