Apple Fixing iPhone 6 Plus Cameras Following Complaints
First there was Antennagate, then there was Bendgate, and now Apple is owning up to Cameragate. The latest mini-scandal regarding the iPhone will result in the company replacing faulty iSight cameras on iPhone 6 Plus.
Complaints about the faulty camera and the blurry images it produced first surfaced in October 2014, when a thread was started on the Apple Support Communities forum, and garnered 115 replies and nearly 160,000 views.
"Apple has determined that, in a small percentage of iPhone 6 Plus devices, the iSight camera has a component that may fail causing your photos to look blurry," according to Apple's support page dedicated to fixing the blurry camera issue. "The affected units fall into a limited serial number range and were sold primarily between September 2014 and January 2015."
If a user's iPhone 6 Plus is producing blurry photos and falls into the eligible serial number range, Apple said it would replace the device's iSight camera free of charge. However, the company will not fully replace the smartphone.
(Image: Apple)
Apple also noted the iPhone will be examined prior to any service to verify that it is eligible for this program and that it is in working order. Customers then have three options to have the iSight camera replaced -- through one of the company's retail stores, via Apple technical support, or through an Apple authorized service provider.
In addition, Apple said if the user's iPhone 6 Plus has any damage, such as a cracked screen, that impairs the camera replacement, that issue will need to be resolved prior to service. The company noted that in some cases there may be a cost associated with the repair.
The program covers affected iPhone 6 Plus iSight cameras for three years after the first retail sale of the unit, and the program doesn't extend the standard warranty coverage of the iPhone 6 Plus.
The iSight camera is located on the back of the iPhone 6 Plus and features like the option to capture video in formats such as 1080p HD at 60 frames per second (fps), 240-fps slow motion, and time-lapse.
The sophisticated 8-megapixel camera, which became a central part of Apple's advertising campaign, sports a new sensor with Focus Pixels, improved face detection, and exposure control, as well as a panorama mode and auto stabilization.
Despite the media attention Apple's received for the iSight camera problems and mobile phone manufacturers' heavy advertising focus on smartphone camera quality, a Blanco Technology Group study (registration required) released earlier this month found that only 2% of consumers are bothered by poor camera or video quality.
The study, which surveyed more than 1,400 consumers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, found 38% of consumers cite short-lived batteries as the most common device issue, while just 8% are bothered by insufficient storage space.