Apple is investigating claims that the Phone 4’s glass panel is prone to cracking when owners use third-party protective cases.
According to insider sources cited by gdgt, the company fears the alleged issues with the panel have the potential to snowball a la antennagate and has charged its engineering team with fixing the problem to head off another PR disaster.
Gdgt’s Ryan Block stated: “The iPhone team has grown to be very concerned by this issue with slide-on cases, and has created a lab and large new test program specifically to investigate this further.”
It is believed that slide-on cases are most likely to cause cracks and splits in Apple’s latest handset.
The latest spate of reported problems with the iPhone 4 come in the wake of issues with the handsets’ antennas that caused them to drop calls when held in a certain way – AKA the so-called death grip.
Apple attempted to placate owners with a free case giveaway, which ended last month.