Quote:
Originally Posted by Purple Lady
I understand that, I was just replying to frahse's post that said if you remove the metal it would be weak. I much prefer plastic for phones because it's much stronger where it counts - it will bounce back from damage that metal can't bounce back from.
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My statement though true, doesn't mean that metal can't bend and then like a spring return back to its original position (or shape.) It means that metal is in a different category from rubber and some plastics. It doesn't have a lot of elasticity in general except for a few cases like spring steel, and in some cases very little. e.g. comparing rigid cast iron to wrought iron or steel.
Likewise all plastics aren't very elastic. i.e. phenolic
You can certainly have metal that bends like a steel spring, but that is not what Apple chose to use in the iPhone 6. Apple chose a light somewhat rigid aluminum that obviously isn't working out very well in the cases we have seen demonstrated particularly at the critical points where there is less metal. It could have made other choices such as using stronger strain hardened aluminum such as "half hard." (A helpful mechanical engineer introduced me to half hard aluminum when I was a young electrical engineer, to solve a design problem years ago.)
Or it could have used thicker aluminum.
Apple's
main problem is one it introduced to the industry itself. That is the emphasis on making phones lighter and lighter, thinner and thinner. It has fallen on its own aluminum sword!