Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile

Study shows iPhone 4 screens breaking 82 percent more than 3GS

Aemon Malone
By

Warranty provider, SquareTrade, has released an analysis of iPhone 4 accident claims and compared them to similar claims with the iPhone 3GS. Strikingly the company reported that instances of iPhone 4s with broken screens were up significantly over the 3GS model, to the tune of 82 percent. Cracked or broken screens remain by far the most commonly reported accident among users of the new iPhone.

The study finds that overall, iPhone 4 owners are reporting damaged phones 68 percent more frequently than 3GS owners did after four months of ownership. An estimated 15.5 percent will report a problem with the iPhone 4 within the first year –- roughly one out of every six owners.

Recommended Videos

The analysis suggests that the iPhone 4’s glass is at least as likely to crack when compared to the 3GS. The new iPhone’s redesign, which doubled the total glass surface area, is suggested as a likely culprit behind the problems — more glass, more area to break.

Related

Apple made bold claims about the toughness of the iPhone 4’s design when it was first unveiled. It stands by those claims on its website, saying the phone features aluminosilicate glass that is “chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic” and is “ultradurable.” SquareTrade’s study suggests that the iPhone may not be as resilient as Apple would like us to believe. Maybe we should have been forewarned when Apple also claimed the screen to be “recyclable.”

Despite the rather bleak analysis, the study commends the iPhone has being a “well constructed device” that has an overall failure rate “much lower than most other consumer electronics.” SquareTrade says it plans to conduct a similar analysis among the latest Android models.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Aemon Malone
Aemon Malone
Former Digital Trends Contributor
iPhone SE 4: news, rumored price, release date, and more
The Apple iPhone SE (2022) and Apple iPhone SE (2020) together.

While the spotlight always seems to be on Apple’s mainline iPhones, the iPhone SE is a great pick for those who are on a budget. If you want an iPhone that doesn't break the bank, the SE is the way to go.

The original iPhone SE came out in 2016, and then Apple revamped it in 2020 and 2022 by giving it some more modern hardware. The iPhone SE tends to get updated every two or so years rather than annually like the traditional iPhone. This means  that we should see a new iPhone SE 4 this year, but it’s not so cut-and-dried with this particular model.

Read more
3 reasons why I’ll actually use Anker’s new iPhone power bank
A person holding the Anker MagGo Power Bank.

Power banks are a necessary evil, and even if you don’t consider yourself a “power user” who's likely to drain a phone’s battery in less than a day, there will be times when one comes in handy. And when I am forced to carry one, I want it to be as helpful and versatile as possible.

I’ve been trying Anker’s MagGo Power Bank 10K -- meaning it has a 10,000mAh cell inside it -- and there are three reasons why I'm OK with it taking up valuable space in my bag.
It has a screen on it

Read more
Here’s how Apple could change your iPhone forever
An iPhone 15 Pro Max laying on its back, showing its home screen.

Over the past few months, Apple has released a steady stream of research papers detailing its work with generative AI. So far, Apple has been tight-lipped about what exactly is cooking in its research labs, while rumors circulate that Apple is in talks with Google to license its Gemini AI for iPhones.

But there have been a couple of teasers of what we can expect. In February, an Apple research paper detailed an open-source model called MLLM-Guided Image Editing (MGIE) that is capable of media editing using natural language instructions from users. Now, another research paper on Ferret UI has sent the AI community into a frenzy.

Read more