Apple tests the iPhone 6's durability using Windows XP
Apple has been under fire this week over claims that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus bend when carried around in a tight jeans pocket, or someone making a YouTube video exerts a lot of force on the device. In an effort to counter this bad press, the tech giant has announced that just nine customers (to date) have contacted Apple with a bent iPhone (out of ten million), and it even went so far as to give CNBC an exclusive look inside its testing labs.
Anyone worried about how rigorously Apple tests its phones will have been calmed by the news that the iPhone 6 was exhaustively tested 15,000 times before being released, and the video showing that Apple uses only state-of-the-art equipment when testing for endurance and durability was reassuring too. Although CNBC then tweeted a picture from the labs revealing test results being recorded on a less-than state-of-the-art Windows XP system.
Yes, that’s right, at the heart of Apple’s testing facility are systems still running the thirteen year-old OS that Microsoft stopped supporting way back in April.
Of course the fact that Apple’s testing facility has systems running Windows XP isn’t really a big deal -- XP is still used in an estimated 53 percent of businesses after all -- and it doesn’t affect the testing process in any way, but it is amusing that Apple’s testing equipment relies on an ancient operating system from arch rival Microsoft.
Apple opens testing facility to CNBC in an effort to calm 'bend-gate': http://t.co/o9XVLiBwqv pic.twitter.com/HhLhESYGr1
— CNBC (@CNBC) September 25, 2014