Curious Customers Are Conducting iPhone 6 Plus ‘Bend Tests’ in Apple Stores
If you’re into browsing for gadgets, then it’s likely you’ve come across the destruction-test genre. In it, testers (apparently with deep wallets) take pristine gadgets and see how they fare when dropped from great heights, hit with hammers, or dunked in electrified pools.
If you’re going to drop several hundred dollars on a new smartphone, knowing how the one you’re eyeing might look if it catches fire is useful, consumer-empowering information.
Now let’s think about the new iPhone 6 Plus from Apple. You’ve probably heard that it allegedly has a propensity to bend in customers’ pockets. And so a curious new trend has arisen: on-camera testers attempting (and mostly succeeding) to bend newly procured devices.
But even with these great, publicly available media resources, it seems that some overly curious “customers” are wandering into Apple Stores to conduct bend tests of their own — on devices that don’t belong to them.
The most shocking proof of that last bit comes by way of a YouTube video (above), first posted to the profile Exode Cudy, which shows two young chaps in an Apple Store across the pond bending an iPhone 6 Plus display device and giggling while doing so. Keep in mind, they are IN AN APPLE STORE and haven’t paid for anything. A scene in the middle of the video shows the boys asking an Apple employee if the 6 Plus, as rumored, does bend. They allege that the employee tells them it’s just an “Internet rumor.”
(Razor Concepts/YouTube)
Despite the boys’ vigilante laughing off of “criminal damage” in the name of pointing out Apple’s “false advertising,” the YouTube post was deleted and replaced by a fairly contrite “response” video.
Another shake-my-head post, written by Cramer’s Shirt blog author Carmine Pirone, and republished by Business Insider, recounts the blogger’s experience with trying basically the same thing the boys in the video did (with photographic evidence) at a mall Apple Store.
“Taking my thumbs, I pressed and pushed in toward my hands that were firmly around the rest of the phone covering the entirety of the screen on the other side. It bent,” he wrote.
(Cramer’s Shirt)
Pirone claims that he was not the only person in the store “testing” the iPhone 6 Plus against the online bending reports. According to the story, one customer even noticed what Pirone had done and volunteered that she “tried and couldn’t” bend it.
Pirone, too, eventually felt it necessary to publish a follow-up, writing, “Did I ‘bend’ an iPhone 6 Plus? Yes. Did I leave it bent? No, you morons.”
And, as pointed out by The Verge and other outlets, probably the most high-brow offender of the bunch was this market analyst tweeting about trying to bend an iPhone 6 Plus while at the AT&T store.
His result (thankfully?) was different, claiming the device is “not bendable.”
Not bendable, huh? We’re guessing you haven’t seen this (very legal) “Extreme Bend Test” video (below), Walter?
Moral of the story: Don’t intentionally try to bend an iPhone, whether it actually belongs to you or not. You might prefer your iPhone in gray, white, or gold; but NO ONE prefers his iPhone bent.
Have questions, comments, or just want to tell me something funny? Email me at danbean@yahoo-inc.com.
