Samsung sponsor LeBron James tweets out the failure of his Note phablet

Posted:
in iPhone edited March 2014
Samsung suffered a new kind of endorsement failure when its spokesman for the Galaxy Note phablet line tweeted out his frustration after the device deleted all his content and rebooted.



"My phone just erased everything it had in it and rebooted," tweeted LeBron James. "One of the sickest feelings I've ever had in my life!!!"

James subsequently deleted the message, but not before it was retweeted and favorited over a thousand times by his nearly 12 million followers, and preserved for posterity through a screen capture (above, provided by reader Alex B).

Unlike Apple's free, tightly integrated iCloud for backups, Android users mustselect from a variety of available backup services, with recommended options priced as high as $5 to $10 per month.

While James likely has no problem affording the $120 annual fee of the fanciest third party backup programs and likely has executive assistants who can sort through Google Play's spyware scams to identify a cloud backup program that's less likely to risk leaking his phone's photos or other private data, the "sickest feeling" he described suggests that he didn't have any backups available.

Samsung's promotional efforts to pose celebrities next to its products has frequently encountered embarrassing turns, such as when Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres tweeted before, during and after the event from her iPhone, despite engaging in theatrical use of a Samsung product on stage.

Last year alone, Samsung spent $14 billion on marketing, a figure that investors have targeted as extravagantly excessive. But even as the company works to reduce its marketing expenses, Samsung is struggling with expensive sponsorships where celebrities have put their free Galaxy back in the box to use iPhones.

At the last Summer Olympics, Samsung signed an "exclusive agreement with David Beckham to be its global brand ambassador for the London 2012 Olympic Games," but Beckham was, embarrassingly for Samsung, just spotted using his iPhone 5s at the Super Bowl.

David Beckam iPhone Samsung


In December, Samsung launched a "Galaxy 11" fantasy soccer team campaign that was intended to go viral, but instead went awry when star team manager Franz Beckenbauer tweeted out Samsung's prepared remarks from his iPhone.

In October, T-Mobile chief executive John Legere intended to use Twitter to direct attention to Samsung Mobile's latest Note 3 phablet and the company's Galaxy Gear watch accessory, but inadvertently did so via his iPhone 5s.

Last spring, Samsung's sponsored Spanish tennis star David Ferrer tweeted out ostensible satisfaction with his #GalaxyS4 and stated that he was "configuring S Health on my new #GalaxyS4 to help with training @SamsungMobile," albeit from his iPhone.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 96
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    While embarrassing, this kind of thing could happen to almost anyone. I remain satisfied that Samsung is a company that gained success through emulation and style thievery. That is reason enough to dislike Samsung.
  • Reply 2 of 96
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member
    Did he KNOW about backups?

    Because on an iPhone, iCloud prompts you immediately upon setup.
  • Reply 3 of 96
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member
    "Samsung Galaxy... you never want it even if it's free!"%u2122
  • Reply 4 of 96
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Quadra 610 View Post



    Did he KNOW about backups?



    Because on an iPhone, iCloud prompts you immediately upon setup.

     

    Believe it or not.. I know people with iPhones that refuse to use iCloud for backup. They don't want their data stored on a server some where. Go figure.

  • Reply 5 of 96
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by NasserAE View Post



    "Samsung Galaxy... you never want it even if it's free!"%u2122



    Give me one, I can always sell it to losers out there. They are in masses <img class=" src="http://forums-files.appleinsider.com/images/smilies//lol.gif" />

  • Reply 6 of 96
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Quadra 610 View Post



    Did he KNOW about backups?



    Because on an iPhone, iCloud prompts you immediately upon setup.

    The difference between and Ecosystem and a hardware vendor.

  • Reply 7 of 96
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    nasserae wrote: »
    Believe it or not.. I know people with iPhones that refuse to use iCloud for backup. They don't want their data stored on a server some where. Go figure.

    Same here. I guess they don't trust anyone with their data. Understandable in our post-Snowden revelation world.
  • Reply 8 of 96
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by NasserAE View Post

     

     

    Believe it or not.. I know people with iPhones that refuse to use iCloud for backup. They don't want their data stored on a server some where. Go figure.


    I don't.   my mac and its time capsule are fine... thank you.    

     

    My wife however... she's on icloud.   just because she has no itunes discipline.

  • Reply 9 of 96
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member
    nasserae wrote: »
    Believe it or not.. I know people with iPhones that refuse to use iCloud for backup. They don't want their data stored on a server some where. Go figure.

    Believe it or not, I know people that don't use Samsung phones because they refuse to allow Google to get their grubby little paws on their personal, private information and also store it on a server somewhere.

    Go figure.

    ;)
  • Reply 10 of 96
    pedromartinspedromartins Posts: 1,333member
    Wow, this has to be the worst article I ever read @appleinsider. The way the author kept insinuating at Spyware and difficulty to find any sort of program through Google play, or using Google itself as backup (obviously Android can do it, it's the second thing that appears after setting it with your Google account.) really makes the author look like a pile of ignorance.

    Or maybe it is another stupid attempt of spreading lies and FUD.

    The chance of catching Spyware through Android is about the same as iOS (almost 0%).

    What kind of "writer" would create such article?
  • Reply 11 of 96
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by NasserAE View Post

     

     

    Believe it or not.. I know people with iPhones that refuse to use iCloud for backup. They don't want their data stored on a server some where. Go figure.


     

    They could opt for another means of backup. The silly thing is going without backup.

  • Reply 12 of 96

    LeBron is a chump and a baby and a punk, who cares?

  • Reply 13 of 96
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by hmm View Post

     

     

    They could opt for another means of backup. The silly thing is going without backup.


    There are a lot of dumb people out there, especially the ones that wear tinfoil hats.

  • Reply 14 of 96
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    While embarrassing, this kind of thing could happen to almost anyone. I remain satisfied that Samsung is a company that gained success through emulation and style thievery. That is reason enough to dislike Samsung.

    Surely if one's phone dies, is broken, or stolen you also lose everything but I've only ever heard of the specific events of the phone rebooting as a blank slate without the user choosing that action to happen on Android-based devices. I know one girl in particular that keeps buying Android devices and has had this happen to her at least twice.
  • Reply 14 of 96
    512ke512ke Posts: 782member

    Wow this sounds really frustrated for BOTH LeBron and Samsung.

     

    Maybe Samsung should assign an IT specialist to each celebrity in case they have problems with Samsung's gear.

     

    Regarding the problem of celebrities using iPhones when they're paid to endorse Samsung's phones...

     

    2 great suggestions for Samsung!

     

    1) Make a fake giant GALAXY/NOTE shell in which celebrities can hide their smaller iPhones;

     

    2) Write a program that DISGUISES as celebrity's iPhone tweets as coming from a Sammy device.

  • Reply 16 of 96
    russellrussell Posts: 296member

    If the mentioned celebrities had signed contracts to use Samsung products and then didn't, they should be sued for breach of contract.

  • Reply 17 of 96

    Nearly the same thing happened to me on my 5S but the outcome was total different. I got this strange BSOD and had to do a factory wipe/restore. The process was automatic and took about an hour. I got all my apps back in their original folders, all of my photos except for those from the previous week and even my shopping list was restored from Notes on iCloud. It only cost me about $200 more than it would have to have gotten an S3 but I already went positive on the time saved from this one incident. I suppose that all of this is possible to do on an Android phone but then that's what all of my PC friends kept telling me back in the 1990s about all of the things that I did easily and reliably on my Mac.

  • Reply 18 of 96
    A big iPhone will cause much pain for Samsung
  • Reply 19 of 96
    Let's face it. An iPhone would look silly in Lebron's massive mitts.
  • Reply 20 of 96
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    I bet LeBron's contact list was pretty impressive. 

    Contact syncing is one of the more worthwhile features of iCloud. 

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