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 "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.
(http://bit.ly/1qxHWGR)
"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. (http://ti.me/1pqlCPt)
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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. (http://tnw.co/1rlv7mW)
"It's not game over for Apple, but nor should we give them a pass on
this," Gauna said.
Cases of bent iPhones 5 and 5s had been reported in 2013 by Cult of
Mac, a website that exclusively covers Apple.
(http://bit.ly/1sjZbOT)
Rival smartphone makers took digs at Apple's problems.
A Samsung Electronics Co Ltd <005930.KS> advertisement showcased a
bending phone against its own product, while BlackBerry Ltd <BB.TO>
CEO John Chen said: "I would challenge you guys to bend our
Passport."
Nestle SA's <NESN.VX> Kit-Kat chocolate wafer brand tweeted "We
don't bend, we break".
(Additional reporting by Sarah McBride in New York; Supantha
Mukherjee and Ankush Sharma in Bangalore; Writing by Joyjeet Das;
Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
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