More quality control issues hit 'iPhone 12', but won't alter launch

A new report from Ming-Chi Kuo stays that one manufacturer is finding cracked coatings on their camera lenses for the "iPhone 12" and "iPhone 12 Max," but it's not expected to delay the launch.

For the second time, a quality control issue is reportedly affecting the two lower-end "iPhone 12" models. Previously it was BOE having difficulty mass producing the OLED screens, but now it's a case of cracked coatings on the camera lens, this time from Genius Electronic Optical.

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the company has discovered the cracked coatings specifically on the wide-angle lens intended for the "iPhone 12" and "iPhone 12 Max." The fault was reportedly found during high temperature and high humidity testing.

It's a small manufacturing issue but one that will have to be corrected. However, it's not expected to cause any delay to the launch of these phones, chiefly because Genius Electronic Optical is not the only supplier.

Kuo reports that Apple is also using Largan, previously best known for making fingerprint recognition lenses, and that it has no such issues.

The note from Kuo doesn't give an estimate for how long it may take Genius Electronic Optical to correct its issues. However, he does believe that the company will need to lower its price to Apple in order to win back orders from Largan.

5 Comments

mike1 3431 comments · 10 Years

About 4 years ago

Poor choice of words. It does not appear that Apple nor the supplier have quality control issues. The supplier may indeed have a manufacturing issue, but if they had a QC issue, then Apple would be finding the faulty parts during incoming inspections or production. If Apple had a QC issue, they would end up in customer's hands.

wood1208 2930 comments · 10 Years

Every year 2 months before launch of iPhones, some kind of production issues rumor starts. Not sure why ?

Rayz2016 6957 comments · 8 Years

mike1 said:

Poor choice of words. It does not appear that Apple nor the supplier have quality control issues. The supplier may indeed have a manufacturing issue, but if they had a QC issue, then Apple would be finding the faulty parts during incoming inspections or production. If Apple had a QC issue, they would end up in customer's hands.

Well spotted.

The distinction might not mean much to AI, but it makes a world of difference to Apple and it’s customers.

chasm 3590 comments · 10 Years

wood1208 said:

Every year 2 months before launch of iPhones, some kind of production issues rumor starts. Not sure why ?

Oh please allow me to explain.

This is a classic and, as you noted, annual tradition of Cover Your A**. If the pundit's predictions in **any way** turn out to be either delayed or just untrue, now they have a straw man to point to named "production problems." If the pundit's prediction was spot on exact, they can also then claim that Apple resolved the "production problems."

I'm not saying that Apple has never had some issue in the supply chain or somewhere along the path of getting a new product out there -- indeed, I'm sure they have some with nearly every product. But, since that's the case, there is allowance for such things in the planning and supervision of them -- i.e., most issue trouble points are spotted and resolved in such a manner that it does not much affect the release date or quantity available (unlike, say, Intel's genuine production problems). There are exceptions, like Foxconn's three-month shutdown, but again some pre-planning and careful re-opening has minimized the "lost time" there and as a result the iPhone 12 is only slightly delayed.

When a genuine "production problem" actually hit Apple (and other tech firms like Google), pundit guessing about its impact was all over the map. This shows that they didn't really have much if any "insider" info and were just taking a stab -- just like the stock "analysts" who, without guidance from Apple, were suddenly much more massively off in their guesstimates on Q3 revenue than usual. Compare that to the way Google has handled the same "production problem" -- they now have no flagship phone to sell until October, only their underpowered "iPhone SE" knockoff (which again came out well after the new SE).