After hemorrhaging $23 billion in market value, Apple plays defense

12 years ago

“Apple Inc broke its silence on complaints about bending iPhones, hours after withdrawing a glitch-ridden software update as the company struggles to restore momentum to the rollout of its latest phones,” Arathy S Nair and Sam Adams report for Reuters. “‘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 spokeswoman Trudy Muller said in an email.”

“Apple shares closed down nearly 4 percent at $97.87 on Thursday, wiping out nearly $23 billion in market value,” Nair and Adams report. “Apple said its iPhones feature stainless steel and titanium inserts to reinforce high-stress locations and use the strongest glass in the smartphone industry.”

“Apple was also forced to withdraw a faulty update to its latest operating system after some users of its new phones complained of call service disruptions,” Nair and Adams report. “Apple released a new software update late on Thursday to fix the problems, which it said affected fewer than 40,000 devices. ‘I do believe this speaks to execution issues at Apple,’ said JMP Securities analyst Alex Gauna. ‘At the end of the day I believe this too shall pass, but we are noting with concern that the miscues pile up.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple has more work to do to get its house in order in software quality control.

Squatting out the iOS 8.0.1 turd atop the as-yet-unaddressed “bendygate” FUD was Microsoftian. Apple customers don’t settle for Microsoftian. Hopefully a strong message has been sent from Cook that prompts every Apple employee to up their game.

One thing Cook needs to make very sure is that quality assurance testers have ALL hardware, including the most recent models, in their possession for testing. Doubling down on secrecy at the expense of quality, if that’s part of the problem, is a crucial policy mistake that needs to be fixed immediately.

So this whole mess is the result of a hardware non-issue (likely a planted FUD attack from rivals; strike the match and watch it rage out of control) and a minor point iOS update that affected Apple’s newest iPhones and was quickly remedied.

That’s the reality. The problem for Apple is the perception. To quote Andre Agassi for Canon: “Image is everything.” Perception (as we told you would tar Maps for a long time) is not so quickly and easily remedied. Now every iPhone 6/Plus owner can look forward to idiots asking if their phone bends, if Touch ID works (also not good for Apple Pay’s rollout), or if it can make phone calls. Wonderful.

With the “bending” nonissue, we believe Apple has begun to do a effective job on addressing the usual FUD storm that greets each major product release. With the very rapid iOS 8.0.2 release, it’s obvious Apple understood the importance of quickly addressing the issue. Hopefully Apple is fully prepared for the Category 6 shitstorm of FUD that’s coming with the Apple Watch launch.