Apple’s New iPad Pro Sparks Another Bendgate After Folding Under Minimal Pressure

Apple gadget fans will be cringing at JerryRigEverything's latest video, where he takes a brand new 11" iPad Pro out of the box and proceed to destroy it. The video also shows the destruction of an Apple Pencil. The bending test video starts with the Apple Pencil that breaks with a surprising amount of ease; only slightly more than the force it takes to break a normal wooden pencil was needed to break the Apple Pencil. Beware placing an Apple Pencil in your pocket as it might not survive but that was just the beginning of the mayhem.

To make matters worse, the battery inside the Apple Pencil isn't one of the lithium-ion types that are solid and flexible. The battery in the wirelessly charging Pencil has acid in it, and at one point in the video that acid squirts out. Squirting acid did require lots of bending back and forth using pliers before the battery ruptured making this unlikely in the real world. However, the ease with which the Apple Pencil cracked in half certainly makes it likely to break if you slide it in a pocket and sit down or drop it and then accidentally step on it. However, what happened next with the new iPad Pro itself, is perhaps more disturbing.

The iPad Pro testing starts with a screen scratch test that shows marks turn up beginning with a level six hardness pick, standard for glass scratching according to the video. The hardness level where the sapphire camera lens cover scratches isn't up to par; it scratched at much lower hardness levels than similar materials from other manufacturers. The sapphire glass lens cover scratched with level six picks in this test; sapphire glass normally scratches at level 8 making Apple's choice of glass sub-par compared to devices from other manufacturers using sapphire glass lens covers. Essentially the sapphire glass lens cover is no better than covering the lens with the glass used on the front of the iPad.

Scratches are something that most people who spend big money on a gadget are going to protect against with screen covers and cases, so many people are willing to overlook the chance of a device being scratched. The big catch comes in the iPad Pro suffering from something akin to the widely reported Apple "bendgate" scandal. The first bendgate scandal happened back in 2014 when it was found that the iPhone 6 Plus was bending and warping from merely being carried in a pocket during regular use. Apple claimed at the time that only nine devices had been bent but the extent of the issue was much more significant than that.

The new iPad Pro bends so easily that users need to be concerned about carrying it in a backpack. If you cram it in your bag and then lean against a chair, it's likely that the tablet will bend. If you leave the iPad Pro on a couch or bed and it gets sat on or leaned on, it will definitely bend. This is not the most robust of tablets, obviously. Ideally, Apple's new iPad Pro needs a case for better protection, and great care must be taken not to push the structural integrity of the device beyond its limits, by accident or intentionally, as demonstrated here in this abusive torture test of sorts.