Bent, Borked, & Bashed: Apple Had A Tough Week

It's been a rough week for Apple. They've suffered a rash of bad press, all to do with bendable phones and iOS updates that brick them. Another disruptive bit of news also made its way back to Apple's OS X. It sounds like the folks at Apple could use a drink right about now.

A "bug" discovered this week, which was dubbed the Bash Bug, made headlines as a potentially hazardous one. It had the ability to gain entry into just about every computer system on the planet, making it "worse than Heartbleed". The world collapsed in fear.

Then Apple picked us up, dusted us off, and told us all about OS X. As it turns out, though OS X runs the UNIX command shell that Bash Bug affects, OS X apps are secure by default. You'd have to get granular with your UNIX services to even allow access to the bug, and you probably (definitely) don't do that.

As it turns out, this one wasn't serious. Bash Bug probably has the ability to do some damage, but it's unlikely. As far as OS X is concerned, you're safe and sound, according to Apple.

A few days after iPhone 6 rolled out, some users complained of bent iPhones. The 6 Plus was most affected, it seemed, with many users complaining of some pretty serious bending. Most experienced bends right around the volume and power cutout areas, where the metal is most at risk.

Apple said there were only 9 reported cases, though. That tells us that people were either not exactly concerned enough to do anything about their bent phones, or didn't take steps to try and fix it. Well, so far.

Apple also offered a look into their testing facility for the iPhone 6. The testing practices were shown off, giving us all an idea of just what their phones go through before making their way to us. Still, phones are bent, and many users are reporting they did nothing out of the ordinary to cause them to be so.

This one is an issue we'd mark moderately important. The public outcry has died down, but if the phone really does bend under normal use, there is reason to believe it could happen on a broader scale.

The iOS 8 update brought in a ton of cool stuff. We got our hands on new notification twists and turns, keyboards, and just which apps were eating our batteries. It left out HealthKit, though, which Apple said was coming in iOS 8.0.1.

They were right, too. The iOS 8.0.1 update did bring HealthKit! It also brought connectivity and TouchID issues. A wide swathe of users reported the update made their iPhones into iPods, with cellular connectivity busted and TouchID rendered useless.

Apple quickly pulled the update (an hour after it went out), and had a fix (iOS 8.0.2) about 36 hours later. The update seems to have fixed most of the issues, but a few are still having issues. There may be some sort of residual 8.0.1 effect for them, we don't know just yet, but 8.0.2 seems to have righted the wrong of its predecessor.

We'd have to rate this one minor. It definitely busted connectivity for some, but Apple pulled the update, apologized, and issues a fix for the update pretty quickly.

It's been quite a week for Apple. bent, busted phones and a desktop bug that sent everyone into a tizzy. Fortunately for Apple PR, things have died down significantly.

The iOS issue is fixed, at least for the most part. It seems some users still need to find their way to connectivity, but we'll also note that's social media fodder. There's no way to really know if that talk about iOs 8.0.2 still borking phones is frivolous or not.

As for the Bash Bug, don't worry about it. Until we get further info detailing its severity, we aren't going to panic. Apple's pretty tight on security (iCloud, maybe not so much), so we're inclined to let that play out. Our guess is you won't be hearing much about it anymore.

Bent phones — well, that happens, doesn't it. Apple clearly tests their handsets pretty rigorously, so it's not yet known just how widespread a problem it really is. It's also not known if there is a margin of error allowed in bending or flexing. If your phone has a slight twist but still works, Apple may just ask you to live with it.

At the end of the week, everything is mostly fine. The bending phones thing still has us curious, but it doesn't seem to be as problematic as it was at first sight. OS X is tightly secured, and iOS is finally back up to speed. Sit back, relax, and enjoy your Apple stuff, iFans. Things are just fine.