Alarming Report: iPhone 4 Glass Breaking Flaws

First the Antenna now the glass…  Apple‘s iPhone 4 glass is 82% more likely to shatter than the glass on the iPhone 3GS.

The report comes from independent warranty provider SquareTrade, which claims:

• “iPhone 4 owners reported 82% more damaged screens in the first 4 months compared to iPhone 3GS owners.”
• “Overall, the reported accident rate for iPhone [the] 4 was 68% higher than for the iPhone 3GS.”
• “An estimated 15.5% of iPhone 4 owners will have an accident within a year of buying their phone.”

SquareTrade concludes:

“With just 4 months of data, it’s clear that the iPhone 4 is significantly more prone to physical damage than its predecessor. The aluminosilicate glass seem[s] to crack at least as often as the old glass, and there is now twice as much surface area to break.

Despite this troubling increase, it’s important to take the accident rate into perspective. Overall, the iPhone is still a very well constructed device, with a non-accident malfunction rate much lower than most other consumer electronics.”

This is definitely a big problem for Apple.  SquareTrade states that the iPhone 4 is breaking 82% more than the iPhone 3GS. A sample group of about 20,000 iPhone owners, SquareTrade actually found that 3.9% of iPhone 4s suffered broken glass in the first four months, in contrast to 2.1% with the iPhone 3GS. Well  s771 broken iPhone 4s (out of 20,000), compared to 427 broken iPhone 3GS screens, so,  avoid dropping your iPhone 4.