Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
A while back I had pontificated on the no-win situation Apple had found itself in regarding its iPhone lineup. Specifically I mentioned that the impending unveiling of the next iPhone iteration was bound to be “damned-if-it-did, damned-if-it-didn’t” in terms of its physical shape.
That argument noted that with Apple’s rivals having come out with new smartphones in just about every shape and size, and with ever-increasing-in-number technical specifications, there was little Apple could do with its iPhone line that would not either underwhelm or look like Apple had lost its design mojo. As such, with the recent unveiling of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple did indeed underwhelm to at least the naysayers, though that did not prevent the Apple faithful from clogging sidewalks, malls and the Internet in order to get their hands on the device.
However, it has come to the attention of some since the device(s) launched one week ago that Apple did indeed slip in a novel design feature that no one really saw coming: moldability.
That’s right, Apple has somehow managed to design a smartphone case that consumers can custom mold to any shape they want. Or at least that is what some people claim, and all of those people are willing to show that moldability by posting a video on YouTube.
To unlock this new feature, customers apparently only have to put the iPhone in their pocket, where magically it changes shape into one of those curved-screen devices that seemed to be all the rage a few months back. However, unlike those pre-curved devices, Apple allows you to shape the new iPhone to either you front or hind quarters. Pretty sweet if you have either quarter in a shape worth reproducing onto a phone.
Now, according to published reports, Apple is claiming it has only had nine people contact the company regarding their ability to unlock this hidden feature, which I guess would mean that all of those posting videos have not bothered to give Apple a call and say: “Hey Apple, cool feature!”
That’s a pretty impressive — or disappointing — claim since Apple is said to have sold 10 million iPhones through its opening weekend of sales. The unusual part of this is that it seems some of these people that have unlocked this secret design feature are not entirely pleased with the move. These people seem to want to have an iPhone that looks just like everyone else’s instead of having something unique to them. That, or they would rather their unique design include some sort of custom Bedazzling.
Apple has a bit of history in rolling out secret features on new devices. Remember that cool feature on the iPhone 4 where when a customer squeezed the bejeezus out of the device, it lost its ability to connect to a cellular network. Some thought this was a design flaw, though we know the Apple was really just including a special “airplane mode” feature. For finding this awesome feature, Apple awarded customers a free case. Sort of a nice reward.
The best part of this iPhone 6 feature is that people are now trying to find new hidden gems embedded in their device, and are thus trying all sorts of interesting ways to extract that gold. This looks to include dropping the device from all sorts of different heights onto all different sorts of surfaces:
Hitting their iPhone with all sorts of different hard objects:
http://youtu.be/y7WPENzfhDY
And the best, shooting their iPhone:
Nothing says we have made it as a civilization as much as taking a perfectly good product that 99% of the people in the world would love to have and costs more than most people make in a year … and destroying it for page views on YouTube.
The best part is that all of this hub-bub is only sure to escalate as Apple today is releasing the device into 22 new markets, thus throwing open the door to discovering more hidden features.
For all of this, I say well done Apple. You have managed to yet again push the boundaries of smartphone design into new and exciting frontiers. Samsung, LG, Motorola and others … your move.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for an extra:
—Staying on the new device tip, BlackBerry this week launched its Passport device, and virtually no one noticed.
Now, I am in no position to tell BlackBerry how to run its business, but this move in launching its saving grace the same week that Apple’s latest smartphone was rolling out to consumers could only mean a few things.
1. BlackBerry realizes that the Passport design is so far out there that it has no chance in the market and thus by launching it the same week as the iPhone it can slowly die away like the Playbook tablet.
2. Relatively slow sales compared with the reception to the iPhone could allow BlackBerry to blame those low numbers on the fact that the Passport launched the same week as the iPhone. BlackBerry enthusiastically reported that it had sold 200,000 Passport’s since launch.
3. BlackBerry’s management has been overrun by polar bears and is now not afraid of anything, even Apple.
I would like to think it’s No. 3.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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