BrokenSnowGlobe will periodically feature product bugs that come up within the scope of using in our day-to-day lives
Description: After several months of use, the iPhone lightning port can get clogged with pocket lint and the phone can no longer be charged
Severity: 5 (low) (1 to 5 scale)
Priority: 1 (high) (1 to 5 scale)
No. This is not some Harry Potter iPhone fan fiction, but an actual problem that seems to plague iPhone owners. Generally for me, it seems to happen every 6 months or so. The first time, I assumed my phone port was bad so I took a trip to an Apple store only to discover a much too long of a wait to deal with as I didn’t have an appointment. So instead, I went to the Verizon store where I had originally bought the phone and the guy quickly told me what the problem was.
“What a fucking waste of time!” I thought to myself.
“What a stupid fucking problem!” I cursed.
I was not happy that such a stupid problem had cost me a big chunk of my evening.
On the face of things, pocket lint seems like a minor problem, but when the first thing that comes up when you google “iPhone port” is a CNET article describing how to clean pocket lint out of your iPhone port, it might be time to reconsider fixing. Clearly, it something that a lot of users are having to deal with. I only wish that in retrospect, I had googled it instead of thinking I had a damaged product. It definitely would have save me some time.
That said from the perspective of being a quality engineer, I do kind of love issues like this. To me, these types of issues illustrate how a low severity issue should have a “must fix” priority for launch. Sort of the hardware equivalent to misspelling your own company name. There is nothing good about the user experience of sticking a needle or toothpick in the port of your $969.00 iPhone. Well nothing except a brief moment of joy when you pull out a small ball of pocket lint and know you don’t have to buy another phone. It’s kind of like popping a zit. You’d rather not have the zit in the first place, but there is a weird sense of pleasure and relief when it gets popped. Okay, so maybe I enjoyed pulling the ball of pocket lint out. But still that a device in the hundreds of dollars requires regular cleaning with a toothpick is a bit flabbergasting. Every time I have to do it or tell a friend or family member to do it, I am left scratching my head.
Still for whatever reason, this is something that so far Apple has chosen not to fix. In the meantime, maybe it is time to invest in a better clothes dryer to make sure all your clothes come out lint free. Or you could just get a case that covers the port. But where is the fun in that?
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