.jpg "Apple backs down on glass iPhone -")
When the iPhone 4 was announced, Jobs' Mob made much of the heavy duty glass that it put on the back of it.
The glass, Apple told us, was stronger than the plastic that had been put on the earlier iPhones. It was also shiny.
Sure enough the Tame Apple Press said it was wonderful and Jobs got another standing ovulation from them when he waved the iPhone 4 before them.
However in the midst of the many things that went wrong with the iPhone 4, including the fact it needed a rubber band to work, cut out when you held it to your ear, and had nasty brown smudges on it, was the glass.
Insurers throughout the world noted that the iPhone 4 was being returned far too often with cracked backs. No doubt this was caused by users dropping them. Apple has remained strangely quiet on the problem, but then again it might have felt a bit daft making cases out of something as fragile as glass no matter how tough they were supposed to be. If a case does not crack, it certainly scratches.
It may have been behind the problem which prevented Apple making a white iPhone.
Now it seems that the iPhone 5 is ditching the dumb idea. According to the Taiwan Economic Daily News Apple will be doing away with the glass back employed on the iPhone 4 and instead will opt for an aluminum casing, much like the original iPhone.
Obviously this is a "report".
No one will really know what is in Apple's mind until an engineer leaves one in a bar for us to have a look at. But it does make a lot of sense.
The report also said that the iPhone 5's antenna will be redesigned and will be located behind the Apple logo on the back. This was a bit of a no-brainer as the iPhone 4's design was plain stupid.
*EyeSee Below you will see comments from Apple fanboys who will insist that they never had any trouble with cracked backs or useless reception on the iPhone 4. If you are really lucky you might see the odd comment about spelling or grammar as a reason to dismiss an article which is negative about Apple products.
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Apple does revert to older design when newer design have shown to be "problematic":
* current iPod shuffle (4th gen) is similar to 2nd gen and nothing like the 3rd gen. 3rd gen didn't have physical buttons on the device.
* iPod nano 3rd gen (aka chubby iPod) is the odd one out since 4th gen and 5th gen followed the design cues of 1st/2nd gen.
If you were wanting to see a pattern, the 3rd generation tends to be the development line that's abandoned. iPhone EDGE (1st gen), iPhone 3G/3GS (2nd gen) since they're the same casing and external aesthetics, and that makes iPhone 4 the 3rd generation.
@ anon
We have a lot of iPhones in our office (3G, 3GS, and 4). I can tell you from experience that the iPhone 4 does drop calls but not as much as the 3G or 3GS. It all has to do with the location of the ATT towers since we have weak signal in this area.
Given how often I've seen people drop the iPhone 4, I'm surprise that none of them have had a broken screen or back. I'm guessing it's a luck thing, since I dropped my 3G once and the screen broke. But I've dropped my 3GS many times and nothing.
btw, what the hell are you doing back at work? Shouldn't you still be enjoying your new life?
You may have seen his article recently panning the iPad 1 - he mentioned he saw people using it to take photos - even though IT DOESNT HAVE A CAMERA.
It got rightly flamed in the comments and then he sneakily got it pulled from the website when he knew he'd been found out. But enough people saw it to know he's clueless.
He also continues to use his little catchphrase "The Tame Apple Press". Well done Nick. You're clueless.
You are going to love it here at Techeye....
I don't have many stalkers... and I am not sure of the protocol... do you want a pair of my undies or something?
All I wanna see is proper, informed and accurate journalism. You said in the article you saw someone take photos with the iPad 1 - how can you justify that statement?
Undies is good. I'll add them to my collection.