iPhone 6 crash reports lead to sketchy recall rumor

by Unknown 12:06 0 comments

Photo: Apple.

A sketchy report from Business Korea claims that Apple might be facing an enormous iPhone 6 and 6 Plus recall due to an issue affecting the 128GB configuration models.

Particularly on iPhones with very large app libraries, some users are supposedly discovering that their new handsets crash and reboot for apparently no reason. This is said to be the result of the “controller IC of the TLC NAND flash.”

Apple apparently used TLC NAND memory on the 128GB versions of its new iPhone, as well as some iPads, but the majority of iPhones got the more more stable MLC NAND memory version.

“TLC flash is a type of solid-state NAND flash memory that stores three bits of data per flash media cell,” the newspaper states. ““It can store two to three times as much data as a single-level cell (SLC) that stores one bit of data and a multi-level cell (MLC) solid-state flash memory that stores two bits of data. Moreover, TLC flash is more affordable. However, TLC is slower than SLC or MLC in reading and writing data.”

Business Korea additionally notes that a similar TLC NAND memory problem could be affecting some Samsung SSD drives — including SSD 840 and 840 EVO — and that Samsung has attempted to fix them with firmware updates.

While Apple has yet to publicly address the issue, it almost certainly won’t be issuing the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus product recall that Business Korea suggests. As Rene Ritchie writes over at iMore:

“[While] there have indeed been some reports of some 128GB iPhone 6 Plus customers facing crashes or reboot loops, and of some customers getting their devices swapped out because of it … that’s what the Genius Bar is for. When tens of millions of brand new configurations of brand new products ship, that’s exactly the kind of data and samples that Apple routinely collects and investigates as part of quality assurance for all their products.

Anecdotally, I’ve had no problems with my 128 GB iPhone 6 Plus, and I’ve been hitting it pretty hard, day in, day out, for over a month.”

Certainly, this sounds a whole lot like a statistically rare storm in a teacup, but we’ll wait to see what happens from here.