Apple Responds to Reports of Bent iPad Pros: “Tighter than Previous Generations”

Just Ealier in this week, Apple confirmed as much to The Verge that some 2018 iPad Pro models feature the slight bend. It’s not a defect, according to Apple, but rather a result of the manufacturing process used to make iPads that occurs from a cooling process with the tablet’s metal and plastic parts. Therefore, some consumers are angry that Apple doesn’t consider it a defect and won’t recall or replace the iPad.

However, according to an email obtained by a 9to5Mac reader, Apple SVP of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio says that the new iPad Pro “meets or exceeds all of Apple’s high quality standards of design and precision manufacturing” and that it “carefully engineered it”.

According to Riccio, the new iPad Pro has a flatness specification of up to “400 microns” and is “tighter than previous generations,” which means essentially nothing to most people. Basically, Apple is saying the iPad Pro has less than one millimeter of variance allowed for the flatness of the device, and that level shouldn’t change over the course of the lifetime of the product. The company also said that any slight variation within that range won’t affect the performance of the tablet.

Riccio also writes, the report of The Verge doesn’t represent Apple’s point of view, and the formal statement from the latter is expected released today.
However, MacRumors reports that one of its readers received a reply from Dan Riccio, Apple’s VP of hardware engineering, when he wrote the company about the issue. The unibody design of the iPad Pro “meets or exceeds all of Apple’s high quality standards of design and precision manufacturing,” Riccio wrote in his email.

“Our current specification for iPad Pro flatness is up to 400 microns, which is even tighter than previous generations,” Riccio’s letter continued. “This 400 micron variance is less than half a millimeter (or the width of fewer than four sheets of paper at most) and this level of flatness won’t change during normal use over the lifetime of the product. Note, these slight variations do not affect the function of the device in any way.”

It’s unclear just how many iPads are exhibiting this curve. The iPad Pros we have on hand in the office look pretty straight, but user forums like this one at MacRumors feature reports from users affected by the issue. The bend seems to be more pronounced on LTE versions of the iPad Pro, according to The Verge’s report.