Business Insider

Is Apple Accident-Prone?

Warning: It bends.

Photo by Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images

This article originally appeared in Business Insider.

The screw-ups at Apple keep on coming.

The company whose “philosophy’s always been to be the best, not the first,” as CEO Tim Cook said recently, is going through a rare period in which it just looks accident-prone. Apple’s launch of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus has been dogged by these unfortunate incidents:

Apple will roll on regardless, of course. These are the kinds of glitches that any big company goes through. iPhone 6 will probably turn out to be the biggest, most successful launch of Apple’s history, producing a record influx of revenues. (We asked Apple for comment, but its spokespersons were silent at the time of writing.)

Some of Apple’s problems are mere optics. The warrant issue—in which cops believe that Apple’s new security will prevent them from solving murders and kidnappings—is mostly just a PR issue. In fact, it’s likely that Apple will actually respond to warrants and cops still have a way in to your locked iPhone, so this whole idea that it’s not technically feasible for Apple to respond to warrants is simplistic at best and misleading at worst.

Others go to Apple’s core: To release an operating system update that prevents a phone from being used as a phone, and then to retract it, is a shocker. It’s a basic, fundamental, product-use error that causes users needless headaches. Consumers will have to hook their phones up to their laptops and reinstall an older version of the system from a backup. That’s asking a lot from non-tech consumers (like your parents). It’s the kind of thing PC users used to curse Microsoft for, back in the days when that company used to ship bug-filled Windows updates.

And the fact that Find My iPhone was susceptible to the most basic hacking technique—repeatedly entering new passwords until you get it right—also seems careless.

Apple is the company in which everything “just works,” the brand that prides itself on being thoughtful and careful and obsessed with details. And its slip is showing.

We’ll forget all about this in a month or two, of course. In addition to roaring iPhone 6 sales, there is one other thing that indicates the Apple ship is basically heading the right way: Since the new product launch on Sept. 9, the stock is up nearly 4 percent to $101.75.

See Also: The iPhone 6’s Manufacturing Costs