Form factors: one of my colleagues came into my office with cardboard cutouts of the new iPhone 6's and held them up against my Nexus 5 -- which turns out to be nearly identical to the iPhone 6 in size.

So, there's that at least.

Watches: I had a moment yesterday where I realized wow, I'm living in the future. I had Pandora going in the background (casting from my phone to the Chromecast gadget in my theater rack). The phone rang. I answered it but then I needed to mute the song. And there, on my LG G watch, was a pause button, because Pandora exports that into the Android notification bar, and thus it gets forwarded to the watch. One tap on the watch and the music stopped.

Think about how many distinct computers in how many different locations were involved in me pausing the flow of music to my stereo just because my phone rang.

It's the future, I tell you, the future.

And any kid growing up right now will just assume things have always been that way..

For those upset over receiving free things:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6439

Nice.

Impressive.

Nice bit of marketing.

For some reason that web page crashes my iPad Air to the desktop every time I try to view it.

iPad crashes for me are very rare occurrences.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/18/6339583/iphone-6-and-6-plus-camera-test-iceland has more info about the review trip. Made me want to visit Iceland even more.

This is not good news...

You're pocketing it wrong!

I really do wonder if this is going to turn out to be a real concern or just something that's gotten blow out of proportion. It is a little unsettling that this is happening so soon after the release, what are these phones going to look like after a year or two of use? How many people use an iPhone without a case? These larger phones really won't fit into most pockets I suppose with a case, people will have to adjust to using a belt clip or something.

How are the similar sized Android phones being carried around when not in actual use?

I almost never put my iPhone 5S in a pocket, I use a belt clip most of the time. It has also been wrapped in a simple rubberized case since day one. There are times when my belted iPhone 5S catches on car seat belts and such, I worry that the larger iphone 6 will get caught on things more often. Or simply jacks itself off my belt when sitting down or moving around.

My (not yet arrived) iPhone 6 will also be in a case as soon as I find a good one. Gravity happens.

And a new belt clip holder as soon as I find one that I like. If it turns out that the belt clip holder gets snagged too often in daily use, I don't have an alternate plan ...

iPhone 6 Plus just seems way too large to actually carry around everyday. Belt clip would likely snag frequently and I could imagine having to unclip the holder frequently before getting into a car or even just sitting down.

Pants pockets are not loose enough to cope with either new iPhone model, even my iPhone 5S can get oddly oriented in a pocket and need 'adjusting' before sitting down.

If you have a quick Google you'll see some people reported the same thing with the iPhone 5 and 5s. Though I don't remember any media coverage at the time.

There's also a follow-up test, testing the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which fares better.

Currently I'm carrying a Note 3 clone without any issues, but then I'm normally in cargo pants... I can sit with it in front pockets, but normally in the car it's in a holder and in the office it's on the desk. When otherwise out&about it alternates between front and thigh pockets.

"They don't go in pockets"

Oh, wait, that was HTC...

My iphone 5 has never had a case. If I wanted a thicker phone, I would just buy one with a decent battery life, rather than thicken the iphone...

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I'll bet this is one of those things where someone gets some buzz going about an issue, making it look like it's a new or unique thing, when it really isn't new or unique.

Is there a word for that?

Good round up of bending smart phones here:

http://www.cultofmac.com/297404/get-bent-shocking-history-bent-smartphones/

This makes me think of the Xbox 360 red ring of death issue. Normally, a failing piece of electronics is not newsworthy. It's only news if there is a particularly large percentage of failures. That's what made the red ring of death a big deal, was the high failure rate.

Remember, Apple is supposed to be better than the rest, not as good as for more $. People have come to expect perfection.

No one expects perfection from Microsoft.

You have a good point. Apple's marketing and branding seems to be trying to project that very image. So it would make sense that people like to point out flaws in their products, even if those flaws aren't special.

I would imagine that aluminum would be more prone to staying bent. That said, I'd prefer the iPhone build over the build of any Samsung phone. My Galaxy Nexus was the worst-built smartphone I've ever used, and I'm going back to my Blackberry with that statement.


...then don't do that...

iOS 8.0.1 apparently turns your phone into an iPod Touch. wonder how that got out the door....

Odds are it's blown out of proportion, as usual. Apple is such a polarizing company for people. And for the media, the news gets clicks, which gets ad revenue.

Lets see, the iPhone 3GS was slammed for not being new, just because the looks didn't change. Didn't matter, still sold like crazy and worked fine for most every owner.

The 4 was slammed for the antenna issue (managed to even catch me on that one for a bit), but turns out every phone back then pretty much had similar issues. Still sold like crazy and worked fine for most every owner.

The 4s was slammed for not being an iPhone 5, but stories kinda were muted due to Jobs passing soon after to fill the media with news.

The 5 had screen layering glue that was yellow until fully dried, the 5s has a fingerpint sensor fooled by hundreds of dollars worth of equipment to replicate a fingerpint. The 6 bends.

Anyone want to take bets on what the 6s media clickbait story will be next year?

That is more interesting to me as a release engineer then bent phones due to pocket sizes.

Reports indicate it only impacted the new iPhones. I'm speculating this was due to how the phones get their final firmware before being shipped. iOS 8 for developers goes from beta 1 - 5. It's rumored there was a beta 6 only for carrier testing before the GM. Well tested and used path, and applied to multiple years worth of phones.

The iOS 8 image for the iPhone 6 followed a different path due to being developed while the phones are being finalized and assembled. Possible bad delta generation for the update, as people were also reporting a full restore via iTunes worked fine. I wonder what the iOS 8.0 build number is on an iPhone 6, anyone have one handy? For my 5s, it's 12A365.

It's similar to how new Macs after a release of OS X come with a slightly different build carrying new drivers and sometimes more. My Retina MacBook Pro went through a few Retina specific OS X upgrades before it was reunified with the general OS X updates.

All just a theory, from a more real and newsy worthy issue. Bricking people's phones is going to cost Apple more then the few that are bending, due to the support costs alone.

Same here on my 6, next theory Sherlock

Another issue that had affected previous iPhones, but that only picked up traction with a later model.

i haven't gone anywhere near iOS8 on my own devices, (no jailbreak, no upgrade!) but i have an iPod Touch for work which I run it on. Needless to say, taking an upgrade which might disable features it didn't have, wasn't a problem!

Hrm, interesting. Well, my next theory would be a build issue of some sort. Being that the phone lost cellular service and contact with Touch ID, sounds like a driver related issue. Possibly a driver missing, or a bad #ifdef still enabled to cloak the existence of the iPhone 6 during development. Or a separate branch for the iPhone 6 that wasn't integrated back properly.

I like looking into failures like this to learn how to try and prevent such in my own workplaces. I'm thankful the products I've worked on do not have anywhere near the public visibility of Apple though.

Apple came out today to announce a mindblowing, massive, widespread issue of bending iPhone 6 pluses. Err, rather they revealed a grand total of 9 users have contacted them about the issue. Big press invite day into their stress testing lab to show what tests they do perform.

40,000 were impacted by the 8.0.1 release glitch. No press tours here of their software labs to demonstrate their branching and build strategies, leaving empegbbs admins to continue to speculate

And 10 million plus people are still enjoying their new devices without issues.