Report: iPhone 6 Display Issues Forced Production Delays

Apple is expected to reveal the new iPhone 6 this fall, with many outlets reporting that the company has scheduled a press event for September 9 to get it done. A new report, however, casts a bit of doubt on Apple’s ability to keep to that date, apparently due to a supply chain issue that caused some major delays in the production process. Will the iPhone 6 be ready for a 9/9 debut?

According to a post on Reuters, Apple’s quest to make the next iPhone as thin as possible may have gone too far. Apparently Apple wanted to use only “a single layer of backlight film, instead of the standard two layers.” But when it was discovered that one layer didn’t provide enough brightness for the device, the handset’s backlighting solution had to be reworked – putting a stop to production for part of June and July. Now that a fix has been worked out, production has started up again, meaning that “suppliers are working flat-out to make up for lost time.”

We’ve heard previously that Apple split its iPhone 6 production order between two suppliers – Pegatron and Foxconn. Now that we know about the production snafu, that decision makes even more sense, since one supplier could potentially pick up the slack if the other falls even further behind. However, it’s disheartening to hear that Apple’s design misstep is now causing the workers in these factories to work extra hard to close the gap. The troublesome conditions imposed on workers at many of the factories behind our consumer gadgets have made headlines before, so it’s not difficult to imagine what might be happening there now.

As of now, Apple has yet to formally confirm the September 9 event, so it’s entirely possible that these delays may have no real practical impact. After all, just because the tech media says there’s an event coming next month doesn’t make it so. The days of August are coming to a close, and if Apple doesn’t make an announcement about a September 9 event soon, it may not at all. So how’s October 10 sound instead?

[Source: Reuters]