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Trundle, trundle, FLEEEP: iPhone 6 production grinds to halt

Screen snags plague fruity supplier Pegatron

The production of Apple's iPhone 6 has reportedly hit a major snag after the redesign of a screen component caused a supply shortage.

Pegatron, which builds iStuff for Apple, 'fessed up to the problem and admitted a key component was in short supply.

"Currently, there's a small shortage in supply of a specialised component for our communication devices," said a spokesman. "This kind of problem regularly occurs and the impact on production is negligible."

The news of the fruity foul-up broke on Reuters, which quoted mysterious supply-chain sources.

These insiders told the news agency that the problem was sparked when Apple tried to thin down the phone by using just one layer of backlight film on the 4.7-inch model, rather than the traditional two layers.

This plan hit the wall when the display turned out to be too dim for Apple's liking, so Cupertino's designers had to get back to work on a solution. While the brightest minds of Apple worked on this problem, some parts of the screen assembly production process were halted.

The sources said that Japan Display Inc, Sharp Corp and South Korea's LG Display Co Ltd have been roped in to make the screens for the iPhone 6, which is expected to come in two fruity flavours: one with a 5.5-inch and the other with 4.7-inch display.

Earlier this year, we reported on claims there were problems with developing a battery which was slim enough for the new iPhone. Before that, we also covered the claims that Cupertino was having difficulties with the thin in-cell touch sensor displays.

Poor old Apple. ®

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