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iPhone 4 Reception Recall Ruckus Roundup
Readers today have been sending tons of stories about the iPhone 4, so here are a few of the highlights: Following the Consumers Reports announcement that the iPhone has antenna problems, Andy Patrizio asks if Apple can withstand the pressure to recall, while CNet estimates that a recall would cost them $1.5B. But that's just the latest on the iPhone 4 — the long running carrier exclusivity lawsuit rumors have been upgraded to Class Action status.
CNet estimates that a A recall would cost them $1.5B
It's not only that cost. In 3 days Apple's stock has gone down a huge 5%, costing Apple and their shareholders millions of dollars and creating huge image problems.
It also look like Apple's PR team completely messed up, from the "learn a new way to hold a phone" to removing of any critical comments from their support forums. Considering PR and marketing is one of Apple's strongest areas and which pushes everything they do forward, they did some incredibly stupid decisions.
Now that they are basically ignoring the problem, any more time they take doing nothing will cost them even more.
So what we're saying is that the new iPhone is getting a bad reception??? :)
Take Nobody's Word For It.
If they dont release a patch, their stock will be useful only as wallpaper by the weekend.
Except, that is what many savvy investors are counting on, because the fall in their stock price is really a reaction of fear.
Savvy investors never trade on emotion, and they bank on the emotion of others by reading the emotions that drive the market. This still works because the majority of those who trade stocks are still very emotional.
Apple basically shot themselves in the foot, and their wounds are bound to heal. That is far better than if someone else (like MS) shot them and they got hurt, as that would be a sign of vulnurability to competition.
That puts the share price at a mere 177% of its value 1 year ago. Their investors must be pissed!
The problem is the antennas being shorted by a slightly conductive (sweaty) finger bridging one or more of the three breaks.
Apple doesn't need a recall to fix the problem: future phones can have a coating, and a free bumper ($10 cost to Apple) to existing customers solves all the problems.
At 2M iPhones, the "recall fix" would be a whopping $20M.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Look, I love Apple products. I own / have owned a MacBook Pro, 2 iMacs, an iPod 2G, an iPhone 3GS, an iPad, an Airport Express, and an iPod shuffle. I get it.
But, seriously Apple, you did a recall with the MacBook battery issue. You replaced batteries and even though it cost you some money your karma was helped by it. Do the same with the iPhone 4... offer owners a case which you test to make sure fixes the problem. It will probably cost you $20 per for these including shipping and processing assuming you can get the cases for $4 or so. But you will instantly shut up the majority of people who are complaining VERY loudly about the problem AND you will have "done the right thing".
NO company is capable of 100% preventing mistakes, but it's how you act as a company that determines how you're perceived. You can be cool and hip all you want but if customers are afraid to purchase your products because you've stuck to your guns and forced lawsuits to happen you lose in the long run.
The reason I have passed on ALL of the iPhones so far is I don't buy into the hype, not to mention a LOCKED OS. Hey, if you just pick up a phone to use it, then perhaps the iPhone is for you, but, if you are a "tinker" type, I don't see how the iPhone would be good. Even given all of the faults with WinMobile, at least you can hack it til the cows come home. The way I look at it is it is MY phone, and I'll screw around with it how I want to. I don't like "locked" phones. My current phone, HTC Rhodium (Tilt2) never even had the stock OS fired up. I told the guy at the at&t store that I would set it up later (since I already had a Touch Pro). Took it home, unlocked it, wiped out the stock OS and put one from XDA-Developers on it and tweaked it exactly how I wanted. Job's & Company have a MAJOR public relations nightmare on their hands, and a golden opportunity for some of their competitors to run ads that exploit this problem.
Cannot admit: iPhone4 irradiates you when you hold it wrong. It may appear that the iPhone4 gives you cancer.
Manufacturing: There may be a manufacturing component to it as well. We know they were rushed out the door without even time for the touchscreen bonding glue to dry. Clearly the Foxconn QA was not followed. If an engineer leaves a thumbprint on an internal antenna it detunes it. Imagine what a rushed assembly with leaky glue would do to the tuning characteristics.
Cannot admit: Apply don't pay their manufacturers enough and circumvent their own QA guidelines to rush product to market. They may appear like greedy bastards.
AT&T: The drop problem is also in a small, small part down to AT&T's 3G network topology. Nowhere near as bad as the old iPhone problem of congesting the signalling channels, this is simply due to the fact that 3G signals are way more sensitive to received signal strength. When you hold it the wrong way not only does the handset not heat the base station well (showing fewer bars on the phone) but it is the network that cannot hear the iPhone that causes the call drops as your entire hand and arm are radiating instead of the antenna. When you broadly detune the antenna with your hand the lower powered 3G signal is simply too feint and distorted to be heard by the base station. It does explain why the locations where the issues appear are random and seemingly not related in all cases to the downlink signal strength shown on the handset. RF signals are like that.
Cannot admit: The issue clearly isn't all to do with AT&T and they blamed them the last time with the 3GS.
It would cost them a LOT more than that. If the letter A were recalled, they'd be Pple Corportion.
And they'd sell iPds instead of iPads. Their stock symbol would have to change from AAPL to PL - but that's taken, and so is PPL. PPLE is available, but pple.com is owned by a squatter.
And it's not just Apple. If the letter A were recalled:
About the only good thing about recalling the letter a is that vaginas stay vgins - no matter how many times they're poked! Hmmm, on second thought, maybe it's worth 1.5 billion.
I have to support hundreds of iMacs and MacBooks at work, and I've had to call in tons of warranty repairs the last couple years (easily 10x than from our pool of HP and Dell machines). I thought maybe apple was ditching quality on the macs in favor of the iPhone, iPod, because of iTunes $$$, but it seems they're just neglecting quality across the board. It doesn't "just work" anymore; it just looks pretty (until the style looks outdated).