Last week, I shared my own iPhone 4 experience and thoughts with you – largely focusing on the now-oh-so-famous ‘Antennagate’ issue. A short time after that, it was announced that Apple would be holding a press conference to address this issue and try to get their arms around what has turned into a PR nightmare. On Friday, Steve Jobs got up on stage in Cupertino donning his famous black turtleneck and addressed the media and iPhone owners. Here is a brief roundup of what was covered.
This was a pretty informal press conference held in the auditorium in Apple’s secret lair in Cupertino, CA. Jobs got up on stage, said he had about a 15-20 min presentation and then would be taking some questions. The presentation started off with Jobs explaining the antenna issue on the iPhone 4 – describing what causes it, that there isn’t a software fix, and that this isn’t a new problem, nor is it one specific to just the iPhone 4. A demonstration was then shown illustrating that you are able to “kill the reception bars” on other phones; Blackberry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris, and the Samsung Omnia II were all put on display and videos were shown that if you “death-grip” these phones you will in fact experience significant signal loss. Okay, fair enough. I actually owned the “Shadow” (HTC) from T-Mobile prior to switching to AT&T and an iPhone 3G a few years ago and I knew there was a way to hold that phone and lose my signal; I even went as far as buying one of those stupid stick on antenna-booster-dealies you used to see infomercials for all the time, but alas, it didn’t help.
Jobs spent quite a bit of time on this, showing “it’s not just our phone” and explaining and showing how they test their antennas (which takes place in a gigantic, impressive room on the Cupertino campus). Watching, I thought maybe he spent just a little too much time on this, but he did eventually move on. Next up, he went through some numbers. First, there have been over 3,000,000 iPhone 4’s sold in just about 3 weeks. Of those 3,000,000 sold, they revealed how many of them have called in to Apple care about any reception issues – antenna or otherwise – and put things into perspective: 0.55% of 3,000,000 iPhone 4 customer’s have made calls to Apple Care about reception issues. The next number compared how many people have bought and returned iPhone 4’s compared to the iPhone 3GS – the return rate of the iPhone 4 is 1/3 of that of the 3GS. Finally, Jobs revealed that the dropped calls on the iPhone 4 compared to the iPhone 3GS are less than 1 more per 100 calls made – a slight increase from the 3GS, but an admitted increase none-the-less from the Apple camp.
Now, to put this into a little bit of perspective. Only 0.55% of iPhone 4 customer’s have had enough of an issue with reception to call into Apple Care about this. A very small number, but with 3,000,000 iPhone 4’s sold, that’s still about 16,000 people with this issue. Next, Apple admitted that the iPhone 4 is (barely) dropping more calls than the 3GS – I thought this was pretty transparent of Apple to admit this – Jobs assured everyone that that is not good enough, and they want it to be (and it should be) less than the 3GS, and they are working tirelessly to determine the reason so they can fix it.
So, to sum up:
- The iPhone 4 is not the only smartphone with this issue
- Only 0.55% of iPhone 4 customers have had enough of an issue to call in to Apple Customer Care
- Less than 1/3 of iPhone 4 customers, compared to iPhone 3GS customers, have been so dissatisfied they returned the phone
- The iPhone 4 is, in fact, dropping more calls than the iPhone 3GS: <1 more call per 100
So, where does this leave us? Well, Apple heard the cry from customers and the media to provide free iPhone 4 cases to all iPhone 4 customers. So, starting later this week, and until September 30 you can go to Apple’s website and have them ship you a case (there will be a few options) absolutely free. And if you’ve already bought a case from Apple, they will give you a full refund. Jobs also reiterated that if you are not completely satisfied with your iPhone 4 no one at this point is outside of Apple’s 30 refund policy and you can bring your undamaged iPhone 4 back to any Apple store for a 100% refund – no restocking fees, nothing.
So, my thoughts. I think Apple actually handled this pretty well. For a while, the words “We are not perfect – we want to make all our users happy” were displayed on the projector behind Jobs. Jobs also took a no-nonsense approach to this issue stating essentially that, yes, Apple may have overlooked something here, but this problem is not exclusive to the iPhone, the media has blown this way out of proportion, and they are willing to do what it takes to make their customers happy. I did feel like he spent a little longer than he should of on the fact that other phones have this issue to the point it felt for a minute he was just trying to direct blame elsewhere; but he made up for it in the following facts and figures admitting that there is an issue and they will offer a free case to anyone that wants one and they are supposedly trying to find a better, integrated fix.
I do, in fact, think the media got wind of this and ran with it, blowing it up to way more than what it is; but I also think a lot of the blame needs to be placed on the Apple customers. For whatever reason they (we) feel like they are entitled to perfection from Apple – a company that delivers homerun products constantly. When they released a product that did have an issue, people freaked out, panicked, and started posting YouTube videos and going to the news. Yes, Apple may have missed the mark here, but now they have come out and given what so many people were asking for: A free case to mitigate the issue. At this point, if you still aren’t satisfied with your iPhone 4, still aren’t satisfied with Apple providing a free case, and just overall not satisfied with Apple and the iPhone 4, quit being a whiney spoiled bitch and take it back for a full refund. Believe it or not, the iPhone is not the only smartphone on the market and Android phones are quickly catching up to it as far as versatility, apps, and functionality go. There is literally a plethora of choices for you out there as far as smartphones go, so if you are unhappy with your iPhone explore these other options instead of just crying to Uncle Steve that you’re unhappy and you want him to personally take it from your hands and magically fix it instantly.
In my previous article, I stated that they missed the mark with this antenna issue, and I still think that. It’s supposed to be a phone that does lots of other cool things, not the other way around. I also still think that Apple could have handled this situation better right out of the gates. But, at the end of the day with this press conference I think Apple is ready to move past this, and the customers and media should, too. Apple admitted they aren’t perfect and they need to re-visit the design/function of the antenna on the iPhone 4. We also now have figures showing just how big (or small) of an issue this is, Apple answered the cries to provide free cases, and they are supposedly tirelessly working on this, so perhaps we will find out that “…all iPhone 4’s sold after [insert date here] no longer have this antenna issue because we mitigated it by [insert solution here].” I think Apple did a good job at really putting things into perspective here, and my guess is they’ve learned a lot about PR and now a lot about what to do and not do with regards to antenna placement on their phones.
My iPhone 4 remains to be my favorite gadget, and for me, this antenna stuff has been a nonissue. I will be getting a free case from Apple, though, I’m not sure if I’ll use it or not – who could pass up a free case? I said in my last article I would recommend an iPhone 4 to anyone, but with a word of caution included and my stance on that hasn’t changed. The iPhone 4 is a great phone, but educate yourself on smartphones before you just go blindly buying anything: Some phones have antenna issues, some do things others don’t, what’s the service from the provider like in my area? – these should all be common sense questions to ask prior to sinking a few hundred dollars into a smartphone, but apparently, that’s not the case.
You can watch the full press conference over at Apple.com