Many Apple customers stood in line for hours Friday to get their hands on the shiny new iPhone 5, only to discover nicks and scratches on the smartphones straight out of the box.
Dissatisfied buyers took to message boards dedicated to Apple products, complaining about slight yet pesky scuffs and scrapes near the antenna markers on the side of the device or close to the screen.
According to posts on sites like MacRumors, it appears that most of the problems are limited to the black version of iPhone 5.
“Mine arrived today with small scratches on the right out of the box. Looks like they chipped the anodized coating putting the screen in, and there is a small mark on the lower back too, by the glass section,” wrote MacRumors commenter spr97ajm.
“I’m not going to worry about it, but it shows the coating is soft, and will chip over time,” he added.
Another forum user Sick z33 said that his black iPhone also came with a “couple of the nicks”.
“Will use the phone til Apple decides to release something regarding the issue,” the smartphone owner concluded.
Longtime Apple fan who goes by the user name msett on MacRumors chimed in: “Super excited that my new iPhone 5 was just delivered about 15 minutes ago. It looks and feels amazing, except however while doing my typical inspection when I get a new product I found a small chip in the back bottom left corner of it.”
Some unhappy iPhone users took to Twitter to air their discontent with the apparent susceptibility of the anodized aluminum case to abrasions.
“Just unboxed my #iPhone5 and found a knick on the top left corner. How dare someone in China accidentally damage my phone before I do!” Peter G. @iheijoushin wrote.
Erica Schoonmaker @_erica also put in her two cents, twitting: “Gasp! There is a teeeeeny tiny scratch on the band of my iPhone 5. And you know what? I don’t even care.”
The popular Apple forum MacRumors also posted an article accompanied by a photo of the black iPhone’s cover covered in scratches.
According to the story, the damage was done intentionally by a user who wanted to test the durability of the anodized aluminum case by rubbing keys and a SIM card trey on the back of a display model at an Apple store.
However, the purported susceptibility of the new iPhone to abrasions was just one cause for complaints among customers.
Many users blasted Apple for swapping out the usually reliable Google Maps software with its own version of mapping technology called IOS 6, which has been plagued by embarrassing glitches, from misnamed cities to missed landmarks
The IOS-gate left the tech giant red in the face, with some critics accusing Apple of prematurely introducing a flawed product to the market.
The site Joy of Tech memorialized the flop by posting a cartoon mocking Apple CEO Tim Cook and the team behind the mapping software.
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