iPhone 6 screen easily scratched?

Antony Tezio wrote:

I sometimes doubt the effectiveness of the Oleophobic coating as most the time it makes smudges harder to wipe off. That was before the Windex incident as well. Thanks for the warning about the Windex by the way. I had no idea. I'm sure the average consumer doesn't either.

You're right the "average" consumer has no idea. And that's because most never read user guides. I guess I'm an odd duck. I read the user guides for just about everything I buy, especially items that are expensive. If people would take the time to read the user guide, they'd learn a lot more about their devices. This is in the iPhone 6 User Guide, which is available online and I'm posting a link to it below. Please see page 174.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1565/en_US/iphone_user_guide.pdf

Does the Oleophobic coating cover the whole iPhone or just the screen because if it covers the whole phone then its most likely that is what is scratched on my phone in which case I wouldn't care as much

silverbullet12683 wrote:

Does the Oleophobic coating cover the whole iPhone or just the screen because if it covers the whole phone then its most likely that is what is scratched on my phone in which case I wouldn't care as much

The Oleophobic coating covers the entire screen. There is no coating on the aluminum portion of the phone. But yes, it is almost assuredly the Oleophobic coating that is causing hairline scratches on some iPhone 6. It would virtually impossible for a microfiber cloth to scratch glass. But the coating could be scrateched, especially if there is any grit on the cloth.

well that killed that theory then back to the drawing board for me as mine scratched on the aluminum not the screen oh well back to the hunting

A naked iPhone aluminum case is not difficult to scratch. It's really just a paint job (of sorts) on the aluminum to make it the color of choice.

FALSE! The back of the iPhone isn't aluminum, it's aluminum oxide. It's not just a paint job, they anodize (oxidize) the aluminum (you may better know this process as rusting). However, unlike many metals, when you rust aluminum, it becomes harder. It rates a 9.0 on the Moh's Scale of Hardness. For reference, Gorilla Glass and Sapphire rate a 9 as well... Ruby is within the same ballpark. This is because both ruby and sapphire have a similar chemical structure to aluminum oxide, they are actually coated with aluminum oxide themselves with minerals that have the distinctive blue and red colors. The material is very hard and very difficult to legitimately scratch.

As for the colors, they do dye it, but they also seal it off. You can't get rid of the color without getting rid of the aluminum oxide. This video gives a better description of how the coloring works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZhVOy-ytJY

With the Gorilla Glass and the oxidized aluminum, the iPhone practically becomes scratch resistant. The only thing that stops this is the coating on the phone. However, the coating does have to meet specifications when it comes to hardness. Many patents for oleophobic coatings quote a no less than 6 on the hardness scale. If your iPhone's coating does rate lower (which these problematic ones actually might), it's defective.

Good to know about the aluminum case. Though I've seen many iPhone's where the case is scratched. I never have a naked iPhone, so I never worry about scratching mine to begin with.

It's a very tough task to do. But when it's done, the entire aluminum oxide layer is ripped off. Other times, it's simply deformed (not to be confused with scratched). So it's not an actual scratch per say, they literally ripped the layer off. When I had my 5s and iPod Touch 5G, I never worried about scratching the phone, it never actually scratched 😝

tinyman392 wrote:

It's a very tough task to do. But when it's done, the entire aluminum oxide layer is ripped off. Other times, it's simply deformed (not to be confused with scratched). So it's not an actual scratch per say, they literally ripped the layer off. When I had my 5s and iPod Touch 5G, I never worried about scratching the phone, it never actually scratched 😝

I remember with either the 4S or 5, when it was released, there threads like this one, only it was the aluminum that people were getting scratches on easily, as opposed to the screen.

Yeah, that was a tooling error on the manufacturer's side. It cut through the aluminum oxide. Literally ripping it from the shell. If you looked at the scratches, there was no aluminum oxide where the scratches were, just pure aluminum.

tinyman392 wrote:

Yeah, that was a tooling error on the manufacturer's side. It cut through the aluminum oxide. Literally ripping it from the shell. If you looked at the scratches, there was no aluminum oxide where the scratches were, just pure aluminum.

Yes, that was it. It caused a lot of angst, just like this thread.

It was a legitimate problem.

The scratching is too unfortunately. Though it is a little harder to see (my roommate can't see any of the scratches I've had, her daughter can). Yes, it hasn't affected everyone, but it did effect enough people to make it problematic. The number of cases of this are only increasing (in this thread alone, we're getting a handful more a day that come in as new cases). It's sad to think about. Heck, walking into the Apple Store, I inspected the phones and found a good population of them were scratched (¼-⅓ of them to be a little more precise). It's not a majority, but is a good chunk of them.

I wish I knew why some phones scratch easily, while other's, like mine don't? I don't as some people have thought, discount the issue. And I'd be upset if my $750 phone scratched. It's just that there is no solution anyone can offer via this thread other than to take it to Apple and complain or use a good quality screen protector.

The answer is going to be a defective coating. Something with the coating is wrong. I'm not sure what exactly. It could be the thickness, the chemical makeup (distribution of chemicals in the solution used to make the coating), etc. But it is going to be the coating. The glass isn't getting scratched.

I did the same walked in to two different Apple stores one in freehold new jersey and one in rockaway New Jersey every single iphone on display scratched to **** almost made me feel better that I only have a tiny scratch on mine