They had a press conference where they admitted the issue, then made a page on their site demonstrating the issue on every leading phone of the day complete with short demo videos for each model.[0][1] This put other manufacturers like RIM and Nokia into a tizzy releasing their own death-grip press releases![2]
Free bumper cases and refunds.[3]
The rapid evolution of that antenna page via archive.org is really interesting.
If customers aren’t happy with the iPhone 4—“before or after you get a free case,” Jobs added—they can bring back the undamaged phone within 30 days for a full refund. Jobs said Apple won’t charge a restocking fee and that users would be able to get out of their contracts with AT&T.
“We want to make all of our customers happy,” Jobs said. “And if you don’t know that about Apple, you don’t know Apple.”
What's the blast radius of this? Are only specific models of phones affected (if so, which?), or does this impact entire brands or the whole ecosystem?
Apple's done a crappy job dealing with the antenna fallout. At the same time, the press and other attention seekers are blowing this way out of proportion. I've seen some compare the iPhone 4's antenna issues to Toyota's accelerator disaster (which I always suspected was largely manufactured by the press and politicians), demanding a recall. That's just hilarious. At worst, they should give out free bumpers until they can fix the design.
It's still Consumer Reports' highest rated smartphone, and the antenna problem has a variety of easy fixes. I can't say I'm that impressed with the phone (for all its improvements, it's a big step back ergonomically), but most of the controversy is manufactured. I'm sure it's done wonders for pageviews, though.
The two other times, when new iPhones suffered from antenna issues and when iPhones (again) seemed to bend under pants induced stress, we saw apple (probably) sponsored content over Wired and others about how amazingly careful they were on testing iPhone antennas and how wonderfully amazing they were on making bend resistant iPhone bodies.
Please don't get me wrong, as I am a apple fan, but I must ask: Which Apple product is broken this time?
There is no way this is the reason. To believe the engineers didnt test the attenuation caused by direct human contact is insanity. More likely is that they tested it thoroughly, found that it didn't appreciably affect the actual number of dropped calls (as substantiated by anandtech), and shipped it feeling comfortable with the product. When the iPhone 4 shipped, the reviews were all gushing over it, despite the pent up frustration over Apple's dominance and questionable app store policies, and people jumped on the first publicized flaw. Much ado about nothing. With any luck, this whole farse will make it easier for me to land a white iPhone 4 when it becomes available.
Well if it was for the "cellular EM waves are bad" movement as you put it they would have a problem with most cellular phones and not specifically with the iPhone 12 don't you think?
Do you mean like the iPhone 4 antennagate? That shit was massively overblown. Apple did jack shit to fix it and the iPhone 4 was the world's best selling phone ever (at that time).
When Apple sometimes ships a product with a design defect – like the current MacBook Pro keyboards — they usually know about it and do it consciously.
As if other manufacturers didn't have problems of similar or greater scale.
iPhone 4 owner as of day 1 and I haven't had an issue. I can't imagine that this is true.
EDIT: Wow, Ok I get it. It's a real problem. But I guess I meant to say that it certainly seems like the iPhone will be remembered in a much more positive light.
This is strange and I happen to work at a facility that does a lot of open air helium mass spectrometer leak testing.
I'm and Android user so I have no skin the the game. I'll have to talk to some people at work tomorrow. A few guys are iPhone users and work in direct proximity to the helium leak testing stations or use them as well. I know a woman in the office didn't like her iPhone because of numerous problems but I never thought to press her for details.
agree, also antennagate, 4S battery failures admitted to be a bug, tinted yellow screens on different apple products. All companies have their share of bumpy releases.
also, every iphone has had serious signal issues, it's a known problem, yet people still continue to buy them–why would this change anything... most people buy the iphone because of marketing not functionality.
You keep implying Apple released a phone with legitimate antenna issues. My understanding is this has been pretty much shown to be false. Apple was responding to a media shitstorm and Jobs said the issue was "overblown." In other words, it was probably an extremely rare, if not completely non-existent, issue but was magnified due to the fact that it happened to a well known blogger.
It's a PSA: if you have an implanted defibrillator, don't keep iPhone 12 in a shirt pocket. No need for any more drama than that. Reminds me of antennagate, to which Jobs responded: "Don't hold it that way."
"Smartphone radiation tests have so far led to 42 sales stops in the country. It is the first time Apple has been affected by such a move."
From https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-disputes-french-fin...
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