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LG’s attempt to slam Apple over ‘Bendgate’ scandal backfires hilariously

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 8:51PM EST
Apple Bendgate

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Let this be a lesson to all brands out there: if you’re going to publicly mock another company, make sure the social media guru-ninja-experts you hire don’t use that company’s products. Apple has had a rough week following the release of a horribly botched iOS software update, the revelation that the iCloud hack that led to the nude celebrity photo leaks should have been prevented, and the widely covered complaints that Apple’s new iPhone 6 Plus phablet has a tendency to bend.

Of note, the botched software update was fixed on Thursday night with the release of iOS 8.0.2, but there’s one huge bug that update doesn’t address:

Apple finally responded to “Bendgate” on Thursday and said that only nine customers have even complained. Then the company took a page from its “Antennagate” playbook by giving some journalists and bloggers a tour of its smartphone testing facilities and instructing them to publish stories about it, which they did happily.

Of course, the public will forget about all of this soon enough, but not before LG managed to briefly stuff its foot into its mouth.

A few of LG’s local arms took Bendgate as an opportunity to poke Apple and promote its own curved smartphone, the LG G Flex, at the same time. One in particular — LG France — did an especially terrible job, however.

The company on Thursday posted an image of its curved G Flex phablet alongside text that translates to, “our smartphones don’t bend, they’re naturally curved.” It seems well enough, only there was one big problem: the person who posted the tweet just so happens to be an iPhone user. One would think that an LG employee pitching LG products while mocking Apple would do so from an LG phone rather than an iPhone.

Making matters worse, the company went ahead and deleted the tweet instead of owning its mistake once people began pointing out that it was sent from an iPhone.

A screenshot of the tweet captured by Cult Of Mac follows below.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.