Want the lowdown on Apple’s defense of the iPhone 4 antenna? Apple’s just posted the breakdown on their official site, comparing iPhone 4 death grips against those of other major smartphones.
Since Apple specifically called other smartphones out in his response today to the iPhone 4 Reception Issues, it was only a matter of time (and not much at that) before other smartphone companies took their own potshots back.
First up? Nokia.
Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.
Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.
In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design.
If only Nokia didn’t prioritize everything over design? Am I right? Hey-o!
If you pull back and look at the grand scheme of things when it comes to the globe as a whole, a Verizon iPhone 4 doesn’t make so much sense: Verizon uses the CDMA protocol, and that’s not an international standard, so why would Apple bother?
Yet bother, they might very well being. During today’s questions and answers session, Jobs mentioned having Verizon cell sites on the Cupertino campus.
As 9 to 5 Mac notes, cell sites cost a buttload, so Apple’s got them for a reason.
Is Apple covering their bases? Or is the Verizon iPhone imminent? My guess is Apple is as sick of AT&T’s garish ineptitude and poor customer service as anyone, and they’d be willing to plunk down some significant change to have a chance of giving them the boot domestically.
In the wake of the iPhone 4 Antenna Press Conference, some smaller news: the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is now reporting that the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office has withdrawn the search warrant used to seize items from Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s home earlier in the year, after Gizmodo published full details of a leaked iPhone 4 prototype that Apple alleges was stolen.
Although the EFF has continuously stressed that the search warrant used to enter Chen’s home and confiscate his computers was illegal because it violated a prohibition against warrants for “unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public,” the warrant was repealed not by court order, but because of Gizmodo’s own cooperation.
According to Gawker’s COO and legal advisor Gaby Darbyshire, Gizmodo agreed to voluntarily give the district attorney access to materials that a court appointee deems relevant.
In other words, Gizmodo is still under investigation for any wrong doing, but San Mateo County will no longer hold onto Jason Chen’s personal property by force: rather, he’ll be co-operating with them and delivering anything they request going forward.
If one thing was crystal clear from Steve Jobs’ remarks during today’s iPhone 4 Antenna Press Conference, it was that he blamed the tech press for “overblowing” the iPhone 4’s reception issues, and was downright contemptuous of tech journalists as a whole.
“I guess it’s just human nature that when you see someone get successful you want to tear it down…” Steve Jobs said at one point. “Sometimes I feel that in the search for eyeballs, [journalists] don’t care about what they leave in their wake.”
Fielding a question from Engadget about a recent New York Times report, Jobs further attacked tech writers. “Go talk to the Times, because you guys talk to yourselves a lot. They’re just making this stuff up.”
Even Steve’s parting shot was aimed at the credibility of the tech journalists. “Thanks for coming. I wish we could have done this [had the press conference] in the first 48 hours, but then you wouldn’t have had anything to write about.”
I’m certainly not here to defend the press against Jobs’ accusations of sensationalism. He may be right: the iPhone 4 Antenna Issue is the Amy Winehouse of tech right now. On the sensationalism of the press, I’d argue that the job of the journalist is not to report the status quo, but to report the exceptional. Over the past three weeks, the iPhone 4’s antenna issues have been an exceptional problem, and so we’ve covered it extensively.
But you know what else is exceptional? Apple and its products. And what Jobs has conveniently forgotten is that ever since he returned to Apple back in 1997, the tech press has collectively been the tireless advocate of both, and written about Apple’s excellence as the rule — not the exception — with every year that has passed.
This is Apple’s $100 million state-of-the-art antenna test lab. It has 17 different antenna characterization chambers (or anechoic chambers) for measuring antenna performance.
Our anechoic chambers are connected to sophisticated equipment that simulates cellular base stations, Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices — even GPS satellites. These chambers measure performance in free space, in the presence of materials simulating human tissue (“phantom” heads and hands, for example), and in use by human subjects. Over a one- to two-year development cycle, Apple engineers spend thousands of hours performing antenna and wireless testing in the lab.
Apple has also published several new pages on its website explaining smartphone antennas, including pages showing off the company’s antenna design and test lab. There’s a video of the lab here.
And here’s some more pictures:
Steve Jobs’ press conference this morning tried to address two problems: reception and perception.
He failed on both counts.
Asked if he has learned anything from Antennagate, Steve Jobs’ response basically boils down to one thing: haters gonna hate.
” I guess it’s just human nature, when you see someone get successful you just want to tear it down,” said Jobs.
“Look at everything they’ve created. Would you prefer we’re Korean companies? Do you not like the fact that we’re an American company leading the world right here?”
Am I reading that right? Did Jobs just say that people shouldn’t criticize Apple as much as other companies because they are Americans? Yeesh.
Luckily he followed it with a better argument:
“I look at this and think wow. Apple has been around 30 years. Haven’t we earned the credibility and trust that we’re going to take care of our users?”
“Of course we’re human, of course we’ll make mistakes,” admits Jobs. “But sometimes I feel that in search of eyeballs for these web sites, people don’t care about what they leave in their wake.”
Like dipped Apple stock value, perhaps?
“We weren’t just innocents in this. But the reaction has been so overblown.”
Jobs ended his answer with a plea. “Help us out here.”
[image, quotes via GDGT]
Answering a question about whether or not Apple will refund users who already bought an iPhone 4 case, Jobs candidly explained what should be obvious: Apple’s secrecy about new products is all about not tipping people off that they should wait for a new product before they buy.
“We’re not going to refund the 3rd party cases — it’s a very small number because we didn’t sell as many cases because we didn’t share the phone design with case manufacturers in advance of launch. But now we kind of wish there were more cases out there!” Jobs laughs.
“It’s really simple why: when people find out about your new product, they stop buying your old products. Sometimes websites buy stolen prototypes and put ‘em on the web, and we don’t care for that. But if we give the designs to case makers, they have a history of putting them up on the web as well.”
“The case vendors haven’t had a history of helping us through that. It’s a conundrum,” admits Jobs. ” We’ll consider things on a case by case basis.” Groan.
In a Q&A after the iPhone 4 Antenna Press Conference, Steve Jobs says that Apple is happy with the antenna design of the iPhone 4 and they won’t be redesigning it.
“We’re happy with the antenna design of iPhone 4… it’s better than 3gs in every way,” says Jobs. “Looking at the data, we don’t think we have a problem.”
Instead, he blames Apple accidentally painting a bullseye on the iPhone 4’s antenna design. “If we were to fault the iPhone 4, it’s that we waved a red flag in front of the bull by putting a “grip me here” mark on the iPhone 4,” by which he means the black lines marking the separation between antennas.
Steve Jobs is closing up the iPhone 4 Antenna Press Conference by re-asserting Apple’s love and commitment to its users.
“We love our users,” Jobs said. “We try very hard to surprise and delight them, and work our asses off doing it. But we have a blast doing it. What motivates us is for ours users to love our products and connect them with great apps and content.”
“When we fall short, we try harder,” Jobs says. “And when we succeed our users reward us by staying loyal. That’s what drives us. And when we have problems like this and people are criticizing us, we take it personally. Maybe we shouldn’t, but we do.”
“At the end of the day, we think we’ve gotten to the heart of the problem, and the heart is that smartphones have weak spots,” claims Jobs.
“But the data supports the fact that the iPhone 4 is the best smartphone in the world. There is no ‘Antennagate.’ There is simply a challenge for the entire smartphone industry to improve its antenna performance to where there’s no weak spots.”
Now that Apple’s iPhone 4 Antenna Fix is out of the bag — free cases, software update — Jobs is closing up the conference by covering some miscellaneous issues.
First, Jobs knows there’s a proximity sensor issue with the iPhone 4, and there will be software fix coming sometime soon.
Apple hasn’t forgotten the white iPhone 4 either. It’ll be shipping at the end of July.
Also coming at the end of July (specifically, July 30th?) The iPhone 4 will be rolled out to 17 more countries.
After laying all the data groundwork, Jobs has just announced what they will be doing about the iPhone 4 reception issues… perceived or no.
First of all, they just released iOS 4.0.1 which changes the signal display algorithm yesterday.
Second, free casesfor everyone: the bumpers solve the death grip issue, so now everyone will get one free of charge for every iPhone 4 through September 30th. In September, they’ll re-examine the issue and see if they have a better idea.
Apple will be mailing out the cases themselves, but since they can’t make enough bumpers themselves, they’ll be mailing out a selection of cases, some third-party.
Interested? You can apply for a free case next week. Pick your own case and they’ll mail it off.
Finally, still unhappy with the iPhone 4? You can still bring it back for any reason within 30 days for a full refund, no 10% restocking fee charged.
The comparisons between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS aren’t all good though, Jobs has just admitted.
According to Jobs, the iPhone 4 definitely drops more calls than the 3GS. However, he insists this is still less than one dropped call per hundred.
What’s Jobs’ theory about this? He says it’s because 80% of 3GS customers accompanied their purchase with a case, while only 20% of iPhone 4 customers do.
Maybe you should have been quicker to get those bumpers out there then, Apple. Here come the freebies, I bet.
So what’s the extent of consumer dissatisfaction with the iPhone 4? According to Jobs, it’s minimal.
“We have some really interesting data from AppleCare, we looked at the statistics, we asked what’s the percentage of all iPhone 4 users that have called AppleCare about the antenna or reception, or anything near reception problems. Because you would have thought ‘Jeez, it must be a lot of users complaining about this'”
“So what percentage have called AppleCare?” asks Jobs. ” 0.55% Just one half of one percent.”
AT&T confirms Apple’s findings, saying that their return rate is just one-third of what it was for the 3GS.
One take-away Steve Jobs wants us all to know is that Apple’s serious about antenna.
How serious? They have a state of the art antenna testing facility, with 17 anechoic chambers. It’s a $100MM investment, and employes 18 PhD scientists and engineers working in reception.
In these reception chambers, which as Leander notes, look straight out of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, Apple noticed the death grip issue… but found it acceptable, since it is prevalent in the smartphone industry.
Steve Jobs has just argued that all phones have a problem with the death grip. But he still says Apple is culpable of making a mistake.
“We went to a lot of trouble to put this beautiful line in the stainless steel band,” Jobs said, pointing to the iPhone 4 antenna. “This was to say, ‘Here’s where you touch it everbody!'”
“The problem is we had incorrect bars, so when it did drop the drop looked far more catastrophic.”
“We screwed up on our algorithm,” Jobs admits.
“To fix this, we decided to put the correct algorithm into iOS 4.0.1. Your bars will still drop in a death grip, but all smartphones seems to do that.”
[image via Engadget]
According to Jobs, the perception of an iPhone 4 problem is real.
“We’ve been getting reports of people having issues with the antenna system when they touch this spot here, “Jobs said, pointing at the “Death Grip” spot.
“We only heard about this 22 days ago. It’s not like we’ve had our heads in the sand about it for months.”
“We’ve been working on it, and no we want to share what we’ve learned.”
“First of all, “Jobs said, “It’s not unique to the iPhone 4. You can go on YouTube and see videos of other phones doing the same thing.”
To prove the point, Jobs demos videos of the Blackberry, the Samsung Omnia 2 and HTC Droid Eris dropping bars. The Droid Eris video is particularly severe: it shows the Eris dropping from four bars down to zero over the course of a minute.
“This is life in the smartphone world,” says Jobs. “Phones aren’t perfect. We’re all doing the best we can.”
In case Apple’s humility in this isn’t apparent, the slide backing up Jobs’ words says “We’re not perfect.”
Steve Jobs has just taken the stage at Apple’s iPhone 4 Antenna press conference.
“We’re not perfect,” Jobs starts off by saying, “And phones aren’t perfect either, but we want to make all of our users happy. We love making them happy. We’re going to talk about how we’re going to do that today. But first, let’s talk about the data we’ve got. Is the iPhone 4 making consumers happy?”
Jobs says it is. He says it’s been judged the number one smartphone by numerous publications, and has sold over 3M in three weeks.
People are clearly happy with the iPhone 4 as a device. Jobs’ evidence is compelling. It’s the phone and reception problems that need some work. Next up: Jobs explains the problem.
Apple has just kicked off a press conference responding to the much publicized iPhone 4 reception problems and the so-called “Grip of Death,” but to start things out, a dose of humor… they are now playing the iPhone Antenna Song to the collected audience.
Does this mean Apple thinks the iPhone 4 antenna issues are a joke, or just trying to lighten the proceedings? My money’s on the latter. Good start, Apple!
Over at Infoworld, Galen Gruman has written a blistering critique of Microsoft’s forthcoming attempt to fight back against Apple’s iPhone in the mobile market, Windows Phone 7.
Gruman attended a detailed demo by Microsoft representatives, and left feeling “appalled, flummoxed, and stupefied.”
Windows Phone 7 is a disaster in the making, Gruman says. Worse than that: it’s a pig. A lump of coal. It’s awkward. Unsophisticated. It’s outdated and hamstrung. It’s a clay pigeon. Those aren’t my summarized versions of what Gruman wrote, they are the actual words used.
In early 2009, Apple loudly announced support for the hardware interface concept — a fusion between third party hardware and apps created specifically to communicate with that hardware. Unfortunately, no one came to the party, and our initial enthusiasm faded.
But it may be time to get excited again, especially if outfits like Wilmington, North Carolina-based New Potato has anything to say about it. They’ve even trademarked a name for their new gadgets — they’re calling them “appcessories.”
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZUSMkyCxvI
If you’re looking for a quirky puzzler to whittle away your time over the weekend, I can’t recommend Helsing’s Fire enough: a hysterically written and unique puzzle game with an astonishing amount of playtime for just $0.99.
Plot-wise, the game follows Dr. Helsing and Rafton in their attempts to save London from a plague of vampires, ghouls, werewolves and other monsters. The gameplay is based upon dynamic lighting puzzles: you are given a limited number of torches and color-coded tonics to kill a set number of monsters per level. By shining your torch upon a monster and then using a tonic on it of the same color, you hit any monster illuminated by your torch with a killer shockwave. But it’s not quite so simple: hit a monster with the wrong tonic and they gain a shield, some monsters are protected by multiple shields, and your tonics also have an unfortunate splatter effect on helpless Victorian babes whom you must protect.
In truth, I could recommend the game for the congratulatory fist bump performed by Dr. Helsing and Rafton upon the successful completion of a level alone… but the gameplay is truly captivating as well. With over 90 levels and three separate endless modes, Helsing’s Fire is an absolute steal of a value. Give it a whirl.
The AirStash is a $100 USB card reader with a built-in Wi-Fi hotspot. It is used to stream media to other devices, which means broadcasting movies, music, and video to your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and other gadgets with limited amounts of memory.
If only it worked.
We’ve seen SLR lenses inexplicably Frankensteined onto iPhones before, but the “iPhone DSLR prototype” might just end up being final word on grafting an SLR lens onto an iPhone.
The iPhone DSLR is a 1.1lb mount made of anodized billet aluminum with dual handle grips and a tripod mount capable of filtering the light from a Canon SLR lens into the iPhone’s tiny sensor.
Personally, I’m not quite sure I get the point: no matter how good the lens, an iPhone’s picture is ultimately going to be hobbled by its tiny, noisy sensor. I suppose, as usual, this is a “because it’s there” proposition. But where would geek ingenuity be if not for the gleeful solving of imaginary and utterly surreal problems? God bless the Internet.