Anyone remembers the whole bendgate controversy back in 2014 with the iPhone 6? It’s been over a decade since, with the launch of the iPhone 17 series now behind us. Launching alongside the trio is the iPhone Air, the thinnest phone made by the bitten fruit brand Apple. And it may just be the ultimate response to the bendgate controversy.
Serial torture tester Zack Nelson, via his YouTube channel JerryRigEverything, has put the iPhones to his usual series of abuse. What the iPhone Air and 17 Pro share in common are the new Ceramic Shield 2 glass. This means they only start showing marks when scratched with a pick that’s is level 8 on the Mohs scale of hardness.
There’s the usual scratch test that damages the phones’ titanium and aluminium sides just the same, but this also extends to the back of the iPhone 17 Pro’s new aluminium unibody back. Except, the sharp corners around the camera bump, or as Apple calls it, the plateau.
Because the edges here are relatively sharp. Because there isn’t enough surface area for the anodising process to completely take hold, the proverbial paint here is easily stripped away, be it by a coin or a key. This doesn’t happen anywhere else, where the apparent marks can be simply wiped off.
So if you care about their cosmetic look, your iPhone 17 Pro or Pro Max should never share a pocket with anything else. That, or you need a case.
The bend tests though sees all three phones pass with flying colours. For the iPhone Air specifically, it flexes a little, but snaps back into shape once the force is relieved. But Zack has decided to go the extra mile with the the thinnest Apple phone made by Apple. Using a crane and a scale, he could apply amounts of force on the phone that human hands could not. And the phone only started cracking at 55kg of force, and snapping at 97kg.
If nothing else, this serves as a great endorsement for the iPhone Air. Maybe not so much for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. Probably fitting then that the Air model only has the bumper and clear cases and the 17 Pro gets the clear, silicon and TechWoven cases.
(Source: JerryRigEverything / YouTube [1], [2])
