This almost goes without saying, but it's truly been a
wild ride for the
iPhone 4 over the last three weeks. While most of us will just happily open our hands to Stevie J's
freebies, there's one question that's still bugging us: what's actually holding back the white iPhone 4? Sure, Apple's now promised us an "
end of July" delivery for its latest iTemptation, but it has yet to specify what the
manufacturing difficulty is. According to Chinese newspaper
21st Century Business Herald, the problem stems from a little-known Chinese factory by the name of Lens Technology, which is apparently responsible for transforming fine raw glass into the majority of iPhone glass panels out there (and contrary to previous reports, there's no mention of
Corning here). Read on to find out what's causing our invisible hero to stall.
Lens Technology -- a rather bland name for a touchscreen glass manufacturer -- isn't exactly a household name to the average gadget consumer, but its list of clients tells a different story: Huawei, Lenovo, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and more. Since its launch in July 1993, the company's set up several plants, including its latest site (circa December 2006) in Liuyang, Hunan that currently houses about 14,000 workers, which looks about right in the drawing above. While this is merely a fraction of
Foxconn's 400,000 employees in Shenzhen, Lens' recent intake of some 7,000 "post-90's" (a Chinese saying for those born after 1990) workers still led to many disciplinary issues. But this wasn't the reason for the white iPhone 4 delay.
According to a project feasibility report published by Lens in 2006, its glass manufacturing process involves the following steps: developing the tooling, cutting the raw material (mainly sourced from Germany, Switzerland and Japan), fine-milling using
CNC (computed numerically controlled) machines, sanding the edges, polishing, strengthening, cleaning, coating, screen printing, baking, anti-shatter treatment, assembling, and packaging. Yeah, pretty tedious. Now, a worker from Lens' quality control department has allegedly admitted that the company's screen-printing workshop may currently be dealing with some issues with the white iPhone 4 covers. Specifically, the factory's still working out the perfect combination of paint thickness and opacity -- the former to ensure the next sub-contractor has enough clearance for the digitizer overlay, and the latter for the absolute whiteness that
Jony Ive and co. strive for. As we
pointed out before, the prototype white covers we acquired appeared a touch darker than the iPhone 4 dock, so here's hoping that we'll see a better result when the official white phone comes out later this month.
Even if Apple does deliver the new batch of phones on the promised date, what about meeting the potential huge demand? According to another contractor down the iPhone assembly stream, Lens' current production capacity only meets half of Apple's demand, thus becoming a major bottleneck for the entire iPhone 4 production pipeline. Of course, this could just be smack talk from a potential competitor, and there's a small chance that
other components might be affected as well, but the truth is the handset's currently in short supply -- after
3 million units since launch, Apple's online store was listing a 3-week shipping date for the black iPhone 4 at the time of writing this. Considering each CNC machine could apparently only cut out three iPhone 4 glass covers every hour, Lens will need to get its act together on the paint job and use all the machines it can get -- along with their skilled operators -- to keep Cupertino and its followers happy.
posted Jul 18th 2010 4:27PM
It's so beautiful! I want one! on Verizon please!
@SpaceKyd But what you really need are some realistic hopes and dreams.
I'd rather Apple (and its suppliers) to spend all this effort and money on fixing the damned antenna issue.
@SpaceKyd People should just get a white case.. I heard Apple is giving them away for some reason...
@SpaceKyd - You've got at least another two years to wait...
@dgtlber Your an assclown.
@horace
people make mistakes. Apple has a slight problem, but people STILL buy iphones. go to the website. it still has a 3week ship date. Apple perseveres, whereas companies such as Lucent gave up. Apple, you can do it!!!
btw, is the evo an amazing 4g phone or another glossed up android smartphone? i dont hate android or htc but what phone is the worlds thinnest smartphone? which one has the better reviews from engadget? which one has a six axis proximity sensor? which one has chat in their facebook app? which one is a better phone?
@SpaceKyd Gotta hand it to Richard, you made a two sentence fun fact into a 4 paragraph article.
Too bad you forgot to make it interesting.
@SpaceKyd
Hold on, did nobody catch this bit? "listing a 3-week shipping date for both colors"
Since when? Every time I've checked, including just now, the white model says "unavailable for order or in-store pickup" and you can't select it as an option. Am I missing something?
@Cameron Definitely says "Ships: 3 weeks" here: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone?mco=OTY2ODA2OQ
@MGore32 the answer you are looking for is: subjective
Since faulty phones that are incapable of making calls can't remove jobs wanker doodle from idiots loose tubes, I say they have the next iphone just be a peice of cardboard with icons drawn with marker... There stocks will again sky rocket, because we all know stocks go up because of good products not because of sales. /sarcasm
@MGore32
Most of your comment was fail.
@MGore32 Apples eula for developing apps states that devs aren't allowed to develop for other platforms.
That would be why the facebook app has different specs.
Does it matter how thin a phone is when we're talking a hundreths of an inch?
Also, plenty of smartphones aren't going to shatter from a four foot drop.
@MGore32
apple has a habit of overdoing, stuffing a specs list with stuff you don't actually need. i don't think a "six axis proximity sensor" actually exists, i think you're referring to the gyroscope, but regardless, ask yourself how necessary it actually is in a phone beyond a novelty? i have an evo, and although the iphone has something like a 30% higher pixel density, as close as i look at my screen, i can't make out individual pixels either. if it weren't for the close up microscope shots of the screens, it's really not a huge difference, and it certainly isn't necessary, no matter how amazing the technology might be. the iphone is 3mm thinner than the evo. 3mm. think about what your argument is based on before you say something else is truly inferior. evo has 4g, you don't see me demanding that someone admits mine is the better phone just so i feel better about my purchase and contract decisions.
disclaimer: i don't hate apple by any means. the iphone is a great phone, the evo was personally just a better fit.
@Richard Lai
Right, but if you hit "select" for either the 16 or 32 GB option, it takes you to a contract verification page, and on the right side, the order summary says "16 GB (or 32, as the case may be), Black." There's no possibility to choose the white one. You can't actually order it, 3 week ship time or not -- that's the point I'm trying to make.
I just called Apple, and the sales rep said there will be no preordering; I'll just have to call and order once it starts shipping. I hope he's wrong about that. Anybody heard one way or the other whether we'll be able to preorder the white ones?
@SpaceKyd
The one in the dock looks real nice.
@Cameron Whoops! Somehow I read the two capacity options as two color options. Have corrected. Thanks!
@Eternal freedom
what about his assclown?
@RTWRK
Gyroscope fills as a more accurate accelerometer for games etc. And like most things in the smartphone world its down to developers to make things useful. Also the screen on the iP4 is actually really great if you haven't seen it, browsing is that much better on it. I agree with you though, you don't have to trash others things to enjoy your own.
@genesis Lots of apps have been ported to other platforms. Look at the engadget app for one,
@trong and I'm sure there's an app for that too LMAO
@Cameron
Read again: "...since launch, Apple's online store was listing a 3-week shipping date for the black iPhone 4 at the time of writing this."
@SpaceKyd
The funny thing is there's no useful different between a white iphone and black iphone.Making a call is still the same.
If people really consider this an 'iTemptation', it's pure aesthetic BS. I rather be using my phone against my face/ear (OOPS CAN'T DO THAT!) than STARING at it on a dock.
Compared to the 3GS, this phone model is truly form OVER function, which is quite the opposite of 'technology' IMO.
@dgtlber
While I agree the antenna thing does suck and they could have dealt with the issue much more professionally and responsibly, the yellow screen issue was for the first batch of iPhone 4s at launch as residue under the screen (something to that measure I read, at least) was present from rushing completed units to market. That is not a persistent design flaw. Let's try and be somewhat fair on these forums.
@RTWRK why can't people be more like you?
@RTWRK Side by side the screen is noticeably different, even if you aren't searching for pixels. Once you use the Retina screen for awhile it's hard to go back to something else. You actually don't realize how much better it is until you go and use something with less pixel density.
@Oghowie
Actually I would say that for the Super AMOLED display but not for the Retina Display vs other phone displays - the contrast ratio makes it look good, the pixel density plays a much more secondary role. The pixel density that Apple keeps tooting about is as relevant as their revolutionary-new-never-before-seen-antenna - a marketing gimmick. I doubt you can make out pixels even if the density is like 290 ppi hence, it doesn't matter if it is 320 or 360 ppi. The weird thing about Apple is they over engineer stuff which doesn't need over engineering (displays which have fine enough pitch anyways than the retina's perception) and under engineer stuff which needs over engineering (antenna design) so as far as I am concerned, they are interested in using them an marketing gimmicks and not for any core engineering requirement. I love the way they think about the form and industrial design but as the latest antenna-gate episode has shown, they need to pay attention to solid engineering too.
@naashak You only don't care about DPI because you don't use asian characters all day. This explains my position perfectly:
http://blog.gatunka.com/2009/11/03/japanese-computers-still-living-it-8-bit/
@JackValentine
Actually I am Asian :-)
The point is beyond a certain threshold it doesn't matter what your PPI number is - in this case even 290 ppi works hence over-engineering gains nothing quality wise except a marketing boast.
@erhan28 jive turkey!
@trong
I'm anxious to see what the Gizmodo-backed iHater bloggers are going to do to try to smear this iPhone 4. They'll most likely continue their Antennagate FUD to try to hurt sales. It won't work, though. Criminal-run Gizmodo has to try any means to get revenge against their nemesis, Apple. Gizmodo may try another tactic such as smashing iPhone 4s to generate glass shards to produce injuries to Gizmodo-paid fake users. Being run by criminals, Gizmodo will likely stoop to any tactic to tarnish Apple's reputation.
@loocas You're damn right about that! Apple should just admit the iPhone 4 has an antenna issue. Why would they continue to sell a faulty product? Sure the iPhone 4 looks sexy, but I am more about the functionality - that's why I go with Android phones.
Choices are good to have in life.
@MrBigStuff
Wow, you really just eat up every word Jobs says without question, don't you? It's a shame free will is wasted on some people.
@SpaceKyd OR you can be like Engadget, replacing the front and back panels, then cover the home button with your thumb everywhere you go. voila!
@loocas something tells me you don't even have an iPhone.
While I appreciate your concern about a product that you don't own, but your life could be so much better if you just take care of your things first.
my iPhone's working just fine.
@naashak I have a feeling you haven't seen the screen in person before.
@dgtlber Please just be happy with what you've already got and stop bitching like the android fanboy u already are
Ps: to oblivion.
@Ben64 My iPhone has not yet been invented... ;)
But you're right, it's none of my business, I just wish they fixed the damned antenna so that I wouldn't have to read, hear, see... iPhone on every single fu**ing blog and newspaper around the internet!
I'm starting to think Apple deliberately fu**ed up the antenna so that it could get more and more coverage, controversy and free-press even after the phone has been on the streets.
@SpaceKyd im sorry to say but the will not happen for many more years apple is a company thats likes running there own product thats why with att apple could tell them what to do and say, but with verizon they will not take a company to tell them what to do, thats is why is a big problem i wish every carrier had an iphone but verizon dont what a company like apple to tell them how to promote there product trust me people are getting there hopes up, u should just change to att or wait for it
@horace
have not are
@liftedngifted1 They are giving away the cases because of the 12 people that posted videos online. I'm happy, i get a free case. See if Motorola or HTC would do that!
@gristan
You've stopped taking your meds, haven't you?
@Cameron 'Apple's online store was listing a 3-week shipping date for the black iPhone 4 at the time of writing this'
@SpaceKyd
I can't believe there's so much excitement about a.... color.
@RTWRK Six Axis Proximity Sensors do exist. Did you ever wonder why Sony called the SixAxis controller(now DualShock 3) the SixAxis?
@RTWRK agreed. i have an ip4 but i almost bought an evo. personally i think both are great and what differences in specs they have are pretty insignificant i would say. more importantly is how it works in your day to day.
@Richard Lai No it doesn't. The 3 week timeline is for 16 or 32gb. The white one just says, "White iPhone currently unavailable for order or in-store pickup."
@SpaceKyd Never. Gonna. Happen.
@Cameron Some people ordered the white one the on first day they started taking orders and their orders are still frozen. So they'll be getting the first batch.