iPhone 6 camera shifting out of position

iPhone 6 owners are reporting that the smartphone’s front-facing camera is becoming misaligned, potentially impairing the phone’s ability to snap selfies and FaceTime videos. The alarm was raised by a user on Reddit, who claims the camera on both his and a friend’s iPhone 6 have shifted behind the casing. “My iPhone 6’s front facing camera is misaligned,” he wrote. “There is a crescent visible on the right side of the hole. This also happened to my friend’s phone and a replacement model the Apple Store gave him.” Within hours, dozens of other users had responded, saying they had noticed the same problem with their handset.

Several of those responding to the Reddit thread claim they’ve had handsets repaired or replaced by Apple because of the problem. One commenter, who claims to work for Apple support (although that cannot be verified) suggests it’s a well-known issue. “Apple Store employee here, we don’t know why they shift and if you choose we can replace the display which will replace the front facing camera or just swap the device all together. I usually just offer the full unit swap since customers feel the entire device is defective at that point.”

The Reddit posters have different theories about what’s happening to the camera. Some are suggesting that the camera isn’t actually moving within the phone, but that part of the housing around the lens is coming loose, partially obscuring the camera.

This isn’t the first time the latest generation of Apple handsets has hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. The iPhone 6 Plus was the subject of the so-called “bendgate” scandal this summer, when it was reported that the handsets were being warped in people’s pockets. After an initial flurry of headlines, the issue has completely died down, suggesting that “bendgate” was more a case of user carelessness than hardware defect. Apple robustly defended the iPhone 6 Plus at the time, claiming: “With normal use a bend in iPhone is extremely rare and through our first six days of sale, a total of nine customers have contacted Apple with a bent iPhone 6 Plus.”

Apple hadn’t responded to a request comment on the latest camera problem at the time of publication.