By Gregg Stebben, Men’s Health
WASHINGTON — Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Two teenage boys walk into an Apple Store …”
The hubbub over whether the new iPhone 6 or 6 Plus can be bent — by mistake or on purpose — has even prompted Consumer Reports to check it out.
It all started like this:
Just for fun, two teenage boys in the U.K. used their own phones to videotape themselves trying to bend a $750 iPhone, and succeeding.
They then posted the video, which includes shots of their faces, on YouTube.
Why would these kids show their faces in the video?
They say in a follow-up video that they never expected the first video to go viral, figured maybe five of their friends would see it, and that would be that. Big surprise for them, and not a good surprise either.
Teenage boys don’t always exhibit the best judgment, which I can personally attest to. Apparently that’s an international phenomenon, not just true here in the U.S.
At this point it seems police and Apple haven’t been able to identify the teens, but it’s only a matter of time.
I assume Apple knows which store this occurred at, and the world has at its disposal video of the boys and their first names — Danny and Kylie — as well as the YouTube account where the video was originally posted.
So I think it’s only a matter of time before Apple and/or the police show up at these boys’ doors.
I don’t throw Apple’s name in there lightly; it’s worth remembering what influence Apple had over law-enforcement when one of their working iPhone prototypes was lost in a bar one night in 2011.
Back then, four San Francisco police officers escorted Apple investigators to a home in the city’s Bernal Heights neighborhood, the statement said.
The two Apple employees searched the home while the officers waited outside, police said. They did not find the item there and declined to file a police report, according to the statement.
What will happen to the teens next?
One of the boys has made a follow up video in which he sort of apologizes, between f-bombs. He also asks Apple to contact him directly to arrange for payment for the phone.
The teen doesn’t seem to realize that he’s broken the law, and that he may hear from law enforcement instead.
Meanwhile, this video puts Apple in a tough spot.
If they do nothing, will more people go into retail stores (not just Apple stores), try to bend iPhones, and post the videos?
And if Apple lowers the boom on the boys, will the boys get the public’s sympathy?
Regardless, these two kids may pay for this stupid incident for the rest of their lives.
At some point, their names are going to become public. For the rest of their lives, when they apply for college, apply for grad school, are up for a promotion, or ask someone for a date, they’re going to get Googled, and this is the first thing people are going to learn about them.
What should the rest of us learn from “bendgate?”
- If you’re going to do something stupid and/or illegal, don’t record video of it and don’t let anyone else video it. You might want to watch the Danny and Kylie videos with your kids, and chat with them about the videos, too.
- If you or someone else videos you doing something stupid and/or illegal, try to get and control the only copy of the video. If you can’t get control of it or there are multiple copies, see the next rule.
- If there are one or more copies of a video of you doing something stupid and/or illegal and they’re beyond your control, you better start making a plan for how you will deal with the eventual release of that video. And if that video is going to ruin your life and/or your marriage and/or your career, you may want to get some professional help from a crisis manager, career counselor, marriage counselor or spiritual adviser.
- If there are one or more copies of a video of you doing something stupid and/or illegal and they’re beyond your control, and you ignore the previous rule, I thank you for providing a lot of entertaining tabloid fodder for the rest of us to talk about, tweet about, and to enjoy.
Watch Consumer Reports’ attempts to bend iPhones:
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