This is very similar to what Apple did with Charlie Miller. Miller exposed a flaw in the App Store Approval process and was banned from the Apple Development Community for life. So we now have two cases where Apple would rather punish someone for reporting a problem than actually do something about it. This puts the structural integrity of the iPhone 6 into question even more than when the video hit. What does Apple hope to gain by doing this? If there was really no problem they would simply let the story run its course and it would die in a few news cycles. If it was a complete lie or falsehood you can be sure that sue happy Apple lawyers would be salivating at the chance to drag this guy into court.

Instead of doing any of those they have chosen to try and intimidate the publication that is reporting on the problem. They also embarked on their usual gentle nudge to some of their media buddies to counter the initial reports. This is a fairly common tactic with Apple so that is not surprising or anything really new. We have watched the ramp up in positive coverage on Apple including analysts’ predictions for sales of the new product for a while. It was surprising when Consumer Reports jumped into the fray and added what was clearly a misleading article.

In their testing consumer reports tried to bend multiple phones by applying pressure to the center of the phone. This is despite the fact that all of the coverage and the reported cases show that the iPhone 6 is bending right behind the volume buttons and not at the center point. This makes the Consumer Reports test nothing more than spin (which is a little odd) although it did show that most phones were stronger than the iPhone 6.

No matter what name you want to put on it, there is a structural weakness in the way the iPhone 6 was designed. I have seen it when I checked one out at the Apple store and also at a few different carriers. When you hold the phone and press on it right beneath the volume buttons you can feel it give. In other areas you do not feel the same flexibility. This flaw might only affect a small number of people as many people do not shove their phones into their pockets (back or front), but it is there and needs to be admitted to by Apple instead of them trying to bury it like they do just about any other flaw in their products, from bad batteries to security issues. I suppose that is asking a lot from a company that needs a major success to keep public and investor interest…

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