Apple also opened up their secretive testing lab to reporters today (stories will be forthcoming).
Now I did mention on Tuesday about “letting the astroturfing” begin; none of this noise actually surprises me. Apple is also doing no favor to itself by releasing a buggy iOS 8.0.1 update either that caused iPhone 6/6 Plus customers to completely lose their cellular service either. It just added fuel to the fire for the media to jump on. And jump on it they did.
Are there 6 Pluses that are legitimately bending? Of course there are. But if this were truly a design defect as some folks on social media are claiming, then the percentage of legitimate complaints would be much larger with far more tangible evidence via that same social media network.
Now the same guy (whose 6 Plus bending YouTube video went viral) has also tested other phones from other manufacturers of the same size as the 6 Plus, and found them to bend less. It’s not a scientific test because different materials as well as the design of that form factor, will naturally have an impact on how much force will cause something to bend (or reach a level of stress where something else gives). He even put the iPhone 6 through the same hands induced stress test and found it to be less prone to bending (standing up better than the 6 Plus). This still does not mean the 6 Plus has an actual design defect.
Furthermore, a lot of these sort of videos are done for the sake of views (think ad revenue); YouTube partners can pull in substantial money beyond the basic video views (which requires a significant amount of unique hits). And this is going to be this persons biggest claim to fame (and just like the “Will it Blend” guy, be an ongoing thing from this point forward. And whether or not some unknown person/entity sends devices for testing or if it is purchased by themselves (which the costs of the devices, are easily made up by channel viewers/subscribers), destroying products for the sake of hits shows the kind of sad forms of entertainment, that many enjoy nowadays.
Consumer Union (Consumer Reports) which has been on a steady decline, is also performing bending durability tests on the iPhone 6/6 Plus after this (they say they are coming up with an authoritative test). They did something similar after the iPhone 4 “antenna gate” issue and played it up all for the sake of hits. Thus it would not surprise me if they also end up also jumping on the bending bandwagon (since what better click bait is there than to ride the current wave).
So how is it NOT a design defect? There is something called “normal” use here. Most normal people aren’t going to be forcibly trying to bend their device like this. Furthermore, it is common sense that a singular slab of relatively thin aluminum with a uniformly larger surface area that IF subjected to a sufficient amount of force, will unsurprisingly cause the kind of bending issue that is happening to some folks. And there’s a potential for that force to be magnified even though the phone may not feel like it is tight in a front pocket (it’s a combination of ones movements along with how clothing can sometimes bind up and increase the actual amount of torsional torque on that large surface area via leveraging).
And Apple would not be able to easily trivialize the issue (if there really is a design defect) either because heading into this first week of the devices being out in the wild (in the large numbers they have sold), there would be hundreds of thousands of customers with bent 6’s taking to various forms of media. Some are claiming it’s because the 6 Plus itself still isn’t out in large numbers due to its constrained supply. Bullshit! Again, even though its supply is constrained and its total numbers much less compared to the 6, there should still be legitimate complaints with tangible evidence numbering in the tens of thousands.
Yet, the majority of cases are re-tweets of the same videos/photos; most of the noise is from the competition (as well as companies that have nothing to do with the consumer electronics space getting in on the whole thing with somewhat humorous advertisements to promote their own products (namely Coca Cola and Pringles given their signature products have bends to them). It’s also turned into more of a humorous reaction (at Apple’s expense) to some of the best jokes.
Likewise, some of Apple’s direct competitors are also using this to also troll Apple which is to be expected (Apple has also engaged in this in the past against Intel and Microsoft); there’s also a fine line here because it can also backfire (the whole “don’t throw stones at glass houses” as that glass house might end up being your own in the future). I used to always cringe when Apple did that at Macworld.
Which leads me back to the attempted astroturfing attempt that is currently going on. I say attempted because Samsung has to be careful since they were already previously busted for engaging in that practice as well as other questionable tactics like artificially boosting benchmarks on smartphones. That doesn’t mean there are other interests at play though; namely the anti-Apple crowd as well as financial hedge funds that have a vested interest in taking the stock down as they short the stock.
The iPhone numbers does seem to have struck a nerve somewhere though given the timeliness of this whole bending hyperbole taking place. These iPhone’s don’t even play the tech spec game to have the biggest numbers, and that infuriates the Apple-hating technical specification touting crowd when the devices sell in such large numbers; especially when one of the biggest one of those, has been the screen size. That advantage is now gone; Android device makers now have to play the exact same game the PC makers had to engage in against the Mac (and the Mac wasn’t even anywhere as big as the iOS ecosystem is) touting bigger numbers on those specifications as well as a laundry list of features that usually aren’t even done well (and we all know how well that ended in the end for every major PC maker).
And again, the anti-Apple everything crowd likes to have it BOTH ways; claiming Android has the overall larger marketshare (which it does when every single Android device is included in that count) as a means to show how much stronger the platform is, versus trying to compare the iPhone against each specific manufacturers, specific smartphone devices. Only Samsung does well here but again, their profit per device is nowhere close to what Apple pulls in (matter of fact, Samsung Electronics is losing money when it comes to their mobile smartphones). And that is what is constantly missed by the naysayers (including the talking heads on television).
This crowd also likes to tout better specs to show how supposedly inferior, Apple products are. And when Apple still sells tens of millions of them, it’s because those of us who are buying them, are sheep. It’s actually humorous to say the least because the reasons aren’t as simple as that. It’s also why most tech companies, will fail in the wearables arena; because they don’t get what design is about when it comes to appealing to peoples inner desires beyond technical specifications.
Apple’s products generally have a high build quality that makes itself felt through the entire user experience from look to feel (many which fall into the intangible area). As I’ve noted before, design isn’t something you just slap on; this is something that has to be part of a companies DNA. Apple is one of the very few tech companies that has that DNA.
If “bendgate” were truly a design defect and a result of Jony Ives losing his industrial design mojo (or totally forsaking reliability for the sake of design form), then the total number of defective iPhone 6 Plus’ should end up reaching such large numbers that Apple would have no choice but to do a product recall and redesign.
But as iFixit showed during a Bloomberg broadcast (where the companies founder opened up a new iPhone 6), even he believes the new iPhone’s are actually built reliably and that “bendgate” will be a non-issue for Apple. I myself see it the same way. And I’ll be putting the 6 Plus I received this week through the same real world tests I tasked the 5s with over the past year.
