Apple Ignores iPhone 6 ‘Touch Disease’ To Market iPhone 7

iPhone 6 users have been plagued by the “touch disease” for quite some time, and we now know why Apple is not doing anything about it.

While it’s been two years since the iPhone 6 came out, a number of users are still with their iPhone 6 or are just purchasing iPhone 6 units to save on some cash. The iPhone 6 is relatively cheaper with the same beautiful features, anyway.

But two years into the release of the iPhone 6, and with the fresh release of the new iPhone 7, a number of iPhone 6 users are still pushing through with a class-action lawsuit against Apple for the so-called “touch disease,” Reuters reports.

iPhone owners sue Apple over ‘Touch Disease’: https://t.co/fPDq21iepN pic.twitter.com/M789iAxQII

— Mashable (@mashable) August 30, 2016

The touch disease has been an issue among iPhone 6 units, which was explained as a design defect that causes the device’s touch feature to malfunction. Vice tackled the issue of the iPhone 6’s “touch disease” and has ruled it to be an extreme case of flawed design engineering. Mark Shaffer from independent repair company iPad Rehab told Vice.

“It’s absolutely a problem in the design. End users are not doing anything to cause this besides using the phone normally. Really all you can do is avoid any activity that would cause the phone to flex. Don’t drop it, definitely don’t put it in any case that requires you to apply force to the phone to get it into and out of the case. Don’t put it in your back pocket, don’t put it in your front pocket if it’s a tight pocket. Actually, don’t put it in any pocket.”

In fact, it has been plaguing more than a handful of iPhone 6 users now, according to Shaffer.

“I feel like most of my job now is just replacing Touch ICs. We really started doing them in November after the phones came off warranty and it’s increased from a handful every month to now, we’re seeing daily anywhere from five to 15.”

While there are many varieties to the “touch disease” of the iPhone 6, most iPhone 6 users are reporting that the problem is commonly accompanied with a series of grey bars on the top of the iPhone’s screen. iPhone 6 users report that short-term solutions include applying force to certain parts of the iPhone, restarting, or rebooting. But all of these tricks do not address the issue because the real issue lies on the Touch IC chips located on the logic board of the iPhone 6.

Extreme Tech explains that apparently these Touch IC chips are located on the part of the iPhone 6 that is particularly susceptible to bending and flexing. Over the course of your normal usage of the iPhone 6, the phone is subjected to thousands of micro-flexing and bending, which over time adds up and tends to force the solder that holds the Touch IC chip to come loose.

As of August 26, Apple Insider reported that about 11 percent of Apple store repairs are of the iPhone 6’s “touch disease” issue. But with so many iPhone 6 users suffering from this issue, Apple continues to turn a cold shoulder towards the issue. This is the main reason that forced the class-action lawsuit against Apple, Davidson et al v. Apple Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 16-04942.

An excerpt from the lawsuit demanding that Apple address the iPhone 6 “touch disease” reads as follows.

“Apple has long been aware of the defective iPhones. Yet, notwithstanding its longstanding knowledge of this design defect, Apple routinely has refused to repair the iPhones without charge when the defect manifests.

“Many other iPhone owners have communicated with Apple’s employees and agents to request that Apple remedy and/or address the Touchscreen Defect and/or resultant damage at no expense. Apple has failed and/or refused to do so.”

While we have been left in the dark for so long as to why Apple continued to ignore the pleas of the iPhone 6 users despite the good faith its users have exemplified towards the company, we now believe that this is Apple’s ploy to push its patrons to upgrade to the new iPhone models to solve their problems. Why continue whining if you can solve your problems by purchasing a new iPhone 7? The iPhone 6 is obsolete by now with the iPhone 7 out, anyway.

But at the end of the day, it’s not even about how many iPhone 6 users have this problem or that the iPhone 6 is a two-year-old model. The fact is that huge companies like Apple know that there are significant problems like these exist, yet they continue to show that they don’t care and won’t do anything to fix the issue. The Sun, among thousands of other iPhone 6 users, has reached out to Apple for comment but has yet to receive a response.

At least Samsung had the decency to recall their units.

[Featured Image by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images]