With around 1.2 billion devices sold in just ten years, the iPhone is an unequivocal success story. That’s not to say there haven’t been some missteps along the way, however.
Ahead of Apple's unveiling of the iPhone X on September 12, here’s WIRED’s countdown of the top ten failures in iPhone history – and, crucially, how Apple learned from them.
Do you remember the first Apple mobile phone? No, not the iPhone; we’re talking about the ROKR E1, a collaboration with Motorola to build a phone that could run iTunes.
The story behind it goes like this: In the mid-2000s, Steve Jobs began to worry that the iPod, its hottest product, could have its dominance challenged by a cell phone capable of also playing music. Not wanting to fall behind, Apple inked a deal with Motorola to build a partner phone to its popular RAZR handset, which included a built-in iPod.
Handing design over to Motorola resulted in a phone that looked cheap, had a terrible UX, poor camera, and an arbitrary 100-song limit (despite being able to store more). Even master salesman Steve Jobs looked embarrassed when he showed it off at an Apple event.
How Apple dealt with it: After seeing what another company did with Apple’s technology, the answer was clear: Apple had to design and build its own phone, with the added advantage of having now worked closely with a handset manufacturer.
Apple has never been a company that makes cheap tech. So when it throws a bone to customers by hacking $200 off the retail price of its latest product you’d think people would be happy, right? Well, not the intrepid early adopters who paid full price.
That’s exactly what happened in 2007 when the first iPhone was heavily discounted just two months after it went on sale. What Apple thought would be a great PR move earned it criticism from many corners of the tech sphere – including from analysts who felt it showed Apple was struggling to achieve volume sales.
How Apple dealt with it: After Steve Jobs received “hundreds” of angry emails from existing iPhone owners, Apple dealt with the issue by offering $100 credit to anyone who had plonked down the full handset price. Apple has been a bit wary of discounts ever since.
Remember the Apple slogan, “There’s an app for that”? Well, there very nearly wasn’t. Back when Apple first completed work on the iPhone, Steve Jobs told his Apple execs that he wasn’t going to compromise Apple’s locked down control of the device by letting third-party developers create potentially lesser quality iPhone software. Had Jobs stuck to his guns, the iPhone’s future could have turned out very, very differently.
How Apple dealt with it: Phil Schiller and Apple board member Art Levinson lobbied Jobs continually until he changed his mind. The announcement that Apple was opening up the iPhone to third-party developers was made in March 2008. The App Store opened that June, initially offering 500 apps. Today, the App Store has around 2.2 million – with Apple taking a cut of all revenue generated.
Back in the 1980s, Steve Jobs let then-Apple developer Bill Gates get an advance look at the Macintosh as it was in development; only for Gates to turn around and launch his Windows operating system.
A couple of decades later, a similar situation appeared to occur when Apple invited then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt to join its board of directors at a time when it was developing the iPhone and iPad – only for Google to then announce that it had been developing a multi-touch operating system in the form of Android. In the years that followed, Apple made many more strategic decisions that allowed Android to flourish.
As a related issue, we might also include ceding some of Apple’s innovator cred to Android handset maker Samsung in recent years by letting it beat Apple to technologies including OLED, infinite displays, wireless charging and more.
How Apple dealt with it: Steve Jobs famously waged “thermonuclear war” on Google for allegedly “[ripping] off the whole iPhone". Plenty of lawsuits followed. The ones with Google have now been settled, while Apple continues to battle Samsung in court. On a more productive note, Apple has focused on selling customers on its advantages as a platform, and the iPhone continues to outsell any single model of its Android rivals.
Accidentally leaving your phone in a bar is cause for stress on its own. Leaving your phone in a bar when it’s a pre-release prototype iPhone, you’re an Apple engineer, and your boss is the not-exactly-even-tempered Steve Jobs is cause for a meltdown.
That’s what took place in 2010, when 27-year-old Apple software engineer Gray Powell lost track of his iPhone 4. The handset was found by a fellow bar patron, who sold it to tech site Gizmodo, which then published a full online teardown of the device six weeks before it was set to be unveiled at Apple.
How Apple dealt with it: A week after the scoop, Gizmodo’s editor had his apartment aggressively raided by high-tech crime investigators the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team. Apple was a member of the task force’s steering committee. Apple recovered its lost property, but it was not exactly seen as a PR coup. It was one of a number of challenges Apple faced as it transitioned from plucky, different-thinking underdog to the world’s most powerful tech giant.
When the iPhone 4 went on sale, it smashed records in pre-orders and opening weekend sales. Then a few people started to notice that the handset dropped calls in a way that none of its predecessors had done. This happened particularly when the iPhone was being held in a user’s left hand, with their palm covering the minuscule antenna gap.
The issue was related to Jony Ive’s decision to remove the iPhone’s previous plastic antenna band for aesthetic reasons. In the aftermath, respected magazine Consumer Reports said it wouldn’t recommend the iPhone 4 due to the fault.
How Apple dealt with it: The story gained so much traction that Steve Jobs had to fly back early from a family holiday in Hawaii to stage a press conference. Jobs stood by the phone, but to his credit was honest about Apple making a mistake. Affected customers got free cases and bumpers. Future iPhone iterations corrected the flaw – but the trade off between aesthetics and creating a device that “just works” is one that Apple has continued to grapple with over the years.
Everyone expects that v1.0 software is going to have a few bugs, but very few expect it to be quite as flawed as Apple Maps. Attempting to challenge the might of Google, Apple’s mapping software instead became a laughing stock. Problems ran from comedic mishaps like the comical warping of landscapes so they resembled Salvador Dali paintings, to more terrifying issues such as suggesting that people enter Fairbanks International Airport in Alaska by driving across one of the runways.
How Apple dealt with it: In the immediate aftermath of Apple Maps, Tim Cook issued a public apology and iOS boss Scott Forstall left the company. Since then, Apple has diligently continued to incrementally improve Maps: updating the service on a daily basis, introducing features like the innovative three-dimensional “Flyover” and even experimenting with drones and mapping cars to ensure it stays competitive. It’s still not the best map app out there, but it’s a huge improvement on what it was.
Today, Apple releases multiple new iPhones each year instead of just one. That strategy started with the “unashamedly plastic” iPhone 5c.
Coming in five bright pop-art colours, the 5c was meant to be a cheaper iPhone that would find success in the world’s emerging markets that Apple was keen to move into. The problem? With a price tag that was just $100 less than the flagship iPhone of the time, it seemed like Apple couldn’t make its mind up about what the 5c was supposed to be.
While the phone still outsold its BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Android rivals, it disappointed by Apple standards. During an earnings call, Tim Cook admitted that the phone had “turned out to be different than we thought”.
How Apple dealt with it: The iPhone 5c was the last “c” model iPhone that Apple released, but the company’s goal of making a lower cost handset aimed at developing markets has continued. Circa 2017, Apple has the 4-inch iPhone SE, is manufacturing phones in India aimed at the local market, and is working on other ways to bring price-conscious consumers into the Apple fold. It’s making a few more colourful iPhones as well, although not quite as bright as the 5c.
Who would have thought that sitting on an incredibly thin piece of metal would cause it to bend? Apparently not a large number of people who bought the iPhone 6 Plus, Apple’s first 5.5-inch “phablet” iPhone.
Pretty soon after shipping, pictures and videos started popping up online showing the redesigned iPhone with a noticeable bend in the middle. The “bendgate” drama quickly became a meme, while other rival companies spotted a momentary weakness on Apple’s part and jumped in to join the fun.
How Apple dealt with it: The company started by pointing out that only a handful of people had been affected by the bendy iPhone 6 Plus phenomenon. Still, it took no chances when the following year’s iPhone 6s Plus shipped: eagle-eyed geeks noted that Apple not only used harder series 7000 aluminium to make the device, it also reinforced the handset’s high-stress points with titanium and stainless-steel inserts.
You can file this alongside the first generation’s premature price cut as one of those moves Apple never saw backfiring in the way that it did. The “problem” occurred when Apple came to an agreement with the band U2 to automatically put a copy of the latter’s new album Songs of Innocence onto every iPhone owner’s handset as a special promotion.
Millions of people suddenly found themselves with an album in their iTunes library that they hadn’t ordered – and many weren’t happy. As it turns out, a sizable group of folks don’t want U2 music, even when it’s part of one of the most generous music giveaways in history.
How Apple dealt with it: Bono apologised for the debacle in a Facebook interview, blaming it on getting carried away and on “megalomania, a touch of generosity, a dash of self-promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years might not be heard”. Apple issued instructions to its customers on how to delete the offending songs, and now focuses on exclusives with its Apple Music service.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
