7 ms·

Senior Apple engineer told Jobs antenna could fail

69 points by borism 16y ago

angstrom 16y ago
They should just offer a generic case/bumper or $10 rebate towards the sale of a range of cases with proof of purchase. Brand image restored, the world continues spinning.
- jolan 16y ago
  I doubt they'll want to admit that the phone requires an accessory for proper operation. I'm thinking they'll announce some sort of swap program for a new phone with a non-conductive coating on it or somesuch. That way they can continue to sell their $29 bumpers for a ridiculous profit (which will make up for the cost of refurbing the old models).
- theBobMcCormick 16y ago
  I'm not sure that would help. I think that would be sufficient if this were a BlackBerry or something where people expect it to look utilitarian. But one of the major features of the new iPhone was it's stunning looks. To then be told you have to put a big rubber bumper on it would be pretty disappointing.
- goatforce5 16y ago
  That the minimum they should do, and if that's all they do people will be like "Meh. That's an alright deal, I suppose..." They need to go above and beyond to create confidence going forward - something that'll actually make people happy with the resolution. Throw $50+ of store credit in to apologise for the concern/confusion they've caused, or similar. Everyone makes mistakes. It's how you respond to it that makes the difference. Apple wants people to walk away from this thinking "They messed up, but they really went out of their way to make things right. I'll trust them with my future purchases."
  - billturner 16y ago
    Everyone makes mistakes. It's how you respond to it that makes the difference. Exactly. I think Steve Jobs responding to a customer's email with "Don't hold it that way" was one of the worst responses ever to a growing PR problem.
    - Tamerlin 16y ago
      I agree, but it's also in line with how he responds to other problems -- largely, Apple's approach has been vehement denial combined with heavy spin doctoring. It's also how Apple responded to the performance comparisons -- like commissioning a benchmarketing firm to run a mangled suite of SPEC tests that showed that even though Apple's G5 was FAR below expectation, Intel's horse was slower if you put heavy enough balls on its feet!
- skalpelis 16y ago
  Whatever they should do, they will announce tomorrow what they are going to do. Meanwhile, it's just a phone.
  - harshpotatoes 16y ago
    A luxury phone people payed good money for. It's like if BMW was selling a car which could only make right turns (ok, not a perfect example, I be more pissed about the car, but bear with me). Obviously this car is defective, but BMW responds by saying, "It's ok, you can still make left turns, because three right turns is the same as a left turn. It's only a car." I think people might be a tad bit outraged, less so about the problem, more so about the response. "it's just a car? You've been telling me in all your advertisements that it is the pinnacle of german engineering. If I wanted to deal with problems in the design and live with them, I would have gone with your much cheaper competitors." However, we shall see what they say tomorrow.
    - asmithmd1 16y ago
      Or like BMW selling a car with an extra hand operated lever and an extra foot pedal. And if you don't operate them correctly the car will barely move and maybe even stall... Apple could have handled this much better saying it is a high-performance, tuned antenna. If you choose to operate it correctly you get superior performance; or you can ignore it and get the same performance as any other hidden antenna.
      - nooneelse 16y ago
        Honesty and openness is sometimes very nice not just as an ideal, but because it gives you the chance to be the first to shape perspectives like that. And that, asmithmd1, is some very nice spinning of the issue you did there. Outright denial of something which is shown in several seemingly honest online videos was a bad move all around. It was socially equivalent to publicly calling some of their early adopting customers liars. Of course the public reacted badly to it and didn't let the matter drop.
    - deleted 16y ago
- jonknee 16y ago
  Releasing a beautiful product that needs a plastic cover to function properly (without this being made known at launch) is no way to restore brand image. That's actually a great way to become a laughing stock and make the early adopters feel like chumps. I think that woud actually be worse than doing nothing--it admits fault. Apple has never hosted a press conference like this, I doubt it will be for something as simple as a free bumper.
  - redrobot5050 16y ago
    Critics have always and easily posited that Apple makes shiny devices that are easily scratched up in your pocket or through day to day use. Critics have always pointed out the need for a case to "properly use" an Apple product...going as far back as the original 5GB Firewire only, Mac only iPod.
    - gmac 16y ago
      I disagree. I've had my iPhone 3G for 2 years and always carried it in my pocket. I keep keys and coins (and anything else scratchy) in a different pocket. The phone is completely unscratched (apart from tiny and unimportant scratches on the plastic back from being placed on hard surfaces). Every iPhone case I've seen has looked ugly and clumsy to me. The 'bumpers' are better than most, but there's no way I'd be prepared to use one, even if it were free.
    - ghshephard 16y ago
      Totally disagree with you here. As of (at least) the 3G (and 3GS), Apple has delivered very scratch resistant products. I totally abuse my iPhones, carry them in the same pocket as my keys and coins, and I've yet to put a visible scratch on them. I've got a tiny little chip on the side of my 3GS, but that was from dropping it onto a concrete sidewalk from a height of about three feet.
    - theBobMcCormick 16y ago
      If I had an iPhone4, I'd get something like this: http://www.zagg.com/invisibleshield/apple-iphone-4-cases-screen-protectors-covers-skins-shields.php http://www.zagg.com/invisibleshield/apple-iphone-4-cases-scr... I don't know if it'd help the antenna issue, but they work great for protecting your devices from scratching without covering up their good looks. I've got a similar skin for my Nexus One and have been very pleased so far.
- yardie 16y ago
  Honestly, I don't think it would kill them to include a basic rubber case in the color of their choosing (probably black). It's not like Nintendo Wiis were less popular because they had to put that big rubber cushion on the hand controller. After people were breaking TVs and getting concussions. If anything it made the controller more attractive since adults could finally hold it.
  - jordanroher 16y ago
    This situation is definitely most analogous to what happened with the Nintendo Wii Remotes going through TV screens (as opposed to Toyota's acceleration issue). - Both happened when products were used without cases or safety straps - Both are hard for experienced users to reproduce (well, it's easy to toss a Wii Remote, but I doubt any hardcore players lost a TV to it) - Both rely on anecdotal evidence (I own a Wii, as do my friends, and nobody has sent a Wii Remote sailing through anything) - Both are annoying but not a deal-breaker in the use of the product - Both can be alleviated by holding the product a different way - Both have hilarious class action lawsuits against the parent company - Most importantly, both were discovered shortly after the launch of a highly desirable product and nobody returned theirs because of this issue The last point is what annoys me the most. It's not reasonable to say "if this antenna is such a big deal, why isn't everyone returning their iPhone 4?" A problem doesn't have to be some titanic issue to need to be addressed. Nintendo did the right thing and packaged the Wii Remote with $0.50 of plastic, even without anyone beating down Gamestop's return desk. We shouldn't accept anything less from Apple.
    - gmac 16y ago
      A free bumper is my least preferred resolution. It essentially says you can't have the phone you thought you were buying. Instead, you have to choose: faulty or ugly.
      - jordanroher 16y ago
        I agree, even though I think the bumpers are kind of stylish. But Apple's between a rock and a hard place. Either they lose millions now proving free bumpers/gift certificates to customers, or they lose millions later by ignoring the issue and suffering a huge hit to their reputation. Or worse, they attack Consumer Reports. I would love to see that fight. A for-profit company that lots of people love but not necessarily trust, versus a non-profit that lots of people trust but not necessarily love.
dedward 16y ago
I don't recall ever being involved in any project that didn't have risks, and where someone predicted problems - and occasionally the wrong decision is made and they end up right. Especially in RF.
sillicongal 16y ago
Sir, I knew this all along. They even took photographs to prove it. http://xeof.net/iphone4.html http://xeof.net/iphone4.html
Tichy 16y ago
So I guess at least one antenna engineer at Apple might be able to keep his job.
- borism 16y ago
  but will they fire Jobs?
jimfl 16y ago
a design chosen by Apple executives Ding!
hop 16y ago
Of course this was brought up. Apple generally does a 10-3-1 design process - 10 different fully working prototypes are made and they let the designers go crazy. From that they further develop 3, then go with the best one. I've been in some of these meetings as an external contractor and no detail is left out - we made custom screws for them and did about 50 different design iterations for one application. Surely they had different antenna designs in the process - internal and external. I think the pros outweighed the cons in the decision: Higher reception signal than any internal antenna and a dual use, high strength steel case exterior. The one caveat being that if you cover the lower left, the signal will drop a bit, 10-20dB max. I agree with that logic and as a consumer, if Apple offered both an internal and external antenna iPhone, I sure as hell would go with the external - iPhone 4 reception (unscientifically) is far better in my office than my old 3G and the steel won't dent or crack like 2 black plastic ones I returned. Now putting glass on the back... the jury is still out on that one.
- glhaynes 16y ago
  That's what's so frustrating about this whole situation... most people seem to be getting much better wireless performance from the 4 than any previous iPhone. But, Apple's a company selling devices to the public, and they have to factor in the way "the public" works. And the public knows all about this issue at this point (that the issue exists, that is — not the details of the issue)... and that could have been foreseen. So even if the design is "the best" according to Apple's particularly chosen set of engineering tradeoffs, it still seems apparent they should've used some sort of coating or something.
  - melling 16y ago
    Can anyone provide technical articles discussing the iPhone 4's antenna? How it compares to other phones, for example. There are too many anecdotal stories. Personally, I'd like to see the issue quantified.
    - scotje 16y ago
      http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2 Edit: Here's a pertinent quote from that article... "So, an entire day and more than a quarter tank of gas later, here are the results. Holding the iPhone 4 without a case, in your left hand, crossing the black strip can result in a worst case drop of 24 dB in signal. As we'll show in a second, how you hold the phone makes a huge difference across every smartphone - and we've tested thoroughly in 5 different positions. Now, there are two vastly different possibilities for what happens to the bar visualization after you drop 24 dB. I happen to live less than one block from an AT&T UMTS tower (it's across the street, literally), and have exceptionally strong signal in all of my house - it's part of why I chose to live here, actually. Signal is above -65 dBm in every single room, in most cases it's at -51 dBm. When I incur that worst case drop of 24 dB from squeezing the phone, I fall down to -83 dBm, which is still visualized as 5 bars. However, in locales that have less signal, but where iOS still displays 5 bars, the drop of 24 dB is visualized much differently. For example, at another test location, signal without holding the phone is -89 dBm, which is still displayed as 5 bars. Cup the phone, and you'll fall all the way to -113 dBm. All the bars dramatically disappear one after the other, people think they've dramatically lost all the signal, and you know the rest."
coliveira 16y ago
This is just noise created by the media. 2 months from now everybody will be happily using the iPhone without changes, as I do now. For example, about consumer reports... What was the last time you read that publication to decide what phone to buy? Most people wouldn't care less.
- billturner 16y ago
  I think the magazine is more widely read than you think. Their mobile phone coverage is actually quite good, and very in-depth - including quite a bit of consumer polling along with their own testing.
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    Consumer Reports is a non-profit that has a long record of relative objectivity. Consumer's Union is non-profit founded in 1936 "Consumer Reports does not print outside advertising, accept free product samples, or permit the commercial use of its reviews for selling products. Its publisher states that this policy allows the magazine to 'maintain our independence and impartiality... [so that] CU has no agenda other than the interests of consumers.' "Consumer Reports states that all tested products are purchased at retail prices by its staff, that no free samples are accepted from manufacturers, and that this avoids the possibility of bias from bribery or from being given "better than average" samples." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports
  - coliveira 16y ago
    I am not questioning the quality of the magazine, just saying that only a small number of people read it. 99% of the customers just look at the phone, think it is cool, and buy it. Moreover, even if you read the magazine and see the negative recommendation, I doubt you wouldn't buy the iPhone just because of that.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- 16y ago
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
jcapote 16y ago
It feels like the external antenna was just a gimmick to sell phones because a new screen + another camera isn't enough to warrant a new phone. I have never had reception issues with the dozens of internal-antenna phones I've owned. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
bhellman1 16y ago
I can't wait until this story dies out. If you have a problem, buy a bumper or return the phone. End of Line
known 16y ago
Is there any http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistle_blower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistle_blower protection in corporate environment?
rimantas 16y ago
Poor Apple. Every phone suffers from similar problem (admittedly to the lesser degree), but now Apple will be forced to find the solution nobody was looking before, just because all this attention. That would be double annoying to them, especially because iPhone 4 has better reception.
lallysingh 16y ago
Would a little clearcoat have been that hard?
- bradleyland 16y ago
  Well, the hardness of the clearcoat would certainly impact the durability of that solution. Specifically, if the clearcoat were too hard, it would have a tendency to chip. Too soft and it might show marks from impact or wear off with the use of a case. It's a harder problem than it seems.
sdh 16y ago
"The company also said that a software error, dating to the June 2007 release of the first iPhone, has resulted in overstated signal strength, leading users to believe they had better reception than they did. Apple said on July 2 that a software fix will be released “within a few weeks.”" Bug or feature?
something 16y ago
Anyone else find it ridiculous that Chuck Schumer feels the need to weigh in on this?
mikecane 16y ago
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture: A good apology has three parts: 1. “I’m sorry”; 2. “It was my fault” and 3. “How do I make it right”. The last part tells about your sincerity. http://teamrich.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/pausch-last-lecture/ http://teamrich.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/pausch-last-lecture... Apple has to hit all of that, with #3 being; "Here is how we are going to make this right." You can argue all you want about the technical aspects of this, but a few days ago, my local news led with a three-minute report about Consumer Reports and the iPhone. This is a Richter-scale sized PR disaster.

69 points by borism 16y ago

They should just offer a generic case/bumper or $10 rebate towards the sale of a range of cases with proof of purchase. Brand image restored, the world continues spinning.

jolan 16y ago
I doubt they'll want to admit that the phone requires an accessory for proper operation. I'm thinking they'll announce some sort of swap program for a new phone with a non-conductive coating on it or somesuch. That way they can continue to sell their $29 bumpers for a ridiculous profit (which will make up for the cost of refurbing the old models).
theBobMcCormick 16y ago
I'm not sure that would help. I think that would be sufficient if this were a BlackBerry or something where people expect it to look utilitarian. But one of the major features of the new iPhone was it's stunning looks. To then be told you have to put a big rubber bumper on it would be pretty disappointing.
goatforce5 16y ago
That the minimum they should do, and if that's all they do people will be like "Meh. That's an alright deal, I suppose..." They need to go above and beyond to create confidence going forward - something that'll actually make people happy with the resolution. Throw $50+ of store credit in to apologise for the concern/confusion they've caused, or similar. Everyone makes mistakes. It's how you respond to it that makes the difference. Apple wants people to walk away from this thinking "They messed up, but they really went out of their way to make things right. I'll trust them with my future purchases."
- billturner 16y ago
  Everyone makes mistakes. It's how you respond to it that makes the difference. Exactly. I think Steve Jobs responding to a customer's email with "Don't hold it that way" was one of the worst responses ever to a growing PR problem.
  - Tamerlin 16y ago
    I agree, but it's also in line with how he responds to other problems -- largely, Apple's approach has been vehement denial combined with heavy spin doctoring. It's also how Apple responded to the performance comparisons -- like commissioning a benchmarketing firm to run a mangled suite of SPEC tests that showed that even though Apple's G5 was FAR below expectation, Intel's horse was slower if you put heavy enough balls on its feet!
skalpelis 16y ago
Whatever they should do, they will announce tomorrow what they are going to do. Meanwhile, it's just a phone.
- harshpotatoes 16y ago
  A luxury phone people payed good money for. It's like if BMW was selling a car which could only make right turns (ok, not a perfect example, I be more pissed about the car, but bear with me). Obviously this car is defective, but BMW responds by saying, "It's ok, you can still make left turns, because three right turns is the same as a left turn. It's only a car." I think people might be a tad bit outraged, less so about the problem, more so about the response. "it's just a car? You've been telling me in all your advertisements that it is the pinnacle of german engineering. If I wanted to deal with problems in the design and live with them, I would have gone with your much cheaper competitors." However, we shall see what they say tomorrow.
  - asmithmd1 16y ago
    Or like BMW selling a car with an extra hand operated lever and an extra foot pedal. And if you don't operate them correctly the car will barely move and maybe even stall... Apple could have handled this much better saying it is a high-performance, tuned antenna. If you choose to operate it correctly you get superior performance; or you can ignore it and get the same performance as any other hidden antenna.
    - nooneelse 16y ago
      Honesty and openness is sometimes very nice not just as an ideal, but because it gives you the chance to be the first to shape perspectives like that. And that, asmithmd1, is some very nice spinning of the issue you did there. Outright denial of something which is shown in several seemingly honest online videos was a bad move all around. It was socially equivalent to publicly calling some of their early adopting customers liars. Of course the public reacted badly to it and didn't let the matter drop.
  - deleted 16y ago
jonknee 16y ago
Releasing a beautiful product that needs a plastic cover to function properly (without this being made known at launch) is no way to restore brand image. That's actually a great way to become a laughing stock and make the early adopters feel like chumps. I think that woud actually be worse than doing nothing--it admits fault. Apple has never hosted a press conference like this, I doubt it will be for something as simple as a free bumper.
- redrobot5050 16y ago
  Critics have always and easily posited that Apple makes shiny devices that are easily scratched up in your pocket or through day to day use. Critics have always pointed out the need for a case to "properly use" an Apple product...going as far back as the original 5GB Firewire only, Mac only iPod.
  - gmac 16y ago
    I disagree. I've had my iPhone 3G for 2 years and always carried it in my pocket. I keep keys and coins (and anything else scratchy) in a different pocket. The phone is completely unscratched (apart from tiny and unimportant scratches on the plastic back from being placed on hard surfaces). Every iPhone case I've seen has looked ugly and clumsy to me. The 'bumpers' are better than most, but there's no way I'd be prepared to use one, even if it were free.
  - ghshephard 16y ago
    Totally disagree with you here. As of (at least) the 3G (and 3GS), Apple has delivered very scratch resistant products. I totally abuse my iPhones, carry them in the same pocket as my keys and coins, and I've yet to put a visible scratch on them. I've got a tiny little chip on the side of my 3GS, but that was from dropping it onto a concrete sidewalk from a height of about three feet.
  - theBobMcCormick 16y ago
    If I had an iPhone4, I'd get something like this: http://www.zagg.com/invisibleshield/apple-iphone-4-cases-screen-protectors-covers-skins-shields.php http://www.zagg.com/invisibleshield/apple-iphone-4-cases-scr... I don't know if it'd help the antenna issue, but they work great for protecting your devices from scratching without covering up their good looks. I've got a similar skin for my Nexus One and have been very pleased so far.
yardie 16y ago
Honestly, I don't think it would kill them to include a basic rubber case in the color of their choosing (probably black). It's not like Nintendo Wiis were less popular because they had to put that big rubber cushion on the hand controller. After people were breaking TVs and getting concussions. If anything it made the controller more attractive since adults could finally hold it.
- jordanroher 16y ago
  This situation is definitely most analogous to what happened with the Nintendo Wii Remotes going through TV screens (as opposed to Toyota's acceleration issue). - Both happened when products were used without cases or safety straps - Both are hard for experienced users to reproduce (well, it's easy to toss a Wii Remote, but I doubt any hardcore players lost a TV to it) - Both rely on anecdotal evidence (I own a Wii, as do my friends, and nobody has sent a Wii Remote sailing through anything) - Both are annoying but not a deal-breaker in the use of the product - Both can be alleviated by holding the product a different way - Both have hilarious class action lawsuits against the parent company - Most importantly, both were discovered shortly after the launch of a highly desirable product and nobody returned theirs because of this issue The last point is what annoys me the most. It's not reasonable to say "if this antenna is such a big deal, why isn't everyone returning their iPhone 4?" A problem doesn't have to be some titanic issue to need to be addressed. Nintendo did the right thing and packaged the Wii Remote with $0.50 of plastic, even without anyone beating down Gamestop's return desk. We shouldn't accept anything less from Apple.
  - gmac 16y ago
    A free bumper is my least preferred resolution. It essentially says you can't have the phone you thought you were buying. Instead, you have to choose: faulty or ugly.
    - jordanroher 16y ago
      I agree, even though I think the bumpers are kind of stylish. But Apple's between a rock and a hard place. Either they lose millions now proving free bumpers/gift certificates to customers, or they lose millions later by ignoring the issue and suffering a huge hit to their reputation. Or worse, they attack Consumer Reports. I would love to see that fight. A for-profit company that lots of people love but not necessarily trust, versus a non-profit that lots of people trust but not necessarily love.

dedward 16y ago

I don't recall ever being involved in any project that didn't have risks, and where someone predicted problems - and occasionally the wrong decision is made and they end up right. Especially in RF.

sillicongal 16y ago

Sir, I knew this all along. They even took photographs to prove it. http://xeof.net/iphone4.html http://xeof.net/iphone4.html

Tichy 16y ago

So I guess at least one antenna engineer at Apple might be able to keep his job.

borism 16y ago
but will they fire Jobs?

jimfl 16y ago

a design chosen by Apple executives Ding!

hop 16y ago

Of course this was brought up. Apple generally does a 10-3-1 design process - 10 different fully working prototypes are made and they let the designers go crazy. From that they further develop 3, then go with the best one. I've been in some of these meetings as an external contractor and no detail is left out - we made custom screws for them and did about 50 different design iterations for one application. Surely they had different antenna designs in the process - internal and external. I think the pros outweighed the cons in the decision: Higher reception signal than any internal antenna and a dual use, high strength steel case exterior. The one caveat being that if you cover the lower left, the signal will drop a bit, 10-20dB max. I agree with that logic and as a consumer, if Apple offered both an internal and external antenna iPhone, I sure as hell would go with the external - iPhone 4 reception (unscientifically) is far better in my office than my old 3G and the steel won't dent or crack like 2 black plastic ones I returned. Now putting glass on the back... the jury is still out on that one.

glhaynes 16y ago
That's what's so frustrating about this whole situation... most people seem to be getting much better wireless performance from the 4 than any previous iPhone. But, Apple's a company selling devices to the public, and they have to factor in the way "the public" works. And the public knows all about this issue at this point (that the issue exists, that is — not the details of the issue)... and that could have been foreseen. So even if the design is "the best" according to Apple's particularly chosen set of engineering tradeoffs, it still seems apparent they should've used some sort of coating or something.
- melling 16y ago
  Can anyone provide technical articles discussing the iPhone 4's antenna? How it compares to other phones, for example. There are too many anecdotal stories. Personally, I'd like to see the issue quantified.
  - scotje 16y ago
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2 Edit: Here's a pertinent quote from that article... "So, an entire day and more than a quarter tank of gas later, here are the results. Holding the iPhone 4 without a case, in your left hand, crossing the black strip can result in a worst case drop of 24 dB in signal. As we'll show in a second, how you hold the phone makes a huge difference across every smartphone - and we've tested thoroughly in 5 different positions. Now, there are two vastly different possibilities for what happens to the bar visualization after you drop 24 dB. I happen to live less than one block from an AT&T UMTS tower (it's across the street, literally), and have exceptionally strong signal in all of my house - it's part of why I chose to live here, actually. Signal is above -65 dBm in every single room, in most cases it's at -51 dBm. When I incur that worst case drop of 24 dB from squeezing the phone, I fall down to -83 dBm, which is still visualized as 5 bars. However, in locales that have less signal, but where iOS still displays 5 bars, the drop of 24 dB is visualized much differently. For example, at another test location, signal without holding the phone is -89 dBm, which is still displayed as 5 bars. Cup the phone, and you'll fall all the way to -113 dBm. All the bars dramatically disappear one after the other, people think they've dramatically lost all the signal, and you know the rest."

coliveira 16y ago

This is just noise created by the media. 2 months from now everybody will be happily using the iPhone without changes, as I do now. For example, about consumer reports... What was the last time you read that publication to decide what phone to buy? Most people wouldn't care less.

billturner 16y ago
I think the magazine is more widely read than you think. Their mobile phone coverage is actually quite good, and very in-depth - including quite a bit of consumer polling along with their own testing.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Consumer Reports is a non-profit that has a long record of relative objectivity. Consumer's Union is non-profit founded in 1936 "Consumer Reports does not print outside advertising, accept free product samples, or permit the commercial use of its reviews for selling products. Its publisher states that this policy allows the magazine to 'maintain our independence and impartiality... [so that] CU has no agenda other than the interests of consumers.' "Consumer Reports states that all tested products are purchased at retail prices by its staff, that no free samples are accepted from manufacturers, and that this avoids the possibility of bias from bribery or from being given "better than average" samples." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports
- coliveira 16y ago
  I am not questioning the quality of the magazine, just saying that only a small number of people read it. 99% of the customers just look at the phone, think it is cool, and buy it. Moreover, even if you read the magazine and see the negative recommendation, I doubt you wouldn't buy the iPhone just because of that.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

jcapote 16y ago

It feels like the external antenna was just a gimmick to sell phones because a new screen + another camera isn't enough to warrant a new phone. I have never had reception issues with the dozens of internal-antenna phones I've owned. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

bhellman1 16y ago

I can't wait until this story dies out. If you have a problem, buy a bumper or return the phone. End of Line

known 16y ago

Is there any http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistle_blower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistle_blower protection in corporate environment?

rimantas 16y ago

Poor Apple. Every phone suffers from similar problem (admittedly to the lesser degree), but now Apple will be forced to find the solution nobody was looking before, just because all this attention. That would be double annoying to them, especially because iPhone 4 has better reception.

lallysingh 16y ago

Would a little clearcoat have been that hard?

bradleyland 16y ago
Well, the hardness of the clearcoat would certainly impact the durability of that solution. Specifically, if the clearcoat were too hard, it would have a tendency to chip. Too soft and it might show marks from impact or wear off with the use of a case. It's a harder problem than it seems.

sdh 16y ago

"The company also said that a software error, dating to the June 2007 release of the first iPhone, has resulted in overstated signal strength, leading users to believe they had better reception than they did. Apple said on July 2 that a software fix will be released “within a few weeks.”" Bug or feature?

something 16y ago

Anyone else find it ridiculous that Chuck Schumer feels the need to weigh in on this?

mikecane 16y ago

Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture: A good apology has three parts: 1. “I’m sorry”; 2. “It was my fault” and 3. “How do I make it right”. The last part tells about your sincerity. http://teamrich.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/pausch-last-lecture/ http://teamrich.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/pausch-last-lecture... Apple has to hit all of that, with #3 being; "Here is how we are going to make this right." You can argue all you want about the technical aspects of this, but a few days ago, my local news led with a three-minute report about Consumer Reports and the iPhone. This is a Richter-scale sized PR disaster.