Apple’s newest iPadApple’s new iPad will infer to be as frail to drops and other accidents as a predecessor, a iPad 2, an after-sales guaranty organisation pronounced today.
Although SquareTrade has no guaranty information on a new iPad, a association suspects that a new inscription will mangle during a same rate as a iPad 2, whose owners filed three-and-a-half times some-more claims for random repairs than did first-generation iPad owners during their initial year of ownership.
“It seems like a iPad 2 and a new iPad mangle in a same fashion,” pronounced Vince Tseng, SquareTrade’s clamp boss of marketing. “The form cause of a new iPad is roughly matching to a iPad 2.”
The association ran an unscientific “drop test” where workers forsaken both iPad 2s and new iPads from waist and shoulder height, potion adult and potion down, onto a hard, prosaic surface.
Both inscription models survived a face adult falls, though their potion overlays burst when forsaken face down. Damage to a new iPad’s screen, however, seemed some-more significant; in one case, a arrangement scarcely distant from a case.
Why?
Tseng attributed a bad opening of both a iPad 2 and new iPad to pattern changes Apple done final year when it reduced a density of a potion overlaying a touchscreen and mutated a aluminum case, exposing that potion above a frame’s bevel.
Claims filed with SquareTrade support a aloft event rate of a iPad 2 when compared with a 2010 original.
In their initial year of coverage, 9.8% of iPad 2 guaranty holders reported random damage, or 3.5 times a 2.8% rate of first-generation iPad owners, Tseng said.
After extrapolating a 5.5% random repairs explain rate of a first-generation iPad during a second year of coverage, Tseng pronounced SquareTrade approaching scarcely 20% of iPad 2 owners to news a inscription collision in a same period.
The infancy of reported repairs was burst or burst touchscreens, with 69% of a claims drop- or fall-related.
“The many critical cause in a disaster rate of a iPad 2 is a density of a glass,” pronounced Tseng. “That’s many expected a reason for a aloft rate, given a thinner potion is some-more disposed to breaking.”
Apple reduced a potion density of a iPad 2 by 23% when it switched to aluminosilicate glass, that is touted as some-more resistant to violation and scratching. Apple also uses a potion — marketed by Corning underneath a Gorilla Glass code and by Asahi Glass Co. as Dragontrail Glass — in a iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.
Tseng remarkable that Corning’s stronger Gorilla Glass 2, that a association introduced final Jan during a Consumer Electronics Show, might be used in a new iPad during some point.
But Apple’s claims that thinner aluminosilicate potion is ultra-durable only doesn’t compare SquareTrade’s data, what with iPad 2 owners filing three-and-a-half times some-more repairs reports. “I don’t know if [Apple's] explain binds adult to reality,” pronounced Tseng.
Malfunction Claim Numbers Low
On a other hand, non-accidental claims for a iPad 2 — tools disaster of some kind — were intensely rare, pronounced Tseng. In a initial year of coverage, only 0.3% of iPad 2 owners, or 3 out of 1,000, filed a malfunction claim, compared to 0.9% of first-generation iPad owners.
Those numbers were a fragment of a explain rates posted by other devices, such as intelligent phones (with a first-year explain rate of 3.4%) and laptops (4.5%).
“In general, man, has Apple gotten good during producing electronics,” pronounced Tseng about a iPad’s low disaster rate.
The jury is still out, of course, on a new iPad. But one probable red flag, pronounced Tseng, is aloft temperatures generated by a tablet. “If a new iPad is heating up, that could impact a continuance of a inner components over time,” he said.
Apple has denied that a new iPad overheats.
SquareTrade faces new foe from Apple in a guaranty business: Apple only combined random repairs coverage to a two-year AppleCare devise for a iPad. An iPad owners is authorised to record dual collision claims during a life of a warranty, with any theme to a $49 use fee.
AppleCare for a iPad costs $99.
“It’s good that Apple is finally addressing accidents,” pronounced Tseng. “But it’s many useful to people who live in tighten vicinity of an Apple store.”
SquareTrade has forsaken a two-year guaranty cost to $89 to stay rival with AppleCare, and offers a three-year devise for $119. Like Apple, it levies a $49 cost — SquareTrade calls it a deductible — for any collision claim.
Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, confidence issues, Apple, Web browsers and ubiquitous record violation news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter during @gkeizer , on Google+ or allow to Gregg’s RSS feed . His email residence is gkeizer@computerworld.com .
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