Continuum of Ethics: Inside the mind of the Consumer

In December 2017, Apple, the consumer electronics giant, and a company valued at over $1 trillion was entrenched in a serious ethical business dilemma. It became public knowledge after many consumers brought to light that their iPhones were slowing down in their processing power. Apple, after much backlash, released a public apology stating that in fact, they initiated a software update, without consciously explaining what they were doing to the average consumer, that would slow down the CPU of older iPhones to help preserve battery degradation. The company claimed it was just a technical issue to do with aging batteries, and not a devious marketing ploy designed to encourage frustrated users to upgrade to a new phone. Critically, the company had failed to tell people that a simple battery replacement would solve the slowdown problem. After analyzing the approach the company decided to take, and what consumers, bloggers, reporters, influencers, and senators alike have said about the e...

With quite the clout in the technology world, Apple events, products, and news gets bloggers, videographers, and reporters talking. This immense coverage can be either positive or negative, deepening on the types of news that falls upon Apple. There’s been a lot of buzz about Apple recently, but its not all good. Its one of the most talked about brands in the world, but lately people have been talking about Apple for the wrong reasons. In the case of Apple throttling performance in late 2017, news sites and Youtube influencers created thousands of negative posts that tumbled their stock price to a one month low in December. In fact, the negative news about “Batterygate” scandal overshadowed one of their most innovative product launches in the past years, the iPhone X reveal, as shown below in the graph. Apple has been hit with lawsuits from consumers, as well as a wave of criticism wondering how the company could be so deceptive by purposely slowing down older iPhone models t...