Oh Apple

Oh Apple. You shot yourself in the foot with your own gun. It wasn’t pretty. Even Toyota feels bad for you.

Oh Apple. You shot yourself in the foot with your own gun. It wasn’t pretty. Even Toyota feels bad for you.

To briefly recap, Apple released the iPhone 4 to uniformly rave reviews. Then people began to notice holding the phone in your hand could weaken the signal enough to disconnect your call!

PC World said,

In an e-mail Jobs downplayed users’ reception gripes as a “non-issue.” Meanwhile, others within Apple are advising iPhone 4 users to avoid gripping the device from the lower left corner.

Yeah user–it’s your fault.

Later Apple claimed there was no antenna problem. The signal bars were calculated improperly (meaning they historically made at&t’s network look better than it was!). Now Consumer Reports has burst that balloon.

When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone’s lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4.

Apple is putting on a clinic in how to kill your brand. Their strong selling points were unquestioned quality and reliability. This isn’t some Acer or Asus–it’s Apple.

Airlines walked this road. Early on the old line airlines turned up their noses at the low cost competitors. That service differential is gone. Now they compete solely on price and the legacy carriers operate from a weakened position.

Apple has scheduled a Friday press conference. They need to take responsibility even if they don’t feel responsible. Apple needs to finally claim some high ground.

4 thoughts on “Oh Apple”

  1. Ive owned my iPhone 4 for about a week now. Havent experienced the “Death grip” issue when purposely trying to recreate it. Even on handsets where this is an issue, Jobs recommendation to simply “hold it differently” is reasonable. Other phones have had major hardware problems without this sort of outcry. Apple’s PR division has once again made a huge blunder trying to dismiss this issue.

  2. The fact that Apple made “bumpers” for the 4 proves that they knew something wasnt right about the phones antennae. It provides no function but to reduce attenuation.

    Unless they start handing them out for free and provide credit for those who already bought the bumpers – nothing short of a recall will satisfy some people.

  3. Josh – I mentioned in an earlier post Apple sold the iPhone4 by making a point of the antenna configuration. This just isn’t an incidental feature.

    The bumper was designed as a protective coating. Its contribution to signal strength is just lucky.

  4. I’m sorry, in some ways this Apple-bashing is getting more than a bit overblown…

    I’m a first-time iPhone 4 user–never had any of the others, and my phone works “just fine” any of the places I frequent, no matter how I grip it. I had only one lousy bar showing the other day, and made a phone call that went through and stayed up until I hung up.

    Yeah, there is a potential big issue with shorting out the gap on the external antenna, but one of these days either Apple will see the light and give away a bumper, or I’ll get a decent fitted case to protect the glass on the case..matters not. Either way, I’m just not seeing the problem to the extent that the Hype claims.

    I think the hype and bashing is getting just a little strident and a lot pointless from where I’m sitting. I’ve had more other brands of phones in the past, on other carriers, and believe me, there are WORSE problems than a bit of possible hand-position induced signal attenuation out there–like the Palm-based one that would hang up on you while you raised it to your ear after you dialed it–and it had one of those lovely stubby antennas at the top of the case. Nevermind the fact that the OS and the phone were so badly integrated it was basically unfunctional as a PDA and really bad as a phone.

    Yeah, it needs a fix–all else fails, break out the lovely purple duct tape and make a nice bumper for it (grin)

    And yeah, I flat refuse to give up using all of my Windows XP PCs, either–they still work just fine…for what I need.

    And really, most of the reception issues are the NETWORK, not necessarily the phones. Verizon, for example, doesn’t work at ALL inside my house, and AT&T works fine–hence the iPhone now, and a switch to AT&T a few years ago. Ask me what I think of any carrier, and you will get “They all suck in some way” from me…

    That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it…(steps off soapbox gracefully)

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