An iPhone 6 bend test left a German tech magazine with bigger worries than a needlessly broken smartphone: The publication was reportedly banned from future Apple events and told it would no longer receive the Cupertino company’s latest products for review.
Apple’s German PR department reacted in a “disturbing way” to his magazine’s iPhone 6 Plus bend test, writes Computer Bild editor in chief Axel Telzerow in an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook. “Instead of answering the questions about why the iPhone 6 Plus is so sensitive, a manager called Computer Bild and told us, that [we] will not get any testing devices and no invites to official events any more.”
Everyone from Internet forum users to mainstream media outlets has been jumping on the “Bendgate” fiasco since a video from Unbox Therapy highlighted how easy it is to bend an iPhone 6 Plus. That video went viral shortly after the new iPhones’ release this month, being viewed millions of times and piquing the public’s interest in Apple’s sleek new smartphones.
Following the departure of Apple PR queen Katie Cotton earlier this year, Cupertino has seemed to soften its formerly draconian attitude toward handling the press. Has Bendgate — the latest in a long line of such overblown controversies about Apple products — touched a nerve, causing Apple to harden its stance, or is this just an overreaction by the German office?
Apple did not immediately respond to Cult of Mac’s request for comment on the subject.
In his open letter to Cook, Computer Bild’s editor explains why the magazine needed to test the durability of the 6 Plus after reports surfaced online claiming the device was bending inside people’s pockets.
“We could not leave the subject without comment,” Telzerow writes. “Of course that required further tests since testing new products without any prejudice is our obligation to our readers.”
Telzerow goes on to say that Computer Bild was “shocked” at how easy it was to bend the 6 Plus, and even more surprised when an Apple PR representative called to say the magazine would no longer be invited to Apple events. But the publication pledges not to abandon its principles, and vows to continue its “incorruptible tests.”
“We congratulate you to your fine new generation of iPhones, even if one of them has a minor weakness with its casing,” Telzerow says. “But we are deeply disappointed about the lack of respect of your company.”
This isn’t the first time Apple has banned certain publications for bad press. Back in November, Cult of Mac columnist Mike Elgan revealed that the company — like many others — has a “blacklist” of people in the media who are punished for their “disloyalty.”
“The Apple ‘blacklist’ for most journalists appears to result from some combination of criticism, cynicism or coverage about specific topics — or breaking the company’s ‘rules’ for coverage,” Elgan wrote. “For example, criticizing Steve Jobs, Apple’s history and culture, or super-harshly criticizing their products will gain most journalists lifelong inclusion on the ‘blacklist.’”
Source: Computer Bild
Via: Mike Elgan
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
80 responses to “Apple reportedly punishes German mag for its iPhone 6 Plus bend test”
Well, Computer Bild stopped being great 10 years ago. Not sure if anyone cares about them. Also, their letter to Cook sounds really stupid.
If they are so irrelevant, why is Apple going out of their way to ban them from all future press events and ban them from all advance review models?
Who cares if the phone bends or not. Thats moot. The real story is why does Apple view this as a bannable offense from ever attending another Apple event or review device? They come off as exceedingly oppressive here…
So you’re saying if they’re irrelevant, DON’T ban them?
What’s the connection between relevance/banning?!?
No, I was simply responding to the post I responded to. Patrick’s thesis is that they are no longer relevant, so who cares if they are bending iPhones or getting banned. My retort is: if we should all not care about Computer Bild, why is it that Apple, Inc. cares?
Precisely: if Bild was irrelevant, Apple wouldn’t seek to make an example of them. Moreover, Apple isn’t discouraging anyone from reporting on the ban as the story is present on all Apple-related media forums, blogs, etc. today. If Apple didn’t want it “out there”, it wouldn’t be. Go ask the folks at Bild.
If there’s a problem with a patch that is fairly clear (yet not affecting everyone), everyone panics; when there’s a problem with a product–which is otherwise great (yet doesn’t affect everyone)–it’s amazing the numbers that say the problem simply doesn’t exist, including Apple.
I’m an Apple fan and would love to own an iPhone Plus, but quietly fixing the problem instead of making examples of people whose job it is to point it out is petty, particularly for Apple, which typically has pretty high standards.
You’re assuming that because Patrick claims them to be irrelevant, that everyone else claims them as irrelevant, including Apple. You know what happens when you assume something, don’t you?
Where exactly do I state or insinuate that everyone shares Patrick’s view?
You inferred it. Read your comment.
I honestly have no idea which comment and what line you are referring to. I think through my prose and all of my responses that it should be quite obvious my intentions are not to be inferring that “everyone” shares Patrick’s sentiment that he posted. (who is “everyone” by the way? everyone in this comment section? this website? the internet? the planet?)
Ultimately, I was simply trying to point out that relevant or not, Apple banning a news publication from press events and early-builds of their devices is heavy handed at best, draconian at worse. Especially considering that beating the crap out of new technology and then posting the results online is an internet tradition older than photo bombing and rickrolling.
/sigh. Its like pulling teeth attempting to have a civilized conversation with humans.
You are absolutely right.
I agree 100%.
so tired of this non-story, Yes if you try to bend a freaking phone with your hands you’re gonna f@#$ing bend it, whats the freaking news here ? seriously ? Cult of Mac is seriously guilty of trying to perpetuate a non-story. F@$king click bait dude. look how hard these bloggers are trying to snap a phone with their hands.. so dumb
Try to bend a Moto-x. No, go ahead, I’ll wait for you! xD
Lets first find someone who cares… then we can worry about breaking it in some way or another.
The Gnome, apparently there are 10 million + hits on google for the keyword “bendgate” alone. All those hits for only 9 defective phones according to Apple. Over 32 million views on the bendgate video…after only 9 bent phones! Apparently someone cares…a lot! But hey…you go ahead and purchase your overpriced flap of aluminum foil. Hopefully you can bend it back into place after a toddler walks up to it and bends in half like the kids did in that UK video in the Apple store!! lol
Given enough force, every phone will give/bend. The question is, how much force. Apple wants to eradicate every word out there that’s related to this subject and not fess up about its 6+ design flaw.
Apple just made the 6+ phone too thin. This time, too smart for their own good I reckon.
Ofcourse everything will bend with enough force. A steel bar will bend with enough force. The thing is though that children do not routinely walk up to steel bars and bend them. Which is the ridiculous scenario bendgate apologists would have you believe.
Bendgate apologist: “Man, those kids are jacked! They must be working out everyday! They must be on steroids! Only a sumo wrestler with a vengeance could possibly bend an iphone 6 plus! Didn’t you see the consumer report dude?”
But the display gap is a feature! LOL
Ha ha!
The Gnome made fun of you & your shitty “phone”!
Right! and he got pwned! =P
No, because I would never, ever need to do that in any normal use of the product. Just like I wouldn’t purposely run it over with a car, then claim its a “design flaw” when it breaks.
When your phone is in your pocket, and you sit down with it in it, or in any kind of pressure situation, that flaw can be revealed. This is a phone, not a greeting card. It’s expected to be able to take some pressure and not bed. Not just at 3 points, but at four points. It’s a design flaw whether you like it or not. The numerous reports ( I will bet you cash money there are far, far more than “9”) attest to this.
I’d like to see real tests of whether the phone will bend along the femur if carried inside a front pants pocket. It’s unreasonable to not be able to carry your mobile phone in your pocket without risking damage just from that. All the videos of bending I’ve seen are at angles that wouldn’t be reproduced in a pocket unless the phone was sideways, and I don’t know of many pants pockets that are gonna let a 6-inch-long phone go completely sideways across the leg
I know how to solve this bending issue:
DO NOT FU**** BENT YOUR PHONE!!!
Stupid people…
Or hold it wrong.
Or hold it in general. The only proper way to handle an iphone is to encase it in a four foot admantium safet and imagine what you might do with it if you didn’t have to protect it so much.
“a video from Unbox Therapy highlighted how easy it is to bend an iPhone 6…”
Did it now? Did it really? IIRC the video actually shows it requires some brute pressure. Oh, and didn’t Consumer Report do their own tests which contradicted those claims about the 6.
Wow, even by Cult of Mac’s low standards, this article is pretty awful.
I think some kids in the UK bent an iphone in an apple store that was a display model wiht their bare hands. Try again.
Nope. Once again, even in that video you can see it requires significant pressure and multiple attempts.
Ehhh some fat American slob on YouTube has bent a few of them without much effort… I held my first one recently and it did feel like it would bend about as easily as if you were to bend a CD with just 2 fingers pinching opposite edges. I personally wouldn’t be happy with that after paying $500+ for one.
“it did feel like it would bend about as easily as if you were to bend a CD with just 2 fingers”
Heh. Oh I see. It felt like that. Mighty fine empirical testing there.
“… pinching opposite edges.” Oh you. Don’t cut my message to make you look like less of an IMBECILE. Try bending a CD with just 2 fingers on opposite edges. The effort it takes to bend it is about equal to the effort it took me to get the 6+ to bow a little with 2 thumbs and 2 index and middle fingers.
See, that’s not really what you mentioned in your original post. You wrote “I held my first one recently…” with no mention of the fact that you actually tried to bend it. The additional detail in your reply provides context missing in your original.
It’s fine for me, by the by, that you think I’m an imbecile.
You couldn’t be more full off it. The 6+ takes significant force to bend. Not like breaking a CD. That’s ignorant, ridiculous and an ABSOLUTE guarantee you’ve never held nor used one.
I’ve got two BTW
Which is why two school kids in the UK bent one in about seconds in an Apple Store while scared to death they were gonna get caught. Obviously they are putting steroids in the childrens lunches in the UK and have been doing so for years. /s
I call bullshit
As a fat American slob, I vouch for Pyro’s saying. I bet, I can bet I can bend any iphone 6 near the volume button in under 5 seconds just like those school children in the UK did. and no bro…I don’t even lift! =( (anymore)
say good stuff about us or else
No, Xavier, “say untrue and libelous stuff about us and pay the price.”
they don’t call it “cult of mac” for nothing I suppose….
why would you deliberately bend your phone? stupid to be honest.
Not surprised!!!
Reaction to kids bending phone in an Apple Store:
If not in Apple Store: It’s a fake videos! Look at da numbers >=(
If in Apple Store: Everything bends! It’s science! X(
This story demonstrates you should never, ever, believe all the sycophantic musings of the fanbois press. Soviet, Chinese & Nork press agencies would be envious of Apple PR control.
The fit & finish of Apple products is superlative and second to none.
As per usual, when Apple has a MONSTER hit on it’s hands,
the JEALOUS dummies come crawling out from under thier rocks
to try and spread bullshit FUD. Bendgate is but the latest example.
Fuck ’em all. In thier mouths.
Is there any reason someone should take seriously someone with an apple logo as their avatar and their whole identity so tied up with a company that their username is iPadCary? Isn’t it obvious to even you that you’re just an Apple fanboi?
Yeah, yeah.
It’s strange to have such credentials on a blog called
C-U-L-T. OF. M-A-C. You fool.
And with FOUR likes, to boot.
A PR blacklist is pointless and self defeating.
Apple should do more of this. Media outlets and blogs that do and print stupid stuff don’t need to be invited to those events. Trouble is that would leave out most of them as they all jumped on the bandwagon in their own stupid thoughtless ways. Now we’re left with a bunch of Apple haters who, even in the face of facts, won’t let it drop. Guess they are good at the one trick pony when thats all they get each year… some meaningless “gate” in the face of millions of happy iPhone users who care not.
Leo Laporte was on that list for a lot of years. :)
If this is true, it clearly shows Apple as a petulant child! They are reporting on a issue that will have a long term impact if Apple is found to have a design flaw, which from the schematics appears they do have a weak spot. No you shouldn’t sit on your phone or flex it or bend it like those two UK tools did last week but still its a design flaw.
Umm, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, have all done the same thing. They all blacklist journos they don’t agree with. Anything long and thin and made of metal will bend. Sony Experia bends, but didn’t hear the cries of “rotten design” there. Bending an iPhone is pure click bait, nothing more. I hope their ad revenue makes up for what they’re about to lose.
So tired of anything long thin and made of metal will bend justification.
Except you clearly just made that up. When I search ‘samsung blacklist’, ‘google blacklist’, or ‘microsoft blacklist’, all I get is articles about Apple’s blacklist.
Apple is the only company that would dare try something so childish and underhanded. They are also the only company that, somehow, always seems to get away with shit like this.
No, it’s quiet well known, just you don’t want to believe it. Microsoft barred a CBS reporter when he mocked their very first speech to text software a number of years ago. Samescum have done the same. They led a group of international journos a few years ago to dispel their poor working conditions, and a number of them were kicked out when they found they were writing negative reports back to their editors. It’s a fact, only you can’t believe it. Wonder why?
Serves ’em right.
If you screw with the bull, you get the horns.
Personally, I never thought they were great. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure it’s one of the biggest, if not the biggest, tech mag in Germany. So they certainly are relevant and that open letter could seriously harm Apple with it being part of the Springer group that also happens to own Bild which is the world’s largest daily newspaper and connections to all kinds of media. In other words, a lot of people will read that letter in Germany, and as stupid as it may be, and as stupid as this whole bendgate is, Apple shoots itself in the foot with stuff like this.
If this story is true (for now I’ll assume it’s true because who knows what’s true any more), this is exactly the kind of arrogant, crybaby, temper tantrum stuff I absolutely hate about Apple. I will admit, Apple is completely within its rights to invite or not invite whomever they want to their events, but if this is how Apple deals with any negative comments they are a bunch of sniveling cry babies.
Humm let’s see, if a White House reporter attending a briefing by the President of the United States was subsequently banned for writing a critical article, the screaming within the world press would be deafening. Presidents and the like have to simply “take it” and move on, but oh no, crybaby Apple bans reporting organizations that don’t drink the cool aide … it’s absolutely pathetic!
They all have a blacklist, but it dont make headlines like Apple does. So they’re all cry babies then?
No they don’t. It’s very poor practice and will backfire spectacularly. Apple could potentially get away with this when they were pre-eminent. Now they need to take a much more competitive approach to meet the increasingly competitive marketplace.
So far I haven’t seen anyone stating the obvious. If you take the product that a manufacturer provided you with for review purposes and use brute force to purposely bend it, why should the company provide you with products in the future?
This whole issue has gotten so ridiculous. A press outlet tries to get attention by jumping on the bandwagon. What a surprise..! And a what a stupid bandwagon it is. Let’s see what happens if you plant your big butt on a large Samsung phone. Did this German tech mag compare the relative pliability of the other similarly sized phone casings..? Nope. Of course not, because then you’d find the obvious. The larger and thinner any phone is, the more likely it is to bend when you put enough force on it. They all just want to take down Apple and the new phones any way they can. And it’s ALWAYS good for business when you go with the trend. This isn’t about me being a fanboy, or whatever that stupid term is. This is about everyone using their brain and getting a life. Don’t sit on it and it won’t break. Easy -simple. I think the 6+ is a great phone, but who the hell am I to tell anyone what phone they should be buying. The whole “us vs them” thing is almost as bad as democrats vs republicans, and it reeks of the same type of childishness.
I’m surprised that nobody complaining the new iPhone was too slippery causing them to drop it.
They also did the bend test on the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note3.
http://www.computerbild.de/videos/cb-News-Handy-Biege-Test-Samsung-Galaxy-S5-und-Note-3-10953483.html
There is definitely a design flaw if you look at the pics from the
ifixit teardown.
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/htvmympjltcz8a521ere.jpg
If people don’t put cases on the 6+ there is a very good chance they
will all bend over time. Putting greater than normal pressure on the
weak point only accelerates the inevitable. Remember, the “bend test”
video wasn’t made until multiple reports were floating around about
people’s phones bending with just regular use, it was only done to
verify if the reports were credible. The consumer reports test only put
pressure on the center of the phone, if that pressure was put on the
weak point in the design it would have almost certainly bent under a lot
less pressure. Only time will tell if this truly will become a major
issue but I think that if it does end up showing a slight bend, most
apple lovers will just buy a case to stop the bending from getting worse
and just keep quiet about the bending. It would probably be good advice
to buy stock in companies making cases for the 6+ because even the
people who like their I-phone’s naked because of the design, which is
rather beautiful, will end up with a case before long. Here is another
article everyone may want to check out:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2014/09/30/iphone-6-bendgate-science/
This is great. screw these ass clowns. Talk sh#t like a b#tch, lose privileges like a b#tch
It’s funny that you don’t know that you’re a clown. The situation is actually be honest about the flaws in an apple product, have apple respond unprofessionally, and brainless apple fans will support it because they don’t know what professionalism is.
Germans are Cheap people anyways. They prefer to pay less regardless of intolerable the user experience is. Let the peasants be banned.
You, sir, are the prime example of a generalizing douchebag and everything that’s wrong with the internet today :)
If they really wanted to be objective, they would’ve done a bend test on all phablets, don’t you think? I’ve seen a Sony Experia bent, but have yet to see the mass hysteria about it.
I really like Apple but this is crazy. “Only rate our products well or you will be blacklisted!”….that is a terrible company policy.
Apple phones aren’t a thing anymore. They’re just an option.
Further proof that Apple is losing it’s way, the bozo explosion is in progress.
The iphone 4s was my favorite model, the 5 being next. The 6 is the most uninteresting iphone yet.
The sides remind me of a filling that’s being squeezed out of an oreo cookie. Smooth, round, and puffy.
Nobody expects …
Why are Apple people so mad about this? The iPhone has been the most fragile from the beginning. 90% of cracked phones are iPhones from what I see. The screen is fragile, the reception is fragile, and now we see the structure is fragile. Don’t be mad because people point it out.
Because as the site name implies, Apple is a cult. These aren’t products to the cult members, they’re religious icons.
Funny how the HTC One is more “bend-able” than iPhone but no one harking on them.
I have had maybe 8 differnt phones. never had a bending problem with them in my back pocket!
These gestapo tactics are very unbecoming for Apple. Don’t hide behind a stone wall. If the magazine is wrong, challenge them and prove them wrong right out in the open.
“The Apple ‘blacklist’ for most journalists”
The iPhone 6 Plus Bend Test video by UNBOX THERAPY is now reaching 50,000,000 view mark with 170,000 likes (vs. 20,000 dislikes)
# iBendgate is now unstoppable having spread worldwide. iPhones’ sales are going down in many countries. China is screwing Apple, too.
Poor Apple!
It is stories like this that make one have to question any positive stories as well. When Walt Mossberg comes out with a glowing review of an Apple product for example can we now take it as an honest review? Seems to me the default position would now have to be questioning, no? Is this really a great product or is Walt just saying that because he want’s to be invited to the iPhone 7 launch?
In the end this kind of behavior doesn’t just look bad on Apple it taints everyone by association that writes about Apple products as one has to automatically question if their pieces are guided by honesty or fear of being added to the blacklist.