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.
