Steve Jobs’ press conference this morning tried to address two problems: reception and perception.
He failed on both counts.
This just doesn’t wash. It may be true for some smartphones, but not all. The iPhone 3G and 3GS, for example, don’t see the same signal degradation.
Then he made a better argument: It’s not a problem in day-to-day use. “Most of our customers are not experiencing this problem,” he said. “In actual use, they never encounter it.”
This is true. I have an iPhone 4, and I can make the signal drop precipitously if I put my finger across the antenna gap. In everyday use, it works fine. I surf the net, send emails and yak it up. It occasionally drops calls, but that’s cell phones. Am I going to return it? No way. It’s the best iPhone I’ve owned. I love it.
But the problem still remains. Most iPhone 4 users can put their fingers across the antenna gap and watch the signal degrade.
Perception: Which brings us to the problem of perception. Rightly or wrongly, the antenna problem is firmly associated with the iPhone 4. It’s entrenched. Did Jobs allay consumer’s fears about a hardware flaw, or offer a good solution to the prblem? No, he did not.
“We’ve been trying to understand this so when we solve it, we really solve it, not slap a Band-Aid on it,” he said.
His solution — offering customers a free Bumper case — is a Band-Aid solution par excellence. If a Bumper isn’t a Band-Aid, I don’t know what is.
And there’s the rub: Jobs is right about the issue being a non-issue; but he still had to offer a better, more satisfying solution than a free case.
The only real solution to this problem is a new hardware design. It’s clear that Apple is already working this. Jobs hinted that the antenna is already being redesigned: “We will continue to work on more advanced antenna designs that don’t have this problem or put this problem in an out of the way place,” he said.
But Apple is in the middle of a huge international roll-out. There are millions of iPhone 4s already in the channel for overseas consumers. He can’t possibly risk wrecking that.
He’s prudent to try and find a low-cost solution to the problem, but nothing has really been resolved.
The problem remains: the iPhone 4’s reception drops when you put your fingers across the antenna. There is still the strong perception of an antenna problem with the hardware.
The only resolution is a new hardware design and a soft recall. Jobs also hinted this may be a possibility. ““You know when you love your customers as much as we do, nothing is off the table,” he said.
Jobs should have said that Apple is working on a new design. It won’t be available until September; and when it is, we will replace all current iPhone 4s with the new handset. In the meantime, here’s a free case to tide you over.
