The influence of technology has grown beyond all
expectations; news, music, socializing, and almost all aspects of life have
been altered using technology. One of the most important business changes that
technology has influenced is the perception of customers. The example I have
selected is that of the newly released iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+. It has sold a
record 10 million phones in the first weekend since its release. A total of 9
(yes, single digit 9) phones have been officially reported to Apple about bending
in pockets in the past week. Though only 9 in 10 million phones have bent,
public perception (with the help of social media) is convinced the phone is
fragile and a poor product. Overall, the effect of social media on business is
beneficial for users because product issues become more transparent, but
sometimes the information may be misconstrued by the mass amount of people
sharing the information.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/25/technology/mobile/iphone-bend/index.html
Very interesting. I've seen a lot of news articles and Facebook posts about bending iPhones that I never paused to consider that these cases might all actually be very rare. I went on YouTube to find some videos of iPhone bending tests and it still seems like you have to intentionally be trying to bend an iPhone in order to get it to bend. In all honesty, I'm pretty sure we could bend or snap any smartphone on the market if we really tried.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting comment. This makes me wonder when something like this has happened in the past, and we haven't known about it. Also, this might not all be necessarily true: there might be the case when people have not reported the issue, even though they've had it. So the number of incidents could be a lot bigger.
ReplyDeleteIt's true what you say about the number of people talking about an issue. Just because a lot of people are talking about a particular topic doesn't mean that it is a big issue in context.
ReplyDeleteIt's really funny seeing people nowadays do not buy phone for the technology but for the sake of having it. They are just trying to be on top of the trend.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I feel that in the tech market there are a lot of people who are devoted to one brand or another, and honestly want to see all others fail. Thus there are always a whole host of people excited to hear about ANY deficiency with any company and run with it.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you pointed out that there were only 9 documented cases. That is really amazing how social media can change our perception.
ReplyDeleteSo, I like to think on the different side of things.
ReplyDeleteDo you mind sharing the source for your statistic that only 9 iPhone 6s were reported bent? Depending on the source, this number may or may not be accurate.
Also, I believe it may be true that there were only 9 original cases of this problem were originally reported to Apple. However, I do believe that these nine cases caused an increased awareness for such bending incidents. Additionally, this increased awareness caused many bloggers and websites to go out and test if the rumor about the new Apple 6 and 6+ was true. The problem was that others discovered the same results as the original nine people did - that their phones also bent quite easily at the noted point of weakness (the volume buttons).
For example:
http://www.oneofthenine.com/ - a website where other people not of the original 9 who reported this problem to Apple post their bending problems also. The pages now has 166 different cases of phone bending listed.
Search youtube for "iphone 6 bend". There are pages and pages of results of people trying to bend iphone 6s. While I don't know how many succeeded, I think it likely that it was more than 9.
In conclusion, I think that the social media didn't overblow a small problem in the bending of the iphone 6. Rather, I think that social media helped to increase the awareness of it, which in turn showed that there was in fact a problem. In this case, as has been done before, social media is the mediator that rectifies the wrong between big corporations and consumers.