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.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
