By Stephen Schenck | September 25, 2012 11:23 AM
We’ve talked a couple times over the past week or so about the tendency for the new iPhone 5 to pick up scratches in its aluminum finish, which become especially visible on the black version of the handset. Upon hearing reports that some phones were even showing up damaged fresh out of the box, our concern with this issue started to grow. Now we’re hearing that at least one user has heard a response on the problem from Apple’s Philip Schiller himself, but should Mr. Schiller be acting a little more concerned than he is?
When apprised of the situation and asked if Apple has any plans to fix the phone’s susceptibility to damage, Schiller responded, “any aluminum product may scratch or chip with use, exposing its natural silver color. That is normal.”
OK, that may be true, but is that the sort of response we’d expect from Apple? That seems to imply that Apple knew such damage was an inevitability, and went with aluminum components in spite of it. Maybe the company expected users to be gentler with their phones, or to not be so concerned over a few signs of wear, but this response still reads like something almost antithetical to Apple’s focus on design and manufacturing quality.
