Hey guys, it’s Greg with Apple Explained and today we’re going to explore the history
of Apple controversies. This topic was the first place winner of last weeks voting poll
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Now there’s sort’ve an unwritten rule in business that says you can’t build a
multi-million-dollar company without a few scandals and controversies. For example, WorldCom
got busted for accounting fraud to inflate their assets by tens of billions in the early
2000s, Volkswagen was exposed for lying about the carbon emissions of their so-called clean
diesel model of the Golf TDI in 2010, and Martha Stewart got found out for insider trading
in 2002 and was subsequently chased out of Westport, Connecticut for it.
So for Apple to have over a trillion dollars in the bank, they certainly have experienced
their fair share of controversies. And almost all of Apple’s scandals can be placed into
three categories: Copyright Theft, Product Issues, and Shady Labor Practices. Although
near the end of this video I’ll cover miscellaneous cases that don’t really fit into those three
categories. And I should also mention that this video won’t be covering anything before
the late 1990s because that would make this video an hour long.
So let’s start with Copyright Theft since I’m sure a few of you are pretty confused
as to what that means exactly. This mostly entails Apple releasing new artwork or software
without crediting or licensing it from the original owner. You might remember not too
many years ago, a popular desktop application named F.lux. It essentially removed the blue
light from your computer’s display during nighttime in order to reduce eyestrain and
prevent disruption of your sleep. Now F.lux announced they were releasing code for side
loading a version of their app onto iOS devices. And that means users could install the app
without having to go through the App Store. Apple quickly revoked the ability to side
load F.lux, citing a violation of the Developer Program Agreement. And no more than two months
later, Apple released the first beta of iOS 9.3 with a bunch of new features. One of which
was Night Shift, a display option that detects when the sun sets and slowly warms up the
white balance of the display to match the sunset. Which was exactly what F.lux did.
And this caused a lot of backlash from the tech community, since some claimed Apple was
just stealing a feature from a small startup without giving them any credit for the idea.
But F.lux responded to this incident in a much different way, they actually commended
Apple on adding Night Shift to iOS, saying that Apple’s involvement in fixing this
problem was a big commitment and an important first step. Although they did ask Apple to
let them release their F.lux app in the App Store, but Apple declined.
Now more recently, Apple has come under fire the past two summers for the same reason,
icon similarities. If you remember back to last WWDC a few months ago when Apple previewed
the Siri Shortcuts app, a blockchain site builder startup named Shift sued Apple for
two-hundred thousand dollars for “stealing” their logo. And while the icons bear a slight
resemblance, the lawsuit seemed to be more of a publicity stunt than anything else. And
a similar situation came up again last year when the App Store got a new icon with iOS
11. This time, a Chinese clothing brand called KON sued Apple for stealing their logo. Now
it’s true that the icons looked really similar with the exception of rounded vs squared lines,
and the Beijing People’s Court accepted the case back in December of last year, but
we haven’t heard anything since.
Now the next type of scandal isn’t exactly theft, but it did rob customers of I/O. Apple
has always been known for pushing the tech industry forward. But being forward thinking
comes at a cost, and more often than not, that cost are legacy ports and input methods.
The earliest version of this scandal dates all the way back to 1998. Apple had just shown
off its first major product since Steve Jobs had returned, and it was none other than the
Bondi Blue, egg-shaped iMac. Consumers and Apple fanatics alike were insanely hyped up
for this machine to release, but spec heads and tech analysts were skeptical of its success.
You see, the iMac was the first mass market computer to not include a floppy disk reader,
the storage method of the 90s, which made the iMac the first legacy-free computer in
the world. It did, however include a standard tray loading CD ROM reader and later a slot
loading CD/DVD combo Superdrive. It also was the first Mac to include USB ports, which
was about as popular back then as the Thunderbolt 2 port is today. Now Apple bet correctly on
the popularity of USB and CD ROMs, since the lack of a floppy drive barely hurt sales and
the iMac went on to be the #1 best selling computer in the fourth quarter of 1998, beating
out the HP 6355 and the Compaq Presario 5170, both of which were very popular machines.
Now exactly a decade after the iMac launched and CD ROMs became an industry standard, Steve
Jobs came out on stage at MacWorld 2008 and introduced the thinnest notebook ever, the
MacBook Air. It was everything a notebook should be, and featured a full size keyboard,
a fast CPU, and an all day battery in a 3 pound package. But it was missing something
almost every computer back then had, a Superdrive. And as you might have expected, many people
in the tech industry and in the media were quick to share their opinion on how the lack
of a superdrive made the MacBook Air unusable and an irresponsible purchase. But most customers
felt differently since the MacBook Air sold extremely well and set a new industry standard
of notebooks being disc-less. And cases similar to this one continue to happen to this day,
like Apple killing the standard USB port on the MacBook and MacBook Pro, and removing
the headphone jack on the iPhone 7. The point here is that these scandals don’t last very
long, generally aren’t super harmful to the company’s image, and pushes the industry
forward. But unfortunately the same can’t be said about the next type of scandal, labor
practices.
So Apple contracts several different mega factories in China to manufacture pretty much
every product with the exception of the Mac Pro, which is manufactured in Texas. The biggest
factory Apple uses, Foxconn, is well known for its questionable labor practices and management.
They can fire and hire tens of thousands of employees in a matter of hours, and this ability
is extremely important since production needs to ramp up or down at a rapid pace after the
release of a new product. Employees live in dorms provided by Foxconn and located within
a small industrial area nicknamed “Foxconn City”, which is a win for employees since
it’s so cheap and a win for factories because they can wake up their employees in the middle
of night in the event of a production schedule change.
Additionally, the standards of employment and quality of life are much lower in mainland
China than they are in other countries, so employees are almost disposable to factories
and can be paid on pennies an hour, and even less if the worker is 13 or 14 years old,
which happens more often than you might think. Before 2010, there were a couple incidents
regarding workers and their mental health. In July 2009, a 25 year old worker lost an
iPhone prototype and was subsequently beaten and had his home searched by Foxconn managers.
Afterwards he jumped off his 12 story apartment building and fell to his death. As 2010 rolled
around and Apple’s dependency on Foxconn increased, more and more workers were jumping
off buildings to commit suicide. At first a 19 year old female, after a 28 year old
male, then a 23, 21, and 17 year old all within the span of three months. That year, 18 Foxconn
employees attempted suicide with 14 of them succeeding. Apple responded in May of 2010,
after 7 deaths and 11 attempts, with a statement to Huffington Post saying, “we’re saddened
and upset by the recent suicides at Foxconn. A team from Apple is independently evaluating
the steps they are taking to address these tragic events and we will continue our ongoing
inspections of the facilities where our products are made.” Now one measure Foxconn took
to prevent more suicides, was installing nets outside building windows to prevent, or catch
jumpers. And while this does seem pretty morbid, the nets actually appeared to work. The following
year, suicide rates at Foxconn decreased by almost 4 times. And by 2012, there was just
one suicide per year. Now one is still too many since these are human lives we’re talking
about, but it’s was greatly improved compared to years prior.
Now I’m going to cover all the other miscellaneous scandals that didn’t really fit into the
three previous categories. The first being planned obsolescence. For years, there has
always been speculation revolving around planned obsolescence and Apple. In other words, rumors
about Apple sabotaging old devices to boost sales for new devices. And these rumors aren’t
just baseless speculation like some other Apple rumors or controversies, because we
actually have some evidence to prove it.
People have run benchmark speed tests on iOS device at various times, and there were huge
dips in performance after updating the firmware. Google Trends shows spikes in the number of
searches for “iPhone slow” in September year over year, typically when new iPhones
and iOS updates are released. And it all seemed to culminate in December 2017, when Reddit
user TeckFire published an article on the r/Apple subreddit with the title “PSA: iPhone
slow? Try replacing your battery!” They explained that they noticed their iPhone 6s
had been getting noticeably slower at a rapid pace, and even noticed that their brother’s
iPhone 6 Plus, released a full year before his phone even hit the market, was faster.
They decided to run a Geekbench test and got a Single Core score of 1466 and a Multi Core
score of 2512. But after replacing the battery, the device’s scores went up to 2526 Single
Core and 4456 Multi Core. Now soon after this article, Apple confirmed that they throttle
devices with degraded batteries, by putting out a statement that read:
“Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance
and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable
of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge
or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to
protect its electronic components.” Now this was arguably a smart engineering
decision, since most users would rather their device be reliable than fast. Also, Lithium
battery degradation isn’t just a problem for Apple’s devices, but any device using
the technology. So although Apple had good reason for throttling older phone, the public
did not take too kindly to this new development, thus beginning Batterygate. News outlets published
headlines like “Apple iOS 11 Will Slow Down Your iPhone” and “Apple Hit With Lawsuits
After Admitting It Intentionally Slowed Down iPhones” and angry tweets were bubbling
up from every corner of the internet. One user wrote,
“If Apple is going to slow down an old phone so the battery can handle it, you should receive
several alerts about it. They're coercing people to buy something new, even if they
want to pretend that isn't their intention” Apple quickly responded with another public
statement in the form of a blog post titled “A Message to Our Customers about iPhone
Batteries and Performance” in which they announced a twelve-month promotion where you
could have your iPhone’s degraded battery replaced for $29 down from $79, and you should
take advantage of this offer while you can, since it ends in December 2018.
So just like almost every other company, Apple has had their fair share of slip-ups and controversies,
but I don’t think any of them have been detrimental to the brand. And I’m sure we
can expect Apple to make several more debatable decisions in the years to come.
So that is the history of Apple controversies, and if you want to vote for the next video
topic, don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.