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.
"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.
The
new phones face criticism over their bendability, dubbed "bendgate".
Social media and online forums have been abuzz with comments about how
the new phones can bend when placed in back pockets or while wearing
skinny jeans.
Apple said its iPhones feature stainless steel and
titanium inserts to reinforce high-stress locations and use the
strongest glass in the smartphone industry.
The only way an iPhone
may have bent is if someone put it in their back pocket and sat on the
phone for a very long time, said Laban Roomes, chief executive of
Goldgenie, which customizes and gold plates iPhones.
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.
"We apologize for the great inconvenience experienced by users," Muller said.
Apple
said on its website it was working on an iOS update to fix the issue,
and will release it in the next few days.
"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."
Apple said on Monday it had shipped 10 million units of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
Users
of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus also complained about the inability to use
the fingerprint-reading Touch ID after updating to iOS 8.0.1.
Some
users had complained of "sluggish Wi-Fi and dwindling battery life"
after moving to iOS 8, Time magazine reported earlier this week.
On Thursday, Apple issued a step-by-step
guide for users to reinstall iOS 8, launched last week, through the
latest version of iTunes. The health app will not work for now and will
be fixed in the next software update, the company said.
Customers
might, however, hope for replacements for their bent iPhones, depending
on whether their devices passed an inspection, tech news website The
Next Web reported, quoting an Apple support executive.
"It's not game over for Apple, but nor should we give them a pass on this," Gauna said.
Cases
of bent iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s had been reported in 2013 by Cult of Mac, a
website that exclusively covers Apple.
Rival smartphone makers took digs at Apple's problems.
A
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd advertisement showcased a bending phone
against its own product, while BlackBerry Ltd CEO John Chen said: "I
would challenge you guys to bend our Passport."
Nestle SA's Kit-Kat chocolate wafer brand tweeted "We don't bend, we break".
© Thomson Reuters 2014
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