Here’s dangerous news flocking around, and I guess Steve Jobs should be having a meeting with his iPhone team already. It’s called “Glassgate”, or “Backgate”, or “Shattergate”. Anything that you like. Engadget called them “Glass-That-Shatters-If-Scratched-By-A-Casegate.” Slightly too long actually. A dude by the name of Ryan Block has posted a story on gdgt citing sources “inside and outside Apple” claiming that Apple has discovered a different flaw in its iPhone 4 designs. The basic problem seems to be with non-bumper cases, specifically ones that slide on to the phone, and the danger of trapped particles scratching the back of the phone while taking the case on and off. Case-caused scratches are nothing new, but the big problem seems to be that these scratches can lead to cracking and even full-on shattering of the back panel. Apparently this lead to Apple severely limiting its reselling efforts of third party cases for a time, if you had noticed. Yes, Apple might have some third party cases online and in its stores, however none of the hard cases are of the slide-on variety. Apple also purportedly has a new test program set up to understand this specific issue.

[gdgt via Engadget]