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San Francisco - Apple's response to a high-profile gaffe involving its iPhone software may be more important than the glitch itself.
As the giant tech company scrambled to fix a software glitch that left some of its new iPhones unable to make calls, some analysts said that Apple is doing the right thing by quickly acknowledging and apologising for the problem - which it was slower to do with earlier iPhone problems.
Apple released a new update late on Thursday that the company said would repair the problems caused by software it released on Wednesday morning. And it repeated an earlier apology to owners of its newest iPhones who were affected by that buggy release.
"There's a certain perception that Apple has to get things right, and when they don't, the whole company gets questioned," said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel. "But they came out and said 'We apologise; we're working 24/7 to fix it.' I think that's what matters."
Apple's stock fell nearly 4% on Thursday, leading a broader decline in technology shares, a day after the company was forced to withdraw an update to its new iOS 8 mobile software because of glitches that primarily affected customers who had purchased its new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models.
Updated update
The 6 Plus phone has also been the subject of social media reports that its extra-large shell is vulnerable to bending.
In a statement on Thursday, Apple defended its manufacturing standards and said bending "is extremely rare" with normal use of an iPhone. The company said just nine customers had contacted Apple to report a bent iPhone 6 Plus since they went on sale on Friday.
Later in the day, Apple released a new update, dubbed iOS 8.0.2, which it said would fix the problems caused by the iOS 8.0.1 update that it released on Wednesday.
A day earlier, the company had also apologised "for the great inconvenience experienced by users" and vowed to work "around the clock" to fix the problem.
Apple is held to a higher standard by many consumers, analysts said. But Milanesi said she thought the company suffered more harm a few years ago, when it was slow to acknowledge complaints about poor reception and dropped calls that affected new iPhone 4 models when they were released in 2010.
The company eventually offered a fix for the problem, after then-CEO Steve Jobs initially suggested users just needed to hold the phone differently.
"There wasn't any of that this time," Milanesi said. She noted that Jobs' successor, CEO Tim Cook, had also taken responsibility and apologised for initial problems with Apple's Maps software when it was first released.
