
Apple boycotts German newspaper after Bentgate Video – open letter to Tim Cook - jpdus
http://www.computerbild.de/artikel/cb-News-Handy-Apple-boycotts-COMPUTER-BILD-An-open-letter-to-Tim-Cook-10953399.html
======
DasIch
For those who aren't German and may not know Computerbild or it's publisher.
They have about as low a reputation as you can get, so low in fact that
sometimes this seems to be the entire goal of what they are doing.

Everything they claim should be taken with a huge grain of salt, in fact one
should probably assume their claims to be false until proven otherwise.

~~~
eru
For international audiences: ComputerBild is a daughter of Bild, the German
equivalent of the Sun.

------
ZoFreX
> Just to prove that what happens is nothing but the truth.

No, it isn't, except in the most myopic and unhelpful way possible. It would
be the truth to measure how much force is required and compare it to other
phones on the market. It would be the truth to show that almost all phones
bend when exposed to that kind of force.

It is not "the truth" to show a selective amount of the truth that allows
people to keep believing a lie in order to sell papers, and I find it hard to
sympathise with fake journalists losing privileges only afforded to legitimate
members of the press.

~~~
forgottenpass
You sound a touch too salty to be judging what constitutes "legitimate" press.

~~~
quchen
To be fair, anything that's German and has "BILD" in its name cries out
"tabloid".

~~~
forgottenpass
Sure, and I'm not trying to defend them, but pulling access over unfavorable
coverage isn't the same as never providing it in the first place.

We can argue the relative merits of different reasons to distance yourself
from a publication, but unfavorable coverage (even unfair coverage) just seems
childish and petty.

------
selmnoo
As an aside, the video that really demonstrates how easily iPhone 6+ can bend
is this one:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ3Ds6uf0Yg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ3Ds6uf0Yg)

Seems to have been bent with considerably small effort, and very quickly.

~~~
eridius
Small effort? According to Consumer Reports, it takes 90 lbs of force to bend
an iPhone 6+. That's not small effort. That video just shows the guy was
prepared and willing to push as hard as he could. Replace that iPhone 6+ with
practically any other modern piece of electronic equipment and he'd probably
have damaged that too.

~~~
bane
He did try another phone, but he couldn't bend it. Was he trying as hard? Meh,
dunno. But CR should that 6+ was at least 50% easier to bend than some
competition phones.

~~~
eridius
What other phone did he try?

Not all phones take the same pressure. But the iPhone 6+ is hardly the weakest
of the lot. Consumer Reports lists it as more durable than the HTC One (90 lbs
for deformation of the 6+ vs 70 lbs for the HTC One), and I don't think the
HTC One is generally considered to be a flimsy phone (Consumer Reports
actually says it's "largely regarded as a sturdy, solid phone").

~~~
bane
The Moto X.

------
rayiner
So my wife and I went into an Apple store yesterday and tried to bend a 6+.
Using a level of pressure no more than what I'd be willing to use for my own
Nexus 5, I couldn't even get it to flex. The bigger issue is that it seems
designed to fly out of your hand, between the rounded sides and slick
aluminum.

~~~
selmnoo
> Using a level of pressure no more than what I'd be willing to use for my own
> Nexus 5, I couldn't even get it to flex.

Of course, using a level of pressure you wouldn't apply to any phone... no-one
in their right mind goes around "bending" phones. The thing is, when you have
your phone in your pant pocket... and you squat down or something, the arch on
your leg is going to easily create upwards of 50+ lbs of pressure at just the
right place to create the bend. That's how my co-worker got a bend in his
phone. That's right, a guy I personally know got a bend on his iPhone 6.
That's why I think the 'only 9 people' line by Apple is absolute and total
bull shit. It's infuriating that news journals are just buying it up like it's
truth straight from God's lips.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
>The thing is, when you have your phone in your pant pocket... and you squat
down or something, the arch on your leg is going to easily create upwards of
50+ lbs of pressure at just the right place...

Agreed.

I have bent extremely thick metal keys in my back pocket I assume just by
squatting, and I am under 200 pounds in weight.

I only noticed because I went to unlock my door one day and the key didn't
fit.

Thankfully I could hammer it back into place, but unfortunately the same is
impossible with an iPhone.

~~~
rayiner
> I have bent extremely thick metal keys in my back pocket I assume just by
> squatting, and I am under 200 pounds in weight.

But doesn't that just prove it's stupid to put a phablet in your back pocket?
There's no hope of making a phone stronger than a thick metal key.

------
beenpoor
Am I only one who find these videos moronic ? I mean, ofcourse it bends under
what appears to be lot of pressure. My take is you shouldn't be affected if
you don't wear too tight a jeans to make it bend.

------
downandout
I like Apple products, and I own an iPhone 6 (I also own a 5s, 4, 3gs, 2
iPads, and a Mac). But the level of vitriol directed at anyone even mentioning
the obvious problems with the 6 Plus by both Apple and its fanboys is
appalling. It only makes the fanboys look even more crazy than they are, and
Apple look like it doesn't want to own up to its mistakes.

Apple produced an expensive, high profile product with some serious and
obvious design flaws. Trying to convince others that the issues don't exist
(example - [1]) or vowing revenge against any media outlet that chooses to
report on them is just absurd and wouldn't be tolerated in any other PR
department.

[1] -
[http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1792559](http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1792559)

~~~
Terretta
> _" Consumer Reports test results find iPhone 6 and 6 Plus not as bendy as
> believed: All the phones we tested showed themselves to be pretty tough. The
> iPhone 6 Plus, the more robust of the new iPhones in our testing, started to
> deform when we reached 90 pounds of force, and came apart with 110 pounds of
> force. With those numbers, it slightly outperformed the HTC One (which is
> largely regarded as a sturdy, solid phone), as well as the smaller iPhone 6,
> yet underperformed some other smart phones."_

[http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/consumer-
rep...](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/consumer-reports-
tests-iphone-6-bendgate/index.htm)

Consumer Reports is hardly sensational. And they came down on the side of
there being a problem with "Antennagate". They didn't think this is a
"serious" concern.

~~~
downandout
I just addressed this in another comment...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8386068](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8386068)

~~~
boyaka
Consumer reports needs to be called out for misleading people. Its painfully
obvious that they were paid off, probably by Apple or their investors, to
release this bogus study where they dont even bend it at the weak point,
giving ammo to all the fanbois for them to defend against this issue.

------
hobs
Business as usual as far as I am concerned.

Apple had super harsh responses to internal folks giving out bumpers to people
during the iPhone 4 release, I know more than one guy who got fired for
acknowledging the problem to a customer and helping them out before Apple
corporate had an official policy.

------
s4sharpie
While Apple is known to be less than open in its relationship with the media,
this does seem like an overreaction. Probably on both sides.

I posit that the local German response of Apple was an overreaction, the
magazine's response has probably exacerbated the conflict. It will be
interesting to see how this resolves itself.

~~~
chc
Exacerbated the conflict? What else do you imagine Apple is going to do to
them?

~~~
s4sharpie
Quietly retract their German employee's accusations. The open letter is a PR
disaster for Apple

------
vjvj
This is the first bendgate video I've seen and am not surprised that when you
bend something that is a long and thin piece of metal it deforms and doesn't
return to it's original shape. Like a spoon.

What I'm more surprised at is the way Apple dealt with it (if phone call claim
is true), for a company that is usually great with PR.

~~~
IBM
This is how Apple PR works. Apple products have so much demand from customers
that getting review units is a huge boost to page views. Apple PR has all the
leverage and can "punish" publications easily.

~~~
chc
Given that this appears to have been a legitimately purchased iPhone 6 Plus,
I'm not sure what Apple PR could conceivably do to prevent this in the future.

~~~
IBM
Well in the future they won't be getting review units and will have to wait in
line like everyone else to review it. By then the embargo would have been
lifted on other publications with review units and they likely won't get
nearly as much traffic.

------
imaginenore
Apple, that just shows your insecurity.

------
sxcurry
Wow, they were shocked and dismayed? You'd think a newspaper would have had a
little more worldly experience. Methinks they are a bit too sensitive.

------
AaronFriel
This is a teachable moment for some managers at Apple in Germany; or as they
might be saying to themselves, "Today I Learned about the Streisand Effect."

No matter whether or not bendgate is or is not an issue, blacklisting and
thumbing your nose at journalists is not a good PR move. I'm surprised people
at major corporations keep screwing this up.

~~~
eridius
This isn't the Streisand Effect. Apple isn't censoring anyone.

Instead, Apple is doing exactly what that newspaper should have expected them
to do: stop giving them test units and event invites. They're not entitled to
that stuff, and Apple is under no obligation to invite hostile media to their
events.

And yes, they _are_ hostile. Consumer Reports proved that the iPhone 6 is
_not_ super-sensitive to bending, and in fact the 6+ is even more durable than
the 6, and more durable than the HTC One (which Consumer Reports says "is
largely regarded as a sturdy, solid phone"). That should have been the end of
this whole farce. But the newspaper wanted to jump on the media bandwagon,
pretending that the ability to bend a phone is somehow unique to the iPhone,
and Apple rightfully decided the newspaper was no longer a business they
wanted to work with.

~~~
pkaye
I believe Consumer Reports should redo with a 4 point bending test to end this
controversy once and for all. Then we can compare all products on equal
footing.

~~~
eridius
4 points is not better than 3. If anything, the phone probably withstands more
force when you're distributing it over 2 points instead of 1, because those
points are (presumably) closer to the edges, and therefore don't have as much
leverage.

~~~
pkaye
3 point loading puts peak moment at one point while 4 point distributes the
moment over a wider area to find the weakest point. You can do a simple
statics analysis to show this.

