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.
True. But the people making that analogy are attempting to transfer the life-threatening gravity of faulty cars onto, well, an antenna. The gross unfairness goes both ways.
Apple started the war by making their design decisions out to be things of monumental consequence. When you portray your each and every device as a mind-bending magical artifact that will change your life, I think it's fair to look at the shortcomings through the same lens.
That said, I wish we could just stop dissecting each and every Apple product. I'm tired of hearing about it. It's a piece of engineering, it has features, flaws, and useful applications.
Well stated. Anyone who suggests that we need to be giving Apple a break for gloating about a new amazing magical antenna design and not calling them on it not working needs to realize this. The same perspective/lens should be used. It's not our fault Apple feels the need to gloat and spew words nearly referencing fairy tale unicorns. They should be prepared for some lash outs if they're going to deliver a phone that fundamentally doesn't even perform as a phone well, when they're boasting so much.
Couldn't agree more. I'm tired of the whole Apple form/function mantra. Too often it's just a pretentious way of saying "That's so pretty." I'm not sick of hearing (or not hearing) about Apple. I'm sick of the religion and the fawning and the lack of serious criticism.
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.
Look at it this way, the press and other attention seekers are blowing this way out of proportion because Apple's done a crappy job dealing with the antenna fallout.
That's part of it, sure. But it's not a justification. By definition, blowing something out of proportion is to exceed to the justifiably proportionate response.
Like I said, there are a variety of easy fixes. They range from being as cheap as a strip of electrical tape, to $30 for a bumper. If that's such a huge deal for you that it outweighs the merits of the phone, then return it, wait for a fix, or use another phone. I can think of hundreds of other things that deserve far more attention.
As for Apple's crappy response, by all means, call them out on it. This deserves a decent amount of attention, since it seems like a bad case of corporate denial. But at the end of the day, whether they cop to it or not isn't really going to change anyone's life.
I agree this isn't going to change anyone's life but I also suspect Apple would have continued to ignore the issues if this hadn't been 'blown way out of proportion'. They have already demonstrated twice the direct desire to play this down and make it go away. While the response has been disproportionate to the severity of the issue, I feel it also is the only reason Apple is being forced to address it fully now. They really really really don't ever like to admit they made a mistake. Perhaps this is what was required to make them 'man up' and perhaps eat a little corporate humble pie.
If the new Mercedes S class had a flaw that could be fixed with something as simple as a strip of duct tape up to a $400 widget (paid for out of pocket by the customer), would that be acceptable?
Because that's how Apple positions themselves in the market.
Apple is like Toyota in the sense that the media and public hold them to higher standards than other companies. Dell was hit with a class-action for selling millions known-defective computers - how long did that stay in the news? Ditto for Greenpeace's criticisms of Apple's environmental policies. Are other manufacturers worse? Obviously, but no one cares.
The public just likes to see the top dogs fall. I'm not sure if this is an American phenomenon or if it extends to the rest of the world.
In the case of Apple especially (though it probably applies to Toyota to some extent), there is definitely a strong contingent of Apple haters who are perpetually annoyed by Apple-product-owner smugness. Even though the actual smugness is probably greatly exaggerated, and the perception of which often seems to be tinged with an unacknowledged envy.
"for all its improvements, it's a big step back ergonomically"
The funny thing about handheld devices is that we each have different hands. Double-fisting both of my iPhones right now, the 4 feels a lot better in my hand. If you have bigger hands with me this probably isn't true for you, though.
I was reading this thread on my 4, and when I read your comment I looked to see how I was grasping the device: in landscape mode, pinched between my thumb (below) and middle finger (above). I was scrolling with the index finger on the same hand. The old design was poor for a 1-hand, 2-finger grip like that. I wouldn't want to go back.
Speaking of Microsoft, this article reminds me decades past when geeks would whine about Microsoft day after day, year and year. But did that actually accomplish anything? No, the tides did not turn until changing times started to turn Microsoft's cash cows irrelevant by default.
Similarly, Dave Winer releases a very well-written piece decrying Apple's hubris and bad faith, then signs off saying, "Oh btw, I wrote this on an imac while checking my Apple stock on my iphone."
I mean WTF? Apple does not give a fuck about Winer's whining. If Dave and 1,000,000 other people decide not to buy an iPhone then guess what, Steve will care. But he didn't make Apple the success it is by listening to geek ideals.
Guys, isn't it obvious? The antenna problem is inherent to the very design of the iPhone 4. Whatever they did with their signal strength update (which may well have been a lie to cover up a lie as noted by others) was basically all they could do short of going back to the drawing board and completely retooling the entire thing from scratch. Can you imagine the cost of that? Apple is going to take a wait and see approach here. They're not going to bite the bullet unless sales start to take a hit. Most likely this will blow over because they the device is so amazing in other regards, and we'll see that the 2011 revision fixes the problem. If it turns into a real problem they'll take their lumps and fix it mid-cycle, but not because of bloggers whining about it, it'll be because their bottom line is hurting.
>Similarly, Dave Winer releases a very well-written piece decrying Apple's hubris and bad faith, then signs off saying, "Oh btw, I wrote this on an imac while checking my Apple stock on my iphone."
I took that as heading off the crowd that would start up with ad hominems claiming Winer only wrote this because he hates Apple and wants to see them fail. He wants to see them succeed, which is why it sucks that they've handled this issue so poorly.
And I mean, I understand where he's coming from. I think Apple has traditionally built great products and I love my Macbook Pro. That said, I disagree with their walled-garden approach to the iPhone and it's looking increasingly likely that I'll be replacing my MBP with a PC notebook running Linux because of the way they've let OS X stagnate over the past few years.
I want to see Apple continue to make great products, and if they build products I want, I'll buy them. That doesn't mean they get a pass when they do something I think is stupid, however.
I don't have real numbers, but 3 weeks into the launch, more than 2 million phones have been sold. How many have been returned? Versus how many people that want one don't have one yet?
What's the new Android phone again? All this Apple talk is drowning out all other phone news. If I think back really hard, the EVO launch was met with bitching about poor battery life. Lots of "not recommends" from reviews. But nobody feels any passion towards HTC to call for a class action lawsuit.
And my friend that has an EVO loves it. It's a sweet phone. I love my iPhone 4. My girlfriend still loves her iPhone 3G. All these phones are sweet, it's a good time for gadget lovers.
I'm sure Apple doesn't want this, but it really doesn't matter to them. A software update will come out soon that will shine more light on the problem. A hardware revision will come out probably sooner than later now with a sensible exchange policy. Apple's customer service is impeccable.
Remember that the rest of the world can't buy it yet.. I've been reassuring my brother-in-law that it's a storm in a tea cup but I'm starting to doubt that now...
On the topic of Apple he is spot-on, but the fact is Apple's PR team is untrained because Steve Jobs IS the apple PR team - every semi-crisis / etc he addresses personally.
I expect that with critical mass unfolding Steve will come to the rescue, but it illustrates how entirely and completely dependent on Steve Apple is - it's not just product design or inspiration . . .
There was a WaPo article linked here a couple of days ago that included a sidebar photo of Steve during the keynote using the dreaded Grip of Death. :)
It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see Steve Jobs somehow turn this genuine blunder to his advantage, for little cost to Apple, but even greater devotion from his fans. His handling of it so far has been pretty lame, but considering it's not really that big of a problem (there are simple solutions), he should be able to fairly easily knock another one out of the park and come out on top yet again.
Even the Bing cache took a long time to load, so here's the full text:
Apple's brewing shitstorm
By Dave Winer on Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 5:28 PM.
I've been lucky to be in the middle of a number of Internet shitstorms in my life. They've been absolutely surreal, unfair, cruel. No one will listen to your side of the story. People you thought were friends join the pile-on. Etc etc. And then it passes, and eventually you go back to life as it was. I don't want to re-litigate any of them, please -- but I just want to say I know what it's like. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
Now Rex Hammock, who I admire as a friend and as a pundit, wrote a piece about Apple and the crazy situation with the iPhone 4. He's right, but he doesn't quite go far enough in his analysis. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
I don't think the problem is with the iPhone 4. I think what we're seeing is Apple's charm wearing off. The Reality Distortion Field bubble is about to burst. Their run as the Exceptional Company is about to end. And they're going to be the last ones to figure it out. And it's going to be the ugliest shitstorm you've ever seen. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
Why will it be so ugly? Because Apple's hype has been steadily inflating since 1997 when Steve Jobs returned, and it's never taken a dip. They've risen from being written off to being worth more than Microsoft. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
It's also going to get ugly because we're fed up with corporations. It was remarkable that there were no ads for oil companies on the World Cup broadcasts (at least the ones I watched). Can you imagine listening to a pitch from Exxon or BP saying they are working for our energy independence, or to clean up the planet or all the other lies they were telling us while they were taking huge unnecessary risks with the ecology of the oceans? They're smart enough to know now is not the time to be spouting bullshit at us. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
It will be ugly because Apple is going to let it get ugly. Because unlike the oil companies they have no experience with PR disasters. When I read their first public response on July 2, the one that said the problem was the meter measuring the strength of AT&T's signal, I couldn't believe this was meant to be taken seriously. It's the kind of story The Onion might have written on a bad day. Or Jon Stewart. That a corporate PR team wrote this says how unseasoned their people are. That they thought this answer was going to satisfy anyone says how out of touch they are with the world they are in. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
"We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
"Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don't know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place." Permanent link to this item in the archive.
Apple has no concept of what's it like to be disbelieved, untrusted, seen as an American corporation and nothing more. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
I wonder how Apple is going to deal with their first serious virus. Microsoft, when they had to deal with malware, was in denial for years. They thought it was the users' problem. Until they finally saw people switching to Macs (as I did) just to get away from all the crazy shit that was attacking Windows users. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
In 2007, I couldn't believe Apple, a company that was selling itself as the more secure computer, wanted to keep my failed hard disk, one I had paid full price to replace, insisting it was theirs to refurbish. I couldn't accept that they would let all my personal information fall into the hands of who-knows-who, but that's what they proposed to do. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
Apple is a company that desperately needs to grow up and wipe the smile off its face, and roll its sleeves up and start to appreciate that they're no longer the upstart, the underdog, the Crazy One in the Richard Dreyfus ad. They are The Man, the Boss, the one who, from now on, everyone is going to be taking shots at and shits on. Permanent link to this item in the archive.
I use Macs. I'm typing this on a new 27-inch iMac. I stood in line to buy the iPhone 4, in the sweltering summer New York heat. I was pleased when Apple people came out to bring us bottled water. More of that Apple. More care and concern for the people who give you not only their respect and adoration, but also their money. The rules that apply to The Rest Of Us are about to apply to you. Time to get ready for it.
Seriously, I feel like I just wasted 3 minutes of my life reading that article, then 1 minute typing this response. Writer is pissed because he waited in line for iPhone 4 and then his phone loses it's connection when he grips it a certain way. It's not the end of the world. Return the fucking phone and get on with your life. This feigned angst at being slighted by the big bad Apple that ruined your life is getting old.
He doesn't seem "pissed" about the situation at all. He doesn't complain about any personal grief it's caused him. He's stating his belief that this event is going to demote Apple from its infallible position in the public psyche to just another corporation. And I hope he's right.
Oh come on. Apple's response to this issue has been absolutely disgusting. Apple has a gigantic ego and everytime there's some kind of serious hardware issue with one of their products, all you get from Apple is denial. It's disgraceful.
Yeah, this issue isn't affecting everyone, and I agree it's gotten a bit more buzz than it probably should, but the fact of the matter is that the issue does exist and it's affecting a lot of people and Apple will simply NOT admit to it. This is one reason among many why I will never give Apple another cent of my money. They make good products for the most part, but I can't stand their ego/attitude. When they fuck up, they need to own up to it.
Does that mean a Microsoft COO is admitting that Vista is bad then? That is bigger news to me, than anything anyone at Microsoft can say about Apple or Google, they are competitors of course.
And since Windows 7 is just a polished Vista, I am not sure what point he is trying to make?
Does that mean a Microsoft COO is admitting that Vista is bad then? That is bigger news to me
Really? They did that years ago.[1]
And since Windows 7 is just a polished Vista...
That old chestnut, huh? Something like, "Windows 7 is a 64-bit tweak of a 32-bit extension of a 16-bit user interface for an 8-bit operating system for a 4-bit architecture from a 2-bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition."
[1] EDIT: Reading comprehension failure on my part: somehow I missed the capital "COO" in the sentence. However, various Microsoft employees at various levels in the company have admitted Vista is bad.
Read your list, did not see anything that could not be added by a SP into Vista. I see Windows 7 and Vista as no different to XP and 2000, and Windows ME and 98.
Yes, there are new things in each OS, but they are not different enough to warrant being called a new OS.
And linux kernel 2.4 is just a patch away from being 2.6, and os9 is just a patch away from being osX. Just because we like discussions here doesn't mean we have to argue for the sake of arguing.
But there wasn't really anything wrong with Vista. The rebellion against Vista was largely a psychological thing, users revolting because they _hate_ it any time anything changes. I don't think there was any "real" problem with Vista if you were running it on adequate hardware. I guess a big part of the problem was that Vista was getting installed on bottom-rung $300-$500 laptops and dragging everything down.
There's no good reason why Vista shouldn't have been able to run on 1GB ram laptops. It was so slow on my parents (new with vista) laptop that it made me want to scream using it. They upgraded to 2GB, and it was still pathetically slow until SP2 came out and fixed it. It works pretty decently now.
More than 2GB of ram, back when vista launched, for a consumer grade OS? Seriously? That should be a launch-blocking flaw.
I'm not suggesting that their underlying architecture was irretrievably broken, I'm saying that it just wasn't ready for consumers when it was released, and it thus deservedly acquired a bad reputation.
yeah, but if the bottom wrung has 512-1GiB ram, if your OS doesn't run on the bottom wrung, I think it's legitimate to criticize you. If you want the OS alone to eat more than that, you had better bring some compelling features to compensate, and the perception, at least, was that vista did not bring those compelling features.
That's if your bottom wrung hardware ever got driver support. I had an nForce mobo that would bluescreen anytime DirectSound was initialized. It didn't stop BSOD'ing until SP2, and by that point, I retired the computer.
Denial and hesitation seems to be Apple's modus operandi (they aren't the only ones).
As a software developer the bit about their algorithm for determining signal strength is absolutely ridiculous. IMO they probably released an update that actually faked your signal strength in order to cover up the crap antenna. That sounds more reasonable to me.
Does anyone remember how long it took apple to solve that problem? It was despicable and completely disrespectful.
IF Microsoft had the same issue with Windows they would have patched it overnight; not waiting to fix things with the same time table that BP uses to stop an oil leak.
I'm a linux user (#!) and I also own a mac. I use windows professionally for my job. Things do not "just work" on a mac. If you think so then IMHO you're not using much of your OS.
In the end I would choose Linux, Windows , then OSX. I used to claim that Apple's hardware was superior, but never again.
Never again? Despicable and completely disrespectful denial and hesitation?
My counterpoint, not to dismiss legitimate concerns that the huge number of customers affected by crappy AT&T coverage have, is twofold:
Denial is spin, PR. Hesitation is having less R&D resources to do anything about it. It's well known Apple has a smaller headcount than Microsoft, and values certain things more than others.
Mr. Winer and you are totally entitled to your opinions, but mentioning the axes you have to grind in your criticism of Apple aren't great ways to be persuasive.
In order: OSX and Apple's hardware, because its worth owning, and nothing else. ChromeOS(via Hexxeh, at this point) can't adjust screen brightness. Ubuntu can't support 'proprietary wireless chipsets' on first boot - like it should matter. Vista was difficult to use for everything, it was disrespectful anyone got stuck with any of the 7 flavors of that turd. I looked at the font on a blackberry yesterday and could barely make out numbers; it's just so crappy.
Embrace the black plastic of all these windows-bundled laptops, I'll enjoy a machine I need to use for hours on end that feels designed and extruded instead of matte and injection moulded.
I equate Apple's problems to the Nintendo lawsuit over their wrist straps. Not everyone was throwing their controllers through their TV screens, but the select few who did caused an uproar. It also didn't stop Wii consoles from selling like hotcakes either. It took a class-action lawsuit to get Nintendo to take action. The solution was very simple -- give everyone free wrist straps for each of their controllers.
I think Apple needs to take a similar step to alleviate the problem.
Great analogy. You even had the PS3 (Android) and Xbox (Blackberry/RIM?) fanboys fueling the flames because 1 or 2 people threw their Wiimote through a flat screen (held their phone left handed while completely covering the antenna in a bad signal area).
My prediction: On Friday, they are going to announce that there are free bumpers available to all iPhone 4 customers. Total cost to Apple: about $5 a piece. Total sales lost - absolutely zero because everyone that actually owns the phone realizes it is the best phone they have ever had, and a free fix takes care of the only minor issue that it had.
It's not that they can't do it. It's just that they shouldn't have to, and bloggers are loudmouths. It's also "shock" that Apple, reputed for high-quality, "just works" products, would release something that is so basically flawed as a phone that can't really make phone calls without special effort.
My totally technically illiterate wife will return her iPhone tomorrow. I canceled my order. We will wait for the next iteration.
Interestingly we have owned Toyotas forever but for the next car purchase we will look at other manufacturers as well rather than default to a Toyota. For phones, the same is true. The replacement for my 3GS may or may not come from Apple. Before, it was a given that I would stay with Apple.
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.