I just read the source whitepaper, it deals separately with crashing apps and these are not rolled into the device failures. However, the reported failure rate for my model is 9%, however, it doesn't indicate what percent are due to touchscreen failures. I'll say it's 75%, so that would be a 6.75% chance of a failure each time I get a phone, or if you want to talk probabilities of five times in a row it would be 0.00000140126045. Slightly better odds for me.

If the referenced study is correct (I didn't bother to read it), 25% of iPhones experienced failures in a three month period. Accepting that percentage, then I could have a 25% chance of some failure each time I get a new iPhone. And since all subsequent ones after the first one are a refurbished unit I imagine it could be even higher. While we don't know why they fail, if a large portion are due to this issue then five in a row doesn't seem all that unbelievable to me. Just bad luck.

I live in the PNW, but there's been no water damage (or other external damage) on any of these phones (they check every time as they would understandably love to charge me the replacement fee). I understand that the number of phones I've gone through on this contract lends credence to the idea that I'm doing something to affect the longevity, but all I can say is that I don't do anything unusual with my phone, and if I did I would modify my behavior because, frankly, dealing with this has been a pain in the ass.

None of these things should cause a phone to fail in this manner, but no, I don't wear tight jeans, nor do I habitually sit on my phone. My phone is also in an Apple case. There's a real problem with the design of this phone as the video in the story illustrates.

I do have specifics. The video in the referenced post explains the difference between the current models with this issue and the prior models--namely the lack of underfill and of a metal shield to provide rigidity over the affected chips. As for how I treat my phone, it's a smart phone, I treat it like one. It goes in my pocket. It comes out of my pocket. I set on my desk. I pick it up. Occasionally I knock it off my bedside table.

And soon to be a fifth, all in under two years. This last one only lasted about three weeks. While it hasn't cost me anything out-of-pocket, it does add up in time, about 2-3 hours for each instance when you include backing up/restoring, driving to the "genuis" bar, sitting around for my appointment, explaining the issue, having them check for water damage, etc. Thinking about moving to a Note7 due to the quality issues.

There have been many QuarkXPress Killers, InDesign among them, but QuarkXPress perseveres. It's a little bit like the Silicon Graphics of the software world.