When you think of Apple, you think of this smooth, well-oiled machine with perfect PR, pushing products we’d crawl over broken glass to lay our undeserving hands on.  However, September 2014 will go down as a month that Apple may wish to forget.

“Here, have an album you haven’t asked for but you’re going to have it anyway”.  “Here, have an update that makes your smartphone unable to be used as a ‘phone”.  “Oh … and here’s a ‘phone that miraculously bends if you put it in your pocket”.

Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

It’s highly unusual for Apple to apologise for anything.  Remember when the iPhone 4 came out and it suffered with bad connection problems?  The late Steve Jobs very charitably announced that people weren’t holding the ‘phone properly.  However, with the iOS 8 update being littered with bugs and preventing users from actually using their iPhones as telephones, they have apologised and announced they’re working on an iOS 8.0.2 update to sort it all out.  One wonders how many people actually noticed they couldn’t use it as a telephone.  Do people really make and receive calls on smartphones these days…?

Aside from the iOS 8 problem, were any of their other mishaps really that major?  Let’s take the U2 album for example.  The world’s biggest rock band decides to give away their new album to everyone registered with iTunes.  So one morning, millions of people woke up to find the album in their library.  Is that such a problem?  It’s not a bad album at all.  Some might say it’s the best thing they’ve done in years.  However, if you’re not a U2 fan it’s possible you thought it a diabolical liberty, an invasion of privacy and the end of the world as you know it.  Whatever next?  People finding free plastic toys in their cereal that they didn’t ask for?

Bend Me, Shape Me

Then we come to what has somewhat boringly and predictably become known as “Bendygate”.  Yes, let’s take an issue and stick the word “Gate” at the end of it.  How original.  Anyway, one of the new smartphones – the iPhone 6 Plus – is large, thin and has an aluminium shell.  So guess what?  If you stick a thin sheet of aluminium in your back pocket and you sit down, guess what it does?  Yes, it bends!  Who’d’ve thunk it? 
In the grand scheme of things, two out of three of these issues are not major problems.  If you don’t want to listen to the new U2 album, then don’t.  Just ignore it or delete it.  If you don’t want your iPhone 6 Plus to bend, don’t put it in your pocket.  Remember, these are not chunky plastic Nokia 3210s.  These are highly expensive miniature computers, containing more technology than the space crafts that used to take astronauts to the moon.  So treat them as such.

Pack Up Your Troubles

As for the iOS 8 troubles, Apple will soon release their latest update to sort it out, so in the grand scheme of things their Nightmare September will no doubt be quickly forgotten and everyone can chill out and get back to normal.

Remember the real winners from September 2014.  Apple reportedly paid U2 $100million to “give away” their album.  If they still haven’t found what they’re looking for, they can certainly afford to buy something else instead.

Perhaps they’d like to buy a new ‘phone.
 

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