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iPad Will the new iPads have bending issues?
- Thread starter ric22
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Seems the structural integrity goes one way... while Apple forgot to reinforce the edge with the charger port. Come on Apple, if Samsung can do it, so can you...
Even one little strip of titanium one cm or so back from the charger port would help a lot.
Concentrating the force in a tiny little spot seems a bit unnecessary. A wider point of impact would have been much more useful, and replicated backpack use/an accidental sitting incident on the sofa.
He didn’t bend the samsung tablet the same way as he did this one though. He only tested s8 ultra
I only watched the s8 ultra vid. Which Samsung tablet are you thinking of? Is the S8 not comparable to the new Pro?
From all the bend videos, it seems that no, there are no bending issues unless you are being deliberate about breaking it—which applies to pretty much every device.
I would assume this translates to not bending in backpacks but who knows.
Looks like I was wrong with my vote 🙂
I would assume this translates to not bending in backpacks but who knows.
Looks like I was wrong with my vote 🙂
Honestly it seems clear that these devices are absolutely strong enough for day to day usage. Take care of it, and use home insurance or AC+ if the worst happens.
This obsession with Apple making a device that’s absolutely impervious to any degree of damage is frankly absurd. We spend orders of magnitude more on our cars and then whizz about at 80mph in them, but can’t make sure we put the iPad on the table instead of on the couch for someone to sit on.
This obsession with Apple making a device that’s absolutely impervious to any degree of damage is frankly absurd. We spend orders of magnitude more on our cars and then whizz about at 80mph in them, but can’t make sure we put the iPad on the table instead of on the couch for someone to sit on.
I’m being hyperbolic, but channels like JerryRig exist to reflect the obsession. Where are the videos of everyday use resulting in bent, or not bent, iPads? No, we watch, discuss, and share videos of people putting their devices through extreme stress tests. And why? Because of some obsession with durability. And fair enough we want strong and reliable devices — but they are strong and reliable devices. My observation is simply, why are we not content knowing that they’re already strong and reliable? We’ve seen a video of someone forcing 95lbs onto their iPad. We’ve seen a video of a lighter being held to the screen for a minute, of grown adults forcibly trying to bend and crack them.
Nobody does it in real life, and none of the “testers” actually say how that translates to a real-world scenario. Why aren’t these people putting the iPad on the couch and sitting on it? Or putting it on the floor and letting the dog walk on it? Or putting it in a backpack and going out for the day — “vlogs” are hugely popular these days so there’s no reason not to do this. These videos would be way more informative to the rest of us.
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We want to know how strong and reliable they are, and what changes there are from one generation to the next. You don’t know that until you test it. And knowing is better than guessing or believing.
Because that’s not a reliable test and the outcome depends on a thousand factors.
I’m not against testing, but what is the real-world utility of someone trying to bend it with their hands? You can’t tell me that’s a reliable test whose outcome isn’t dependent on multiple factors, nor that “a 200lb man who can bench press 175lbs bending the iPad to cracking point means it will, no problem, be okay if you sit on it.”
You can have lab-condition reliability by putting real calibrated weight on it like the one guy did, but that has no clear crossover into real conditions. And as you said: sitting on it has an outcome dependent on a thousand factors. Therefore, whatever happens on a video, my device may still break as a result of doing something that doesn’t break yours.
And the crux of my point earlier was this: we watch these extreme tests and then people say we don’t know how it’ll fare in a backpack or on a plane. Which is true. So if the videos don’t tell us that, and the videos put them through stresses none of us will ever attempt, what is the point of them?
Maybe I’m looking at it all wrong but it seems clear to me that they are made to a sufficient standard to not crumble under regular use. Especially as most people keep them in a case and generally try to take care of them. For me, that’s good enough.
It's a bit hard to show a video of it being put in a backpack on 900 occasions. I think it would be fair to ask companies to stick reinforcement in their tablets BEFORE getting attacking for bending issues online. Finally Apple has reached the point where reinforcement in one direction is present, but still not the other. Apple only fixed the iPhone bending problems when it became a newsworthy problem. If everyone always kept quiet they wouldn't make these improvements.
I did prefer the other test with the weights. But Jerry’s hands are at least a halfway reproducible test. The utility is that you learn how the new models differ from the previous models. It’s reassuring that the thinness of the new models haven’t made them significantly more prone to bending. You get a better feeling which level of stress will lead to damage. And for example we learn in which directions the iPad is more resilient to bending. You might choose to place it in bags accordingly.
I think if people are worried and take it out the house AC+ does make the most sense
Sorry but if it requires 900 occasions in a backpack to get damaged then there isn’t a problem. The problem is when a company releases a genuinely sub-standard product. The iPhone bending that you’re referring to became newsworthy precisely because it was occurring at scale in everyday situations.
Jerry’s hands are reproducible to Jerry, and nothing else.
Don’t get me wrong, I do understand the benefit of seeing how one device compares to the previous version. But there’s limited value because there is no direct carryover to using and carrying these things, as @ric22 pointed out earlier:
Here’s a tip. First, don’t bend it on purpose. Secondly, well, that’s it.
I wasn’t suggesting that nobody would do it 900 times, but that it’s an unlikely scenario. When the problems emerged with the iPhone bending, or the “holding it wrong” antenna issue, it didn’t take a year or 900 uses for it to happen.
I’ll go back to what I said earlier: the extreme tests simply don’t tell us much useful information. Nobody puts their devices through that level of stress, yet the tests also don’t convert e.g. “2 minutes of me bending with all my strength is a comparable cumulative load of carrying it in a backpack for a year.”
And besides, what kind of backpack? Is the iPad in a case*? Is the backpack empty? Does it get sat on? Does it get thrown onto the hallway floor when the student gets home? Way too many variables are at play.
*Why are the YouTube tests always, always, always on a naked iPad? How many people actually keep their iPad naked, especially when leaving the house and putting it in a backpack? I‘m sure there’s someone somewhere, but I’ve never once seen it. So where are the YouTubers who put the iPad in a decent case and then try to bend it with their bare hands?
I guess it’s not just the Pro that we needed to worry about having bending issues…
This is my iPad Air, less than two weeks old, and it hasn’t been anywhere that might have put a lot of pressure on it, aside from maybe my backpack, but every time I’ve put it there it’s been inside the keyboard. It does just seem to be the bottom edge, not the whole tablet, but it’s *very* noticeable, especially when putting it on a flat surface and doing a wobble test.
This is definitely not normal, right?
This is my iPad Air, less than two weeks old, and it hasn’t been anywhere that might have put a lot of pressure on it, aside from maybe my backpack, but every time I’ve put it there it’s been inside the keyboard. It does just seem to be the bottom edge, not the whole tablet, but it’s *very* noticeable, especially when putting it on a flat surface and doing a wobble test.
This is definitely not normal, right?
Wow! That is disappointing! The fact you had it in a keyboard folio makes it even more worrisome. I was kind of counting on the Magic Keyboard for my M4 13” iPad Pro would be protected from bends.
Was your backpack heavily loaded? I use mostly slings.
Certainly your experience has forwarned me not to put my iPad in a bag that has anything bulky. Of course this is just supposition on my are. But better be safe than sorry!
Hard to believe. Had to have a good bit of pressure applied to it to bend like that. If it is between two flat objects in your backpack, how could it get bent. There is more to this story like opps, I sat on my iPad!
It will fare just as well as any other iPad before it.
“Occasional sit on it” will damage most tablets, ofc. Don’t sit on your expensive devices.