During Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at WWDC 2010 in San Francisco earlier this week, he particularly made note that the glass display in the iPhone 4 was much more durable and less likely to crack than all previous iPhone hardware iterations. As a result, many of the company’s fans, investors and stockholders were pleased by the news and were promptly relieved to learn that the new device could withstand a higher amount of severe usage scenarios.

As of yesterday, however, reports have been flooding the Internet about a little science experiment that iFixYouri tried on the new display. The third-party solutions provider claims to have recently acquired an authentic iPhone 4 enclosure whose glass panel failed to withstand a mere three and a half foot drop above the ground. However, the company did not reveal the surface onto which the unit was dropped and it was not able to test an iPhone 4 with its internal hardware in tact – only an authentic enclosure with the official glass panel.



Apple claims on its site that the iPhone 4 display uses aluminosilicate glass on both sides which has been chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic. Keep in mind that iFixYoui only received a mold of the device without any internal hardware components. One theory holds that a fully functional iPhone 4 will absorb shock much more thoroughly than a hollow mold due to the vibrational rigidity of the hardware components pressing against the outer shell. On the other hand, many investigators are claiming that the device frame the solutions provider received isn’t composed of the official materials that Apple is using on its final shipping products. Of course, the second theory offers and easy way out of the issue, if it were in fact true.



Nevertheless, while iFixYoui’s test is anything but conclusive, the company is also claiming in its defense that the iPhone 4 has a design flaw that “will bite Apple in the future.” The device’s glass display now sits on top of an aluminum frame, whereas the previous hardware iterations had the display recessed and protected by a chrome bezel, and this is apparently an argument for failure on part of Apple’s engineers.

Update: The administrator of iFixYouri has recently posted in the comment section of the iPhone 4 drop article that there were two tests performed on the device that day. In the first round, the iPhone 4 broke on the third drop on a flat concrete surface. The second test, requested by readers, was to determine if the device would sustain a drop on both carpet and concrete surfaces. During the seventh drop, the top left corner of the iPhone 4 encountered the flat concrete surface and the display shattered on impact. The administrator has also posted an additional image to verify the authenticity of the display, with a ribbon cable containing the Apple’s manufacturing signature.