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Don't talk for everybody please. I'd gladly trade some of that obsession with thinness in exchange of decent batttery life

Yes, and you’re in the minority in that thought. Why do you think every manufacturer is trying to beat every other manunfacturer in thinness and lightness - because that’s what people (in general) want. If that wasn’t the case, there would be no camera bump, and all phones and tablets would be thick enough to prevent that. It’s that simple. I was not speaking for everyone else, I was speaking in general terms. It’s not about you - it’s not about me - it’s about the masses. It’s about out-thinning and out-thinning their competitors. It’s about sales and profit.
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I believe the reason Apple is using 6000 series aluminum is not cost, but weight. 7000 is heavier.

That’s exactly it. Lighter. Thinner. Faster. Personally, I wish there would be no camera bump on my phone or iPad but Apple’s sales teams clearly know what they are doing and no what the public wants in these terms.
 
Yes, and you’re in the minority in that thought. Why do you think every manufacturer is trying to beat every other manunfacturer in thinness and lightness - because that’s what people (in general) want. If that wasn’t the case, there would be no camera bump, and all phones and tablets would be thick enough to prevent that. It’s that simple. I was not speaking for everyone else, I was speaking in general terms. It’s not about you - it’s not about me - it’s about the masses. It’s about out-thinning and out-thinning their competitors. It’s about sales and profit.
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That’s exactly it. Lighter. Thinner. Faster. Personally, I wish there would be no camera bump on my phone or iPad but Apple’s sales teams clearly know what they are doing and no what the public wants in these terms.
"Every" manufacturer most certainly don't blindly try and get stuff thinner or lighter disregarding other factors as battery life. The Huawei P20 Pro is about 1mm thicker than the flagship preceding it, the P10 Plus. There are numerous other examples.
 
Now I’m honestly nervous about putting my 12.9” iPad (WiFi only) in a backpack full of other things when traveling — such a normal and natural thing I always did with multiple iPads.

By the way, my iPad is definitely slightly bent, I checked on a flat surface with it facing down and up. I have no idea if it was like that out of the box. I wouldn’t even had checked if I didn’t see this thread. The curve is infinitesimal, but it’s there. If it stayed like this it’d be totally fine, but being afraid of putting it in a backpack is just ridicoluous.

I bough it 2 days ago, only used it on a table with Smart Folio or on my lap on the couch. I still have 12 days to return it, but I’d hate to do it. I love it. I also have Apple Care +, but if it’s going to bend more 6 months from now, they will just give me a new one and I’ll be back to square one.
 
Yes, and you’re in the minority in that thought. Why do you think every manufacturer is trying to beat every other manunfacturer in thinness and lightness - because that’s what people (in general) want. If that wasn’t the case, there would be no camera bump, and all phones and tablets would be thick enough to prevent that. It’s that simple. I was not speaking for everyone else, I was speaking in general terms. It’s not about you - it’s not about me - it’s about the masses. It’s about out-thinning and out-thinning their competitors. It’s about sales and profit.
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That’s exactly it. Lighter. Thinner. Faster. Personally, I wish there would be no camera bump on my phone or iPad but Apple’s sales teams clearly know what they are doing and no what the public wants in these terms.

You do realize that the iPhone 6 was the thinnest iPhone Apple ever made, and since then each phone has stayed the same or gotten thicker? In fact, the iPhome Xs is almost a full millimeter thicker than the iPhone 6.

Same with Apple Watch. Even the series 4 is thicker than the original Apple Watch. Apple Watch Series 0 was the thinnest Apple Watch ever sold.

Also, while not mobile products, the Mac Mini and the Apple TV have also gotten thicker over the past couple of years.

Nobody cares about how thin a product is. If that were the case, each iPhone and Apple Watch would sell worse than its predecessor. Your argument makes zero sense.
 
Don’t you “oh please me.” You will defend Apple no matter what. In your mind they can do no wrong. No one, including Apple, is perfect.

Have you ever shaken an unopened iPad? It rattles. There is room for it to move around in there. There is not a large space between the lid of the box and the screen of the iPad. Pack yours back up and see if you can’t press in the middle of the box and have it touch the screen without damaging the box. Oh, wait, you won’t do that, because it might damage your perfect view of Apple.

I own tens of thousands of shares of Apple in my stock portfolio, so I want them to succeed, and I own dozens of their products, but perfect they are not! It is in the realm of reality that some of these iPads are arriving damaged, fresh out of the box, without user involvement.

Sorry but if the iPad was bent in shipping the box would HAVE TO BE DAMAGED!
 
Sorry but if the iPad was bent in shipping the box would HAVE TO BE DAMAGED!
I would say no on that. With such a delicate construction that the new IPP is, I would say that enough shock or twisting of the box could bend the iPad. Modern cardboard can take high shock loads without deforming permanently, probably more so than the very thin aluminum. Apple's box is also more for looks than protection with the device going all the way out to the edges of the box, without any air or cushioning materials in between.

Edit: However, I find it more likely that it's a problem in the manufacturing process or other problems with handling at the assembly plant.
 
I would say no on that. With such a delicate construction that the new IPP is, I would say that enough shock or twisting of the box could bend the iPad. Modern cardboard can take high shock loads without deforming permanently, probably more so than the very thin aluminum. Apple's box is also more for looks than protection with the device going all the way out to the edges of the box, without any air or cushioning materials in between.

Edit: However, I find it more likely that it's a problem in the manufacturing process or other problems with handling at the assembly plant.

Glad you threw that "Edit" as before that you were not making any sense.
 
I'm not so sure about that, i've had a Samsung Tablet for a few years that i've treated like crap and it is still not bent. You know it really is ok to admit when a product has a design flaw ;)

I am not sure what a Samsung tablet has to do with the new Pro's being bent out of the box. If that's the case, I would return it. Yes, I have no problem admitting if there was a design flaw, if there actually is. As of right now, we have YouTube videos where people are using excessive force and some people who have bent iPad's, but aren't clear on if they were bent out of the box or if it was an error on their end.
 
I believe the reason Apple is using 6000 series aluminum is not cost, but weight. 7000 is heavier.

Apple transitioned from the 6000 series aluminum with the iPhone 6 to the 7000 series for the iPhone 6s and Apple Watch. It’s a much stronger aluminum, I’m not sure what ‘Heavier’ would have to do with anything.
 
LOL, that may not be true at all...upgrading to a new product doesn’t mean you WANTED every new feature but the pros may outweigh the cons for now.....just like how I returned mine and HAPPY I did cause the design flaws and unacceptable amount of ram make it a BAD purchase for the money
THAT is how it is done!
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As an individual consumer our voice is not heard. But collectively, we CAN be heard. If Apple produces a device that doesn't meet our needs but we feel we HAVE to buy it because we "need" to upgrade, and we buy it, why should Apple do anything differently? They're doing what they want and customers buy their stuff.

Apple knows that a large percentage of their customer base is "locked in" to their ecosystem. That gives them a market power to do what they want to do with little if any customer response... because after a blip of complaints... removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack, iPhone notch, etc. people "keep calm and shop on".
 
I wonder if its the LTE ones more prone to bending or what... as far as I can tell, my 11” 64 WiFi silver isnt at all.. I dont blame ya for the price but you dont wanna try another/tempted to?

Ill be throwing it in a cheap moko Smart Cover / TPU back combo later this week,


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K69YW16/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Not sure I want to play the return game. From the responses on here (across multiple threads) it appears that many of the LTE versions appear slightly bent/bowed when viewed from the angle in the OP's picture.
 
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I'm surprised people would accept a bent iPad as par for the course. Too many excuses. I feel we are really lowering the bar to support our beloved Apple and shifting the blame to the user as a form of denial.

Can't always blame the user... Or can we?

What’s there not to accept? The iPad bent for him, not for me. There are avenues the OP can go to to seek redress, including getting a replacement from the apple store.

And if my own iPad ever faces a similar fate...well, I will cross that bridge when I get there.

I don’t see where or how we are “blaming the user” or “denying our own experience”. Crap happens, just deal with it and move on. Do you really need to kick up a fuss like you have been living in the matrix all this while and have only just woken up?
 
Apple transitioned from the 6000 series aluminum with the iPhone 6 to the 7000 series for the iPhone 6s and Apple Watch. It’s a much stronger aluminum, I’m not sure what ‘Heavier’ would have to do with anything.

Watch Apple's iPad video, they were trying to keep the weight of the iPad around 1 pound. Using 7000 series aluminum would make the iPad heavier than they wanted.
 
So, I took my brand new iPad Pro (11") out of the box yesterday, inspected it visually, and was happy to see that there were no apparent chips, scratches, stuck pieces of lint, dead pixels and so on. I was also happy that the screen uniformity was pretty good considering all the display units at the Apple Store had the dark corners with varying severity.

Then I took the iPad and examined it from the side just like the OP did, and whattayaknow... mine is 'bent' too - right out of the crisp, pristine box. This is clearly a manufacturing issue and is happening at the factory when the aluminum meets the LTE bands - whatever process they are using is causing an uneven seat. Or, another factory line step is too harsh causing these areas to push in (or out).

I hate to even call it bent, because it came from the factory like this (so it's not like it was ever straight after leaving the factory, then somehow got bent). I don't think that it's going to continue bending. I think it's permanently like this because there is zero give. I tried to straighten it out (knowing it's going back anyway) just to see if there was any movement in the aluminum. I put a solid large picture book on top of it as it was face down on a flat, smooth, granite counter (protecting both sides with microfiber) and used a nice amount of force down on all corners and edges. Nothing. It's ironically solid as a rock, and not budging and will probably forever be in this bent state.

It's very slight and not very noticeable if you're not looking for it, but it's there, and it's apparent on both the top and bottom where the LTE bands are. Here's a photo of mine. I used my Apple Pencil to show how bent it actually is. The pencil is flush against the straight (middle) part of the iPad, and as you can see, it slowly starts to bend left (enough to create a gap between the pencil and the iPad - a gap big enough to reveal the protruding camera nub on the other side of the iPad at this angle - something the pencil should be hiding).

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It's slight enough that iPad cases will still fit without issue, the iPads will fit perfectly and evenly in the retail boxes, and if a reviewer isn't looking for it, they aren't going to notice it. For all we know, several popular review units could have had this issue, but it went unnoticed.

I don't mind paying the Apple Tax, i've been doing it for decades, but you can't have fat margins and still cut back on quality control. I want a reasonably flawless high-end product for the high-end prices that I willingly pay. If they can develop a FaceID camera with millions of little dots to recognize human faces, one would think that their factories can use similar technologies to see if the basic flat lines of panels and rectangle devices are evenly seated before getting the okay for packaging.

Lastly, if your iPad has this issue, or any other issue, post about it, make noise, and keep returning it. Don't listen to users who don't have these issues, but still feel the need to look for posts like this and complain about people complaining about their flawed $1200 iPads. It's the only way that these issues get attention and make their way back to Apple so that they can be addressed, and so that Apple can address them with their factory partners as well.

I am not playing the swap game with this one. I've already setup a return and ordered a new one. I'll report back when it arrives, which should be in a couple of days. I will go to the Apple Store tomorrow to see how many display units show the same thing. One thing to note is, the severity of the 'bend' will probably vary from one device to another.
 
I’m at the Apple store now and I messed around with the 11” iPad again. I lightly attempted to bend it and I could feel and see it. The rear middle was popping out in a weird way too. I don’t like the feel of it at all. Same with the 12.9”.

No thanks. Happily sticking with my 10.5 Rose Gold 64 GB Cellular.
 
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If your iPad os bent or damaged out the box, call Apple immediately, they'll swap it out. Job done!

Things do come out of manufacturing damaged and I guess there's always the chance these things can get through whatever QA checks are in place.

Are people really going in to stores and seeing if they can bend them though??
 
Yes, and you’re in the minority in that thought. Why do you think every manufacturer is trying to beat every other manunfacturer in thinness and lightness - because that’s what people (in general) want. If that wasn’t the case, there would be no camera bump, and all phones and tablets would be thick enough to prevent that. It’s that simple. I was not speaking for everyone else, I was speaking in general terms. It’s not about you - it’s not about me - it’s about the masses. It’s about out-thinning and out-thinning their competitors. It’s about sales and profit.
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That’s exactly it. Lighter. Thinner. Faster. Personally, I wish there would be no camera bump on my phone or iPad but Apple’s sales teams clearly know what they are doing and no what the public wants in these terms.

No, people don't want a lame battery life either i think you're wrong in that aspect, Apple has just denied that issue through the years, the other guys (Samsung, Huaweii) give you thinness and excelente battery life) Apple doesn't give you the later unless you buy them a Phablet.
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XR would be for you

Thanks but i don't carry a purse with me. I mean don't get me wrong, but the SE was the perfect size for me, man, wallet and pocket. I have an 8 currently which i have to move from one place to another due to its size.

I've never bought an XR.
 
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What’s there not to accept? The iPad bent for him, not for me. There are avenues the OP can go to to seek redress, including getting a replacement from the apple store.

And if my own iPad ever faces a similar fate...well, I will cross that bridge when I get there.

I don’t see where or how we are “blaming the user” or “denying our own experience”. Crap happens, just deal with it and move on. Do you really need to kick up a fuss like you have been living in the matrix all this while and have only just woken up?

I am not following your logic. Not sure how my comments relate to you? I did not refer to you or your experience.

I referred to comments made by people who were assuming it was user error. Maybe I should have taken the blue pill.
 
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These reports of bent iPads finally got me too curious. I was going to check my LTE 12.9” against my reference granite surface plate but I didn’t need to do this after all. I took the iPad out of the case and just took a quick look and realized the bend was obvious to the naked eye.

There’s no question it’s bent where the side is interrupted by the dark gray antenna lines on two opposite sides. This iPad was treated very well. It was always transported in a soft briefcase alongside my 1st gen 12.9” iPad to provide extra support.

Now I know it’s bent, however, it doesn’t interfere with its function. I will probably just keep it because from all of the reports, especially about the 12.9” LTE versions, it looks to be a common issue. I may end up just receiving a replacement that’s also bent.

I was planning on buying an additional 12.9” iPad, but I will probably wait for the next version.
 
I’m at the Apple store now and I messed around with the 11” iPad again. I lightly attempted to bend it and I could feel and see it. The rear middle was popping out in a weird way too. I don’t like the feel of it at all. Same with the 12.9”.

No thanks. Happily sticking with my 10.5 Rose Gold 64 GB Cellular.
I can’t believe some people have the cojones and audacity to exert physical pressure on store-owned demo models just to see if aluminum will bend.
 
I can’t believe some people have the cojones and audacity to exert physical pressure on store-owned demo models just to see if aluminum will bend.
I would assume that half of those claims are from people who haven't even visited a store to try the new Pros.

(I'm not denying the 2018 Pro bend issue. But at the same time I take anything without video/image proof with a grain of salt.)
 
I think Apple is aware of the issue and they working on solutions right know, wouldn‘t surprise me, when the issue is quietly resolved with new manufacturing and strengthen of the internal frame early 2019. apple will be called out once again by early adaptors, but at the end nobody cares.
 
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