Surely by now you've heard of Apple's iPhone 6 Plus Bendgate woes, as the company is getting pounded for building a phone that appears to bend under normal circumstances. The German computer site Computer Bild posted a video that seems to have raised Apple's ire so much that the company reportedly decided to stop sending the publication test samples and will no longer invite its editors to press events.
In the video, a presenter from Computer Bild bent an iPhone 6 Plus on-set with his bare hands. Arguably, intentionally bending a phone goes a bit far, but given the circumstances, we're all curious, and somebody has to figure out the truth – is this really a design flaw, or is it simply something that's been blown out of proportion? Mind you, Computer Bild claims that it bought the iPhone 6 Plus that it bent – the device was not a press sample.
Responding to the ban, Computer Bild wrote an open letter addressed to Tim Cook in which it explained that the iPhone 6 bend test was for informative purposes. Poking a little further, Computer Bild even asked Tim Cook whether this is really the best way to deal with critical independent press.
On the other side of the story, Consumer Reports tested how well the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and competing phones stand up to various forces and found that the smaller iPhone 6 is actually more susceptible to bending than the bigger iPhone 6 Plus. It even did better than some of the competing phones.
Unbox Therapy posted a similar video, although we haven't heard any similar response from Apple to them. If it's only Computer Bild that Apple has contacted in this way, we suspect that the company is trying to send out a warning shot -- unless the rep was merely a rogue actor that stepped out of line.
So, what are your thoughts? Do you think this is a problem that's been blown way out of proportion, or do you believe that it's genuinely something that Apple needs to address in a way that's different from "you're reviewing it wrong?"
Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.