Bendgate, a problem that arose shortly after Apple released iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus stops the phone’s touchscreens from functioning properly. The company has not yet fully addressed the issue. The company has worked on enhancing the structural integrity of the smartphones, however, due to the large screens and slim form factor the touch screen controllers in the devices lose the functionality to contact with the integrated logic boards of the phone.
Moreover, according to iFixit, a global community of people helping each other repair things, many smartphone repairing companies are constantly receiving iPhones suffering with the touch issues.
The customers of the stated iPhones first observe a flickering grey bar on the top of the screen. And as time goes on the touch functionality of the phone gets worse. As compared to the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 Plus gets effected more. The issue can be temporarily resolved by pressing the screen or twisting the device, however, this practice makes the phone even more worse afterwards.
Solder balls are utilized to connect the two touch screen controllers to the logic board. Over time, the amount of contact between the two touch screen controllers and the logic board thins out. Due to this reason, the touch becomes increasingly erratic and as more time passes it ceases to work.
A flexible EMI shield is used in the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus phones while in the earlier iPhone models, a rigid EMI shield was used so they do not suffer from this issue.
In order to improve the structural integrity of phones and avoid the issue from appearing again the repairing companies are setting up a metal casing. Alternatively, to prevent the problem from recurring when the phone bends slightly or drops, the solder balls containing lead are used instead of the ones free from lead.
Till now, Apple has not acknowledged the issue, therefore, those who wish to repair their phones are supposed to purchase the new phones from Apple. The stated issue can be fixed by Micro-soldering experts, however, Apple has not officially authorised these fixes and moreover these repairs also void the warranty of the product.
Furthermore, in order to permanently solve the issue, completely replacing the phone or the logic board costs very high. While the cheapest method to fix the issue is to replace the touch screen controllers. Moreover, in the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus variants the touchscreen issue is not present as the touchscreen controllers are fixed on the display assembly instead of the logic board.