There have been several embarrassing incidents in which Android phone makers have used an iPhone when tweeting to promote their smartphones, but there weren’t any instances of Apple doing the same thing with an Android phone — until now. Now Apple has been found to be using an Android phone to promote its own service.
Apple Music’s Twitter account is the culprit
The tweet in question came from the Apple Music Twitter account in a response to a tweet from singer Ariana Grande. The tweet from the Apple Music Twitter account is more than a month old and was spotted by YouTube tech reviewer Marques Brownlee.
Never thought I’d see the day ? pic.twitter.com/hpubXoIFCX
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) December 18, 2018
Some may argue that this is not such a big deal as Apple Music is available on Android devices also. However, it still is embarrassing for Apple, which has avoided such situations until now.
The tweet from the Apple Music Twitter account has already gotten more than 4,500 retweets and 28,600 likes. It will likely be deleted now, considering how much media attention it is getting. One can only guess what might happen to the person who posted the tweet, based on how careful Apple is when it comes to avoiding such embarrassing incidents. Hopefully this will be the only such incident for Apple, but Android fans may be hoping to see more.
Too many embarrassing incidents for Samsung
For Apple, this is the first time, but for rival Samsung, it has happened quite a few times. For example, Marques Brownlee recently caught Samsung Nigeria tweeting from an iPhone. The tweet, which was posted last month, was regarding the Galaxy Note 9’s Super AMOLED display. Although Samsung was quick to delete it, a screenshot of the tweet went viral on the internet. What’s worse is that it was not just one tweet sent from that account using an iPhone. Twitter analyst Luca Hammer revealed that about 10% of the tweets (or about 330) from that account were posted using an iOS device.
Samsung’s Saudi account also posted a tweet via an iPhone to promote a Galaxy handset. Then a few months ago, it was reported that Samsung sued one of its Russian brand ambassadors for using an iPhone on camera. Samsung’s brand ambassador tried her best to hide the iPhone while on screen, but it was still clearly visible. The Korean company sued her for $1.6 million for breach of contract.
She was not even the first Samsung brand ambassador to be caught using an iPhone. Spanish tennis star David Ferrer used an iPhone to tweet about how much he liked the Galaxy S4. He had about 370,000 followers at the time.
Such embarrassing incidents are not just specific to Samsung, but to other Android smartphone makers as well. For instance, Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot was caught promoting the Huawei Mate 10 Pro in a tweet from an iPhone. It happened with Google as well, when Brownlee spotted tweets from Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma promoting the Pixel 2 phone via an iPhone.
BlackBerry also faced such a situation when Alicia Keys, who was a BlackBerry brand ambassador, tweeted from an iPhone. A few years ago, LG tried to poke fun of the iPhone 6’s “Bendgate” debacle, but it ended up being the embarrassed one after it was revealed that the tweet was posted via an iPhone. Even President Donald Trump faced a similar situation. In 2016, he called for a boycott of Apple products in a tweet sent from an iPhone.
Apple Face ID is better than Android’s tech
Despite the embarrassment for Apple, it still has news which gives it the upper hand over its Android rivals. Forbes recently conducted a test to identify the smartphone offering the most reliable facial recognition. For the test, the iPhone X was pitted against the LG G7 ThinQ, Galaxy S9, Samsung Note 8, and OnePlus 6.
Forbes used a 3D-printed head using gypsum powder to try to fool each phone’s facial recognition technology. The fake head was 3D-printed to life-size proportions and produced for $380.
The 3D-printed head was then held up in front of each smartphone to see if it could unlock them. Interestingly, the 3D-printed face unlocked all four Android smartphones with “differing degrees of ease,” but it wasn’t able to fool the iPhone X, Forbes said.
