The iPhone 4 is experiencing 82 percent more glass breaks than the iPhone 3GS, according to a recent study.
The breaks don't appear to have anything to do with the glass used on the phone, though. The iPhone 4 just has double the amount of glass covering its surface as its predecessor, according to warranty provider SquareTrade.
SquareTrade compared the accident reports it received for 20,000 of its iPhone 4 warranty holders in the first four months of ownership to customers with the iPhone 3GS. Overall, the rate of accident reports was 68 percent higher with the iPhone 4 than it was with the iPhone 3GS. The iPhone 4 also experienced 82 percent more broken screens than the previous iPhone, SquareTrade said.
Of the 20,000 iPhone 4 warranty holders, 4.7 percent reported an accident in the first four months – or about 940 phones. About 82 percent of those reports related to a cracked screen and 17 percent concerned liquid damage. About a quarter of the cracked screens involved the back panel.
Only about 2.8 percent of iPhone 3GS owners – or 560 – reported an accident in the same time period, 76 percent of which were related to a cracked screen.
Accidents accounted for the majority of complaints; only about 0.5 percent of reports for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS were due to phone failure.
"The iPhone 4 appears to be significantly more likely to break than previous versions," SquareTrade said, but that is likely due in part to the fact that the "scratchable surface area doubled" on the new phone.
"Overall, the iPhone is still a very well constructed device, with a non-accident malfunction rate much lower than most other consumer electronics," SquareTrade continued.
In the past, the company has found the iPhone to be more reliable than devices from RIM and Palm; SquareTrade promised to soon update its data to include Android devices. "It may yet be seen that even with the double glass, the iPhone has an overall failure rate that is still better than the competition," SquareTrade concluded.
The report comes several days after a post from gdgt that said Apple was looking into third-party cases that are possibly causing the iPhone 4 to scratch and crack when dust and dirt gets trapped between the phone and the case. Apple has apparently pulled these cases from its stores while it investigates, but no official announcement has been made.
SquareTrade said its study did not identify whether its broken screen reports were the result of dirt trapped behind a slide case.