On several occasions, Samsung has made fun of iPhones to promote its own smartphones, but in a new and rare blunder from Samsung, the Korea firm promoted its product using an iPhone, creating an embarrassing moment for itself.
Samsung’s blunder
Samsung’s Nigerian Twitter account recently shared a tweet touting the Galaxy Note 9’s Super AMOLED display. There is nothing wrong here, except that the phone used to post that tweet was made by Samsung’s arch-rival.
YouTuber Marques Brownlee noticed Samsung’s blunder. Although the company was quick to remove the tweet (and delete the @SamsungMobileNG account), the damage was already done. A screenshot of the post has gone viral on the Internet, giving Apple fans a chance to poke fun at Samsung.
Might as well add “Twitter police” to my bio at this point ?♂️ pic.twitter.com/DRlrXl7bak
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) December 2, 2018
Twitter analyst Luca Hammer notes that almost 10% of the tweets from that account were sent from an iPhone.
331of their last 3 200 Tweets were posted with an iPhone. https://t.co/CZlCXO7wEx
Most of them last year. pic.twitter.com/G4fW5AHrQB
— Luca Hammer (@luca) December 2, 2018
The company’s Nigerian account was reinstated later, but the tweets sent from an iPhone were gone. One can only imagine what might happen to the person responsible for this blunder. Although we may never know what happened to them, we can only guess based on a precedent set when Samsung sued one of its brand ambassadors for using the iPhone publicly.
A couple of months ago, there were reports that Samsung sued one of its Russian brand ambassadors, Ksenia Sobchak, for using the iPhone X on camera. Although she tried to hide the iPhone using a piece of paper, the evidence was enough for a lawsuit. Samsung sued her for $1.6 million for breach of contract.
Not the first blunder from Samsung
This issue with the Nigerian account isn’t Samsung’s only blunder. Recently a similar tweet promoting a Galaxy handset was also sent from an iPhone on the company’s Saudi account. This is also not the first time someone has been caught tweeting from the wrong phone. Spanish Tennis star David Ferrer previously tweeted from his iPhone to almost 370,000 followers about how much he liked the Galaxy S4.
Such incidents in which a smartphone maker has been caught tweeting from an iPhone are not uncommon for other non-Apple brands as well. The most recent example was involving Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot, who promoted the Huawei Mate 10 Pro via a tweet posted from an iPhone.
In September, Marques Brownlee caught Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma promoting the Pixel 2 phone via tweets sent from the iPhone app. Similar incidents have happened with BlackBerry as well, when then-BlackBerry ambassador Alicia Keys tweeted from an iPhone. A few years ago, LG made fun of the iPhone 6’s “Bendgate” debacle using an iPhone, and in 2016, President Donald Trump called for a boycott of Apple products while tweeting from an iPhone.
Other than tweets, sometimes behind-the-scenes photos of an ad are also enough to embarrass a company. Huawei was recently embarrassed after one of the actresses in a photo shoot promoting the Nova 3 camera posted photos on her Instagram account which revealed the photographers were using a DSLR camera instead of the smartphone to take the photos.
It is interesting to note that such blunders don’t seem to happen with Apple. Either Apple takes utmost care to prevent such instances, or it is quick enough to cover them before they are widely noticed.
Positive news for Samsung
It’s not altogether a bad day for Samsung. The Korean company has revealed good news as well that it may use against Apple. On Monday, Samsung and Verizon revealed plans to launch the first commercial 5G phone in the first half of next year. This 5G phone will likely be powered by a Qualcomm chip.
As of now, not many details on the Samsung/Verizon 5G handset are available. However, the companies say they will showcase a proof-of-concept Samsung 5G phone at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Technology Summit in Maui this week. Samsung’s 5G handset will be powered by Snapdragon X50 5G NR modem.
Apple is not expected to launch a 5G iPhone before 2020, according to Bloomberg. Citing anonymous sources, the media outlet suggests the delay may have something to do with Apple’s legal tussle with Qualcomm and the fact that Intel’s 5G chips won’t be ready for commercial use in 2019.
