iPad Air glass break

Same thing with mine, left it on the bedside table, next night picked it up and hairline crack 30mm to the right of home button extending at 45 degrees to left hand side, still works and can hardly see it, only me at home so no one else has touched it.

I have a jewelers lupe it's about 12X and decided to look at the crack close up and discovered at each corner of the screen scratches at various angles about 0.75mm and tiny nicks in the glass edge, how can this be when it's been in a case and never left the house ? I think quality control and assembly technique are at fault here, seems like ipad Air's are leving the factory with faults in the glass which are susceptible to slight pressure and temperature fluctuations !

I purchased my second iPad Air, the first one cracked in the corner and I took it to where I purchased it and was told it would cost a lot to fix and since it was only in the corner to pretty much deal with it, which I did unfortunately. Then I purchased another to give my granddaughter the first one and it cracked the exact same way from only putting it into a Apple case. I called Apple the are willing to fix the one I just bought but not first one I feel this one should also be fixed as this is a p

Yes,

I purchased the ipad air on Friday Nov 1 and the glass screen was broken on sunday morning Nov 3. I had not taken it out of the house and did not drop it. It had a crescent shaped crack on the left side of the screen in the section where the metal bezel is interrupted and replaced by a plastic insert (which looks like an access panel). The home button is on the right side.

Also dissapointed and worried that this will be a repeat problem in the future.

I am guessing that with the thinner glass screen and the plastic area that replaces the metal bezel, it may have microscopic flex that creates hairline cracks in that area of the glass screen when holding the tablet in your left hand.

Same story. No drops or other obvious abuse. Wasn't broken, then opened up my Targus case and there was a nice edge to edge crack that suddenly appeared on the upper right side when holding the home button on the left in landscape mode. This is my 4th iPad, and the other three (an iPad 1.2 and 3) have traveled around the world, been into the field on geological work multiple times, and are none the worse for the wear. This one lasted a week of routine office and at home use and it busted. Wow. Not thrilled. Sounds like a trip to the Genius Bar is in order.

The same happens with Me - after one week it suddenly cracks !!!

Gufear, my first post was removed by the apple host, so I'll try to rephrase it to try to avoid hurting his sensibilities this time:

1- Answering to your post, my $700, and less than 3 weeks owned, ipad air fell from my hands -at waist height- to the flat floor and the glass shattered.

2- I have the VERY TECHNICAL AND ON SUBJECT opinion that this is a design flaw, which,

3- shouldn't happen, since the device is marketed as portable and resistant to small abuse, as apple's numerous ads suggest. And,

4- Very politely and in a non-flammable way, I'm not happy at all at having to pay $300 to fix this, or to lose the $700 plus taxes completely. So I think that,

5- Apple should at least offer a fix at a reasonable cost.

Also let me add that,

6- judging by the several reports I've seen so far from other users of this happening, and in so short time after the ipad air release, probability theory suggest that this will keep happening and will become an issue of antenna-gate proportions that apple should rather defuse now.

Update to this thread - last night I went to the local Apple store, fully expecting to have to pay ~$250 for a replacement/repair, and was very pleasantly surprised.

Turns out that 1) IF the crack in the glass is a single, hairline crack, AND 2) IF there is no evidence of impact or other obvious external damage, AND 3) IF you are still covered within the 30 day initial warranty period, Apple will replace the iPad free of charge. My situation met all these conditioms (as does XVortex above potentially from the picture), and they ordered an exact replacement free of charge that I will pick up in a couple days.

If there is shattering evident in the glass (not a simple crack) or damage to the frame, you're out of luck and looking at one of the repair/replacement scenarios.

I am definitely getting the Apple Care once my replacement iPad arrives in the store - it is clear that this model of iPad is significantly more fragile than the previous iterations - be gentle with them folks!

And get a good case, like an Otterbox

(hanging on dearly to my iPad 4)

Just read your post and sadly the same thing happened to me yesteraday: Apparently they must have done something with iPad air to not make it better but more fragile. Then I just got it at first I really was impress with how light it was, but since yesterday I'm very disappointed with this new iPad air: I was using it: just regular use, and all of the sudden right where you hold it on the top of the right corner with your thumb, right above home botton the glass just cracked and it created long cracks along the screen. It's really unacceptable that such an expensive device would crack from normal use. I didn't drop it, or did any kind of impact to it at all, plus I have padded cover on it and a screen protector from the very beginning. The iPad is just a little over a month old: I got one of the first ones came out on November 1st. Before this one I owned the original iPad, then iPad 2nd and 3rd gen. And nether one had any problems. In fact my iPad 3 is closed to 2 years old now and my father is still using it. How they can make this new one so fragile? Not sure what would be my options: made an app. to Genius Bar so going there in a little while, I hope they would recognize the fault of the make of it, not that something I did to it, but we'll see and hopefully replace it under warranty. i didn't get AC so i'll be very angry at Apple if they make me pay huge replacement cost for their faulty device.

I purchased my iPad Air about a month ago. I bought an Apple Smart Case at the same time (I like protecting the back as well as the front). I carry this iPad with me almost all the time. It is in my backpack with my laptop when I go to work, I take it to meetings at work, etc. I also have a jacket with a large pocket that I can slip the iPad into, and it is often there when I am walking or driving someplace. Just this past weekend, I sat in my car and watched Netflix on my iPad for several hours while my wife was competing in dog shows, and my iPad doesn't show any signs of screen issues.

Perhaps it is a manufacturing flaw in some of the iPads. Perhaps it is because the new thinner design makes the screen the core or the iPad Air Structure. This would mean that the screen is now providing the core of the devise "structure" and the rest is basically built around it.

Are you near an Apple store? You mentioned what you were told by the Genious Bar so... If I were you I would go there with the broken ipad, box, and all it came with and very kindly speak to a manager and insist it be replaced with a brand new ipad. And you should not be charged any money for it. That happened to our older son's ipod once. I brought it in and they exchanged it without issue. As it turned out, it had been happening to many. Sadly, Apple and man, if not most tech manufacturers do all they can to appear that there are no problems on their end. Look at the ios 7 issue. Let us know how it goes for you.

Hope this helps.

On the attached picture you can see how the crack started, above the home button from tomb holding iPad. Now just quick update: the Genius bar people didn't really help too much: they said that they had to go by the book and every cracked screen case is considered owner's responsibility: i talk to GB rep as well as manager, they both said the same thing, they advised me that the cost of replacement would be $299. But they suggested that the only way could be to get more help with it is to call AC directly and see what they could do. I bought AC for my iPhone 5s (lucky because i dropped it 3 weeks after purchasing and broke the screen) but didn't buy AC for this iPad, as apparently i believe that iPads are not as prompt to accidental damage as i phones are. But even if i had the AC on it i still don't feel that it would be fare to pay even $49 for something that it wasn't my fault at all. unfortunately i also found out that not all credit cards have the same buyer protection: My iPhone broken screen replacement was fully covered by Discover card buyer protection, but this iPad was charged on Visa card and they don't have this buyer protection thing as discover does. So now it would be good buy Visa card for sure! i made the call to AC: they didn't make it really easy, but after an hour discussion, a few pictures that i send to them they agreed to make an exemption in their rules and replace it at no cost. Because it was a unit with large 128 GB memory, the local apple stores don't have it in the store for replacement, so my only option is to ship it back to Apple and they will ship the new one back to me. A little inconvenient, as i'l have to be without my iPad for a week or more, but it's still good, at least i don't have to incur more cost to addition to large amount just paid a month ago. So will go to UPS today to ship it out to them.

We're true devoted Apple customers for a couple of years with everything Apple: from iMac to apple TV, router, etc. in our house i was disappointed for a first time in Apple product when it first happened to my iPad but since they agreed to resolve the issue, i'll still carry trust in AC for now. Maybe it would help someone with simular problem. I suspect that it would be more people with this type of screen damage, clearly it's some kind of defect in manufacturing of this new iPads

Good for you! If you broke it I would say you must tell the truth and pay for the replacement. I know I wouldn't want any exchange that I honestly shouldn't have gotten. But the break wasn't your fault. I'm happy you didn't give up. I know Apple employees are given lessons on how to deal with people and these issues, but if the truth is the truth and whether or not Apple or any other tech company wants to admit it, there must be others out there with your issue, and Apple would retain much customer loyalty by admitting their part in the isssue, without having to have to deal with class action suits.

I do feel for Apple, though, because there are many who will lie without guilt to avoid paying for their own mistakes. It would be great if there were some kinds of glasses the employees could use that could easily detect the liars!

Good for you and good for Apple for having done, from what you've said, the right thing. (Our family are big Apple fans!)

Well i also was skeptical before when i heard that other people saying about iPhone/iPad screens were broken on it's own.When i dropped my iPhone and broke the screen for a first time i also referred to apple forum trying to find solution to repair. And there i saw that people were claiming that screens were broken on it's own. I didn't really believe it then especially since i own now and owned in the past multiple apple products. i didn't think it could happen until... it happened to me! So it showed to me that you shouldn't be skeptical to other people remarks! also since i found out how fragile iPad screens are i ordered thick tempered glass screen protector for it. Hopefully if i ever get my new replacement iPad i'll use it for extra protection. i have one like this on my iPhone and it works great, it looks like it would give it better protection then just film.

Another little update about my case: I still couldn't send damaged iPad yesterday out to apple. Apparently even know that most of my other experiences with Apple CS for my multiple apple devices was good and easy, this time it's problematic even now 4 days later i'm now sure how it'll work out. I guess AC CS have some incompetent reps there that don't know what they're doing. Till now i only have their promises to replace it but not yet any actions. To make it short i'll just did what i was instructed to do by apple rep. on Monday and the same instructions were given to me via e-mail: just bring my iPad to local UPS store, give them the repair ID and they would take it and ship it out to apple, and then the replacement one will be mailed to me. it sounded easy enough until i got to UPS store yesterday did as i was instructed to, obviously UPS guy deals with this all the time, as the first thing he ask when he saw me walking in with iPad: "are you sending out Apple repair?" But after i gave him case # to my surprise he couldn't find it in the computer. So again a long call from UPS office to AC to find out what's going on. They put me on hold for about 30-40 min, as the rep. that helped me originally had a day off so other people were trying to figure out my case. But finally they told me that it has to be mailed by Fed Ex not UPS, and i should receive a Fed Ex box with the instructions how to pack and ship it. After e-mailing to original rep that set up my case, he got back to me, saying that he originally set it up for UPS drop off but for some reason a box was sent to me after he set up a drop offrepair. He apologized for the inconvenience and said that i should get the box within 2 business days, but today is the 3rd business day since the day i called and i still don't have the box. Hoping maybe it'll arrive today or no later tomorrow. But as a result to all this i waisted en extra hour between going to UPS and then being on hold on the phone trying to find out whats going on and that is to addition to 3 hours on monday before between going to Genius bar and being on the phone with AC originally. Plus i had to erase my iPad yesterday before drop of and then downloading my stuff back again because i use it for work and it's inconvenient enough to be without it while it will be shipped out, but now since i'm not really sure how long it can take before i can even ship it, i better continue to use the broken one.

Quick update to my update. Turns out that Apple has recently altered their policy on retroactive AppleCare availability. Used to be you could get AC coverage for a replacement unit within 30 days of the original purchase. No longer! Even though my first iPad Air glass broke due to a manufacturing defect (presumably, which is why Apple replaced it at no charge), I was unable to purchase coverage for the replacement unit, despite the fact it was brand-new. I guess their logic is that they are unlikely to give me two defective units in a row, and if it breaks again it is my problem. Not thrilled with this policy change, but I guess you don't build a $505B market cap. company by giving product away either. Fair enough. We have made it recommended policy in our workplace that now - as a result - all new iPad purchases for company use have AC bought up front. Used to have to do this in the bad old days when laptop and desktop QC issues were a bigger problem - now this has come to the mobile side of the house.