Apple Says Some 2018 iPad Pros Ship Bent, But It's Normal and Not a Defect

[thadoggfather]

Azerbaijan won the 2011 Eurovision, who in their right mind wouldn't know this awesome European country... what are you american?

How can you say I'm not aware of Azerbaijan when I've used it as a reference point for how someone not knowing something doesnt exist, doesnt make it not exist all of a sudden.

...How do you then turn this around on me? I genuinely dont care, but fascinating take!

 

[ggibson913]

Since the original bendgate, I don't understand why that isn't a standard test. Keeping my 10.5 for awhile but gotta tell you, if I spent upwards of $1900 on an iPad Pro, I would expect perfection out of the box.

 

[BoxerGT2.5]

LMAO.....Only apple could try to pass off legitimate defects as "normal". I would wager when the press runs with this they'll be replacing said iPads.

 

[DNichter]

But they are not saying it’s a mistake! What don’t you understand? You say you get that what they said is wrong and then go on and call it a mistake yourself. Again: They are saying it is normal. They are lying through their teeth to cover their asses. How can you not comprehend this?

Haha I see you're having trouble. This may help. Companies lie! They are trying to sweep this under the rug by calling it normal. That doesn't mean that it is, nor does it mean you or I have to believe them. I get the words that they are saying, I just don't believe them and can see that it's an obvious manufacturing defect. Does this change my view of them? No, because this has been happening for years and there will be issues when you are manufacturing millions of devices. I have also never bought a defective Apple product - once that starts to happen, I will stop buying them.

 

[laptech]

What’s really annoying about this whole situation is the fact that some people kept defending Apple by blaming forum members for mistreatment when the only thing they did was carrying their devices in laptop bags. Even if it wasn’t for this manufacturing issue, people should have never blamed others for following the expected behavior anyone with a mobile device would have. The whole “you are holding it wrong” notion is just plain wrong. Mobile devices are meant to be carried and sustain considerable damage while being carried in bags.

Apple could specificallly design a macbook that burns/melts as soon as you plug the magsafe to it and there will still be forum members who are so Apple brainwashed that they will claim it's the users fault.

As others have mentioned it being 'cult' like. The Cult of Apple where Apple can do no wrong, even if they do wrong.

 

[Gilligan's last elephant]

Slightly off topic, but thanks. Should have remained as the original trading bloc as it was orignally sold as.

Trading being the operative word. Not the political union it became.

 

[lcseds]

It's a new day at Apple.

I'm sitting here working with my 2018 MBP thinking it may soon have a keyboard failure. But I will not try to think about that much. Let me grab my iPad Pro with the white spot on the display and see if my iPhone 8 is part of the recall. Yeah, I feel better.

 

[aevan]

It's just funny that smaller (relatively compared to Apple and their worth) companies like Huawei and Xiomi can put out $300 budget devices with aluminum frame/back and they aren't bent out of the box.

A lot of devices aren’t bent out of the box. Most of the phones. Most of the tablets. Most of the iPads. A few devices come with factory defects, no matter who makes them, no matter the price point - these things just happen, especially at great volumes.

But when a few Xiaomi phones come bent, no one talks about it.

Also, no one is trying to deliberately bend $300 Xiaomi devices on YouTube for views and no one is creating a narrative around them by doing so.

 

[hinesmj]

Um....no. If I'm buying what is considered THE BEST tablet on the market, it should not come freakin' bent. Are you kidding Apple?

 

[myrtlebee]

Haha I see you're having trouble. This may help. Companies lie! They are trying to sweep this under the rug by calling it normal. That doesn't mean that it is, nor does it mean you or I have to believe them. I get the words that they are saying, I just don't believe them and can see that it's an obvious manufacturing defect. Does this change my view of them? No, because this has been happening for years and there will be issues when you are manufacturing millions of devices. I have also never bought a defective Apple product - once that starts to happen, I will stop buying them.

You are speaking out of both sides of your mouth. When it comes down to it, with the dozens of comments you keep posting with the same thing: you’re fine with them lying and misleading customers, all of your Apple products are always perfect, and because of that everyone else is always an over exaggerating mess whose life is sad and they need help because they are upset they are being screwed by Apple.

 

[kakinc]

For everyone freaking out, how many are bent?

Next, show me cases Apple refused to replace.

Again, it’s stupid if they don’t replace them, but I’m not convinced they wouldn’t and I doubt very many shipped bent. I have one and it’s perfect.

What I think they are saying is it’s not a manufacturing defect that impacts all of them.

You are missing the point.
For them to blatantly say bent out of the box iPad is not a defect it’s essentially testing our intelligence.

And if they think it’s okay to do this, what’s coming next.

I think this press release frustrates apple users more than apple haters. Because we may have to face issues like this in the future, then what kind of nonsense are they going to tell us.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

You know what, I need to draw the line here. This iPad Pro cost me $2000, it does exactly the same things as my four year old iPad which only cost me $500 at the time, and I'm too scared of being affected by one of these quality issues like I just went through with my 5K iMac because Apple support is so poor now. I think I will try a souped up windows tablet running macOS inside a VM. It's sad to see such unrealized potential with a product like iPad. Give me floating windows, mouse support, launch hardware that's built properly, and you'll get all of my money Apple!

For $2000 get a Surface Book 2. Better and more versatile in almost every way.

 

[hinesmj]

I was ready on opening day to buy a 12.9" wifi+cellular with 256 gig. Then I saw the video and thought: "I'll wait a few weeks to see if this is real". It obviously is, and I'll wait now until the next gen.

I depend on my current 10.5" iPad Pro. I use it heavily for work. It has a cover, and I put it in my backpack. But for the past year since I bought it, it's been a tank. I don't abuse it, but I don't baby it either. Many of us use our iPads for work. They need to have some level of durability. It's not a toy. The iPad Pro was touted as a unit for pros who need power and usability. With that, goes an expectation of reliability and build quality.

Reading the people here who brush off bent $1500 units like it's nothing blows my mind. And it's not just those out of the box issues. Those who use these for more than surfing the web and texting emojis expect quality. We don't want to pull it out of our backpack in a few months and find it bent because someone set their bag on top of yours in an overhead bin. And don't give me this "just return it" crap. What if you bought a unit for someone for Christmas a few weeks ahead of time and after the holiday it's past the 14 day window? Are they screwed? Should they just suck it up? Ridiculous.

Apple should be embarrassed by this and many other ball drops over the past couple of years. Cook needs to go. This isn't just a passing concern. Jobs had some issues, too, during his reign, but Cook has racked up way more.

It's time for a change.

Just curious - what do you use your iPad for at work? If I brought mine into a meeting I'd be stared at like I had three heads. (I'm a manager in finance dept at a fairly good sized organization for the area).

 

[Romeo_Nightfall]

He also used it to tell people they were holding their iPhones wrong.

Which was right. Stupid in some way but perfectly right. This phone was a sales giant! People loved it.

 

[thadoggfather]

I think this press release frustrates apple users more than apple haters. Because we may have to face issues like this in the future, then what kind of nonsense are they going to tell us.

of course it does, because it affects us. for apple haters/the android cult always outlining why they made a superior decision, it just validates their point of view and provides more talking points for how they arent all that off base all the time.

If one of my friends were to link to an article saying Apple say its cool, to attempt to dunk on me in tech wars, I'd shrug and say yeah its inexcusable and look at them with a blank face anticipating their reaction to my blunt rationality. I wont defend things that I find cannot be defended. Nor would I want to be in a position to have to. Dont have skin in the game, beyond generally preferring Apple products to competition. But I find myself at a cross roads as well.

my Apple TV 4 I never upgraded to 4k bc its an HBO/Sho/Starz box. I do netflix and amazon on my smart tv directly, and blu rays/4K blu rays otherwise (owned and rented). No desire to upgrade and I only have 4k OLED's in my apartment. a $200 stream box with limited uses is silly. And the remote is crap, cant tell upside down from right side up feeling it in the dark. Whoever designed it has never watched tv in the dark, ever, apparently. I use my universal remote but still sheeesh

my watch i upgraded series 1 to 4 but ill hold off for a while now since its fast and good to go.

my iPad I'll hold onto my 2017 Pro 12.9 for a while because of pricing and Apple's conduct. And I hate no headphone jack on the tablet. Hate it.

iPhone I'm probably a sucker for because I am, and have a giftcard on standby, but it's not so much I love iPhone anymore as I genuinely dont like android and there is no other alternative. And I'm addicted to smartphones. and was addicted to cool dumb phones before that.

Computer, I aint shelling out for something built to break. I'm a laptop-only guy for over a decade now and they've ruined the mac. I like macOS, but its absurd that 2018's starting at $1800 are still flawed and they threw a skeletal piece of silicone underneath thinking all is resolved. And they said it’s just for quieter acoustics. Not an attempt to polish the underlying turd. They're still shipping lemons!

So aside from iPhone, which is honestly still a sure bet for me to upgrade, with watch integration too, if not next year the year after, where is Apple gonna get their moneyz from this fanboy? They used to have me hook, line, and sinked on virtually all their product lines. Now I find myself relatively indifferent and in some cases, outright sour, about most.

 

[phr0z3n]

Honestly, doesn't sound like anything to worry about. But, people love to complain and moan and whine and cry and... on and on.

Maybe I’m just a broke pathetic loser but I’d be pretty damn pissed if I spent at the very least $800 on a tablet and it came bent out of the box and was told it’s normal.

But that’s just me I guess. Maybe that’s what almost $1000 gets you these days.

 

[Romeo_Nightfall]

But would it surprise you to know that there are unit-to-unit variances in any mass-produced product?

I guarantee that if you sighted-down the side of several of a line of the same model of new car sitting on the dealer's lot, you'd find some units with slight imperfections.

In fact, Andy Warhol made a career (remember the famous "wall of soup labels" graphic?) of the fact that even mass-produced-to-be-identical items have slight imperfections that actually make each one of them unique.

They are called "tolerances" for a reason.

Having said that, if I got one that was too bent for my tastes, I would take it back during the 14 day "no questions asked" return period and get another one.

But they are right that this is a very difficult effect to control when a big slab/sheet of metal goes through a bunch of manufacturing steps. It's just that no other brand is held to the same standards as Apple's products.

And remember the internet amplification effect...

I read your post and only receive bla bla bla.
We can produce with tolerances You won’t believe. We can measure if something is plain with accuracy You never heard of ... and so on
Haha ... bla bla bla

 

[Porco]

Unacceptable. I have nothing more to add, and would have left it at the first word of this post were one-word posts not frowned upon by MR. So here’s another one: Unacceptable.

 

[DNichter]

You are speaking out of both sides of your mouth. When it comes down to it, with the dozens of comments you keep posting with the same thing: you’re fine with them lying and misleading customers, all of your Apple products are always perfect, and because of that everyone else is always an over exaggerating mess whose life is sad and they need help because they are upset they are being screwed by Apple.

No, I have been perfectly clear (and I am only responding to those who quote me). Apple is in the wrong for the manufacturing issue and they are wrong for saying it's normal. It's also overblown and not the end of the world. I guess I just don't take it as seriously as you and expect a trillion dollar company to be better. If I have a bad experience with their products, I won't buy them - exactly the same as I would with any other product.

 

[Steve121178]

Since the original bendgate, I don't understand why that isn't a standard test. Keeping my 10.5 for awhile but gotta tell you, if I spent upwards of $1900 on an iPad Pro, I would expect perfection out of the box.

Apple are not interested in performing strength tests. Apple are a marketing & sales company. Therefore everything must be needlessly thin as it looks good in stock photos and on benches in stores. Just because.

 

[myrtlebee]

I guess I just don't take it as seriously as you and expect a trillion dollar company to be better.

Therein lies the issue. And why they can get away with this and so much more that they do. That’s nice that you’re so “chill”, but if everyone had your attitude about things like this imagine how much more the consumer would be screwed.

 

[DoctorTech]

If customers perceive something as a defect, guess what... IT IS A DEFECT to the only people that matter - the customers. As a former quality manager I understand mass production. What Apple is saying about how the "slight bend" is not a structural problem and won't worsen over time may very well be true BUT IT IS STILL A DEFECT in the eyes of customers who have higher expectations for a brand new $1,000+ devices. I am speechless at their lack of awareness on this issue. Whoever was aware of this issue and thought customers would be OK with it should be forced to sit in an Apple Store for the next 2 months to talk face to face with customers returning their new iPads.

 

[WWPD]

If Apple is going to make something thinner and lighter then they have to come up with another metal other than Aluminium, like Titanium...I know that would cost too much but aluminium isn't going to work. I hope Apple has a metalurgy R&D Department.

Remember when Motorola had a Kevlar phone? I would love a Kevlar iPad or iPhone.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

Apple is taking "think different" to a whole new level.

 

[DNichter]

Therein lies the issue. And why they can get away with this and so much more that they do. That’s nice that you’re so “chill”, but if everyone had your attitude about things like this imagine how much more the consumer would be screwed.

I guess I am just realistic. I try not to focus on things that I can't control. With Apple, I have no input on these sort of things. If I start seeing quality issues with my Apple products, then I will be looking elsewhere. For now, that hasn't happened.