“It all started with the notorious bending video. Honestly, the first time I saw this, I thought it was pretty moronic. The guy’s hands are literally trembling from the force he exerts in his attempt to bend the thing,” Ken Segall writes for Observatory. “None of this is to say that Apple hasn’t had some real problems — or that it isn’t perfectly capable of shooting itself in the foot. The Maps fiasco was for real. The iOS 8.01 update fiasco was for real. (And utterly inexplicable.) These are things for which Apple was properly slammed, and has most likely learned from. But Bendgate was a crisis in search of relevance.”
“We now know that only nine bending complaints have been registered at Apple after more than 10 million new iPhones were shipped. We’ve seen Apple’s testing labs, and the stress testing that was done on the new iPhones. Surprisingly, we’ve even seen Consumer Reports chime in that iPhones have no serious bending issues — even though that publication has in the past treated Apple unfairly,” Segall writes. “While bending iPhones were on the public mind, we got to see a bit of Apple’s character in the way it responded. We also got to better understand the character of a particular Apple competitor… Samsung of all companies should have recognized the lack of substance to this story. They demeaned themselves by jumping on what at the time was highly unsubstantiated rumor.”
“If you’re familiar with this blog, you’ve probably heard me talk about the importance Steve Jobs placed on getting customers to love Apple,” Segall writes. “By doing so, he would ensure that customers would (a) buy more stuff, (b) evangelize to others and (c) stick with Apple when unforeseen problems arise. He understood that such things were inevitable, even for a company like Apple… Despite the intense media blasting, Apple customers did not defect because of Antennagate or Mapsgate. It’s pretty obvious that there will be even less damage from Bendgate… Building customer loyalty as Apple has done requires vision, talent, investment and determination. For many companies, a Bendgate-style story could cause incalculable damage, whether or not it is based in fact.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Samsung’s history makes it impossible for them to further demean themselves. Illegal slush funds, IP theft, and God only knows what else; Samsung is already stuck to the bottom of the barrel.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple blacklists Europe’s best-selling computer magazine Bild over ‘bendgate’ video – September 30, 2014
Consumer Reports stress test: Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus not very bendable at all – September 26, 2014
Analysts: Ignore irrational ‘bendgate’ noise and buy Apple stock – September 26, 2014
Inside the facility where Apple tortures the iPhone 6 – September 26, 2014
Apple opens testing facility to reporters, details exhaustive iPhone 6 Plus durability tests – September 25, 2014
Apple’s gauntlet of five durability tests that iPhone 6 Plus passed with flying colors – September 25, 2014
Apple: Only nine customers have complained about bent iPhone 6 Plus units – September 25, 2014
If ‘bending’ is all Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus rivals have left, they’re roadkill – September 24, 2014
And of course the MSM (and even this website, curiously enough) have stayed silent about the Galaxy Note 4 bendgate “feature” afflicting those devices.
A FUD deflector is nice but it only deals with the symptom. What is really needed is a plug to stop the FUD and apparently someone is working on such a device code named the “Constipator”. Of course you’d need two of them for Anustralians. It’s not been very successful so far as the resulting stinking inaccurate explosions make such a mess but that apparently is a feature that is generating interest with the United Hates military.
Ooops better put up the /shjtt shield (satire, humor, joke, tall tales).
Tbh, I was kinda thinking of returning my iPhone 6. Then the Bendgate hysteria started and I reflexively changed my mind. It was time to circle the wagons and I wanted everyone around me to see that I was a happy iPhone 6 user.
One of the stupid ads at the bottom of this article here says, “Check out the latest controversy surrounding Apple’s most recent iOS 8!”
What ads? Oh yea, I remember ads.
Who could put together a video of a Samsung executive clenching his fists, tightening all his muscles and turning red in the face so that we could start a “HateGate” viral story?
When you shop to buy a car, do you first try to drive it off a cliff? If you were shopping for a gun, would you fire shots at the gun store owner to make sure it works? If you thought about buying an 18th Century Stradivarius violin, would you smash it on the floor to test its integrity?
Such is the skewed logic of the bend videos.
Sadly, the bloggers and sites like that of the German Bild follow that bizarre line of reasoning, and attempt to stand behind it. Fortunately, as infuriating it may be for an admitted fanboy such myself to see videos like the one described above, cooler heads ignore it. In addition, I must keep in mind that blogger videos are viewed typically by a relatively small audience of tech nerds (myself included). But the general public, who don’t spend their time looking at sites like this as well as others you can name, could care less.
That’s an important distinction.
In the past week, I have had reason to go past at least three different Apple retail stores. Each was packed as if it was the day after Thanksgiving with potential customers looking at the new iPhones. So despite the best efforts of Apple haters (cough, Henry Blodgett, cough, cough) and competitors willing to use any trick to derail the Apple express train, consumers appear to be voting with their feet and their pocketbooks.
I only have to tell someone who might ask about the overly-hyped, invented “bendgate” FUD that if you laid an iPhone (or any other phone for that matter) on a table, it would not bend by itself, perhaps with the exception of being in the presence of Uri Geller or Salvador Dali.
It takes an idiot to destroy an iPhone. Thankfully, consumers are smart enough to understand that.
Those “blend” videos always ticked me off.
What a moronic waste of expensive items.
Interesting point, if you watch the Bild video, the iPhone continues to function, and the screen does not break, or appear to separate from the body! If anything, that shows a pretty robust phone. Haven’t seen if others can still perform after intentional damage is inflicted upon them.
The FACT is clear, just as in “antenna gate.” There are FAR more customers returning their iPhone 6+ because they decided they want a different color (or they want a smaller iPhone), compared to the minuscule number returning due to actual (or feared) “bending” issues. FAR more iPhone 6’s will become faulty due to a defective headphones jack or volume button…
Six months after “antenna gate” was headline news, NO ONE was talking about it; the media was too embarrassed to bring it up. And the “fatally flawed” (GSM) iPhone 4 stayed in the Apple lineup for THREE years.
Unfortunately Apple now has to staff extra employees near the iPhones so jerks don’t try to bend the demos.
Give a 6Plus to Mythbusters: they’ll stick a blob of C4 to it and blow the fnthing up.