The iPhone 4's Antennagate saga may be over now that Apple is no longer handing out free bumpers, but now the company is dealing with an entirely new flaw. Apple's iPhone engineering team has discovered an issue with the iPhone's glass back, says Ryan Block of gdgt. The iPhone 4's design causes particles to get trapped and potentially scratch the rear of the phone when a non-bumper case is used. These scratches have the potential to lead to larger cracks, and could even end up shattering the glass altogether. To combat this, Apple has reportedly limited the number of third party iPhone 4 cases and may even have a new test program set up to investigate the issue further.
There haven't been widespread reports of iPhone 4's shattered by case use, but if news of this design flaw is true, Apple may have an even bigger problem on their hands than they did with Antennagate. After all, the poor antenna design could be remedied with a variety of (mostly) cheap solutions. If a large number of customers take off their sliding iPhone 4 case only to realize that their pretty glass back has been shattered, though, things could get hairy fast.
