Half an hour of bullshit then FREE BUMPER.
Can't make them fast enough (should have started earlier), and will last until September 30th.
And if you don't like it, get a refund.
White iphone, blah blah blah.
Still no fix.
Finished his presentation with: "we think we’ve gotten to the heart of the problem, and that is smartphones have weak spots"
Er, no you haven't!
So they've given themselves until September 30th to modify the design and retool.
Does this bloke think everyone is stupid, or does he base this on the average iPhone fanboi?
Let's hope someone asks some tough questions, although I doubt Gizmodo got invited.
Still in denial.Q: Any changes for future antenna designs in iPhone?
A: Steve: We’re still working on this — we’re happy with the design. … we’re getting a lot of reports from customers that it’s way better than the 3GS. I don’t know what our next antenna design will be — maybe our wizards in the antenna lab will come up with something better. But looking at the data, we don’t think we have a problem.
Q: I can't get my Bold to drop right now, maybe you can show me how to do it?
Steve: You may not see it in certain areas.
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?Ryan from gdgt: You showed people almost covering the entire phone in their hand, but on the iPhone 4 it can happen with just a touch. Can you explain that difference?
Bob: When you touch the phone, you put yourself between the signal and your phone, so when you touch that spot you can attenuate the signal, and if you grip it with your whole hand, you can attenuate it even more. We don't build phones with an antenna on top...
"came across my consciousness"?Q: Did anyone warn you about this?
A Steve: I assume you’re referring to the Bloomberg article? Yeah, it’s a crock. … what’s portrayed in that article never came across my consciousness, and I talked to Reuben (sp?) and he agrees it’s total bullshit.
Could they be any more pretentious? What a farce.
Probably true, but what a dickhead way to phrase it.Q: Your investors seem to want you to make an apology of some sort — would you be willing to do that?
A Steve: [Long pause] To our customers who are affected by the issue, we are deeply sorry, and we are going to give you a free case or a full refund. We want investors who invest in Apple for the long haul, because they believe in us. To those investors who bought the stock and are down by $5, I have no apology. If we hit a bump in the road, it’s like having kids.
Still in denial. Still trying to point fingers elsewhere.Q: Is there anything you could have said in the launch keynote to lower expectations?
Steve: I’ve thought about that a LOT. We didn’t fully understand if there were problems at that point. We might have set the expectation that smartphones have weak spots… but the fact is, most smartphones seem to have the same characteristic as the iPhone 4. If you grip them in a certain way they lose signal strength dramatically, especially in a low signal strength area. And one of the things we’ve learned is that as a leader in the smartphone world now, we need to educate. So what we need was data. And now we’ve got some and we’re sharing it now.
He keeps saying "we are working our asses off" but he still won't say "to fix the problem".
(Read: I have no idea how we are going to fix the design flaw, but I've given them until September 30th to do it).Q: After September 30th, is it because after then you expect people to buy a free case?
Steve: It’s so we can reevaluate this in September, I have no idea what solutions may come up.
(Read: No, Fuck off.)Q: If you bought a 3rd party case, will you get a refund?
Steve: We’re not going to refund the 3rd party cases — it’s a very small number because we didn’t sell as many cases because we didn’t share the phone design with case manufacturers in advance of launch. But now we kind of wish there were more cases out there! [heh] It’s really simple why: when people find out about your new product, they stop buying your old products. Sometimes websites buy stolen prototypes and put ‘em on the web, and we don’t care for that. But if we give the designs to case makers, they have a history of putting them up on the web as well.
(Next door to a massive AT&T tower).Q: Do any of you carry your iPhone 4s with the bumper?
Laughs. All three show their phones are bare.
Steve does the death grip to demonstrate.
I wish someone would ask "Are you going to redesign the antenna and fix the problem?" Obviously a vetted invite list.
Ah, someone actually asked that kind of question.
No, they wanted "We are going to fix the antenna problem on the iPhone 4". Another miss.Steve: You can see pictures of a Nokia phone with a sticker on it that says “don’t touch here.” No one has solved this problem. Would I love Apple be the first? Can we make our situation better than it is right now? Maybe, we’ll see, but most of our customers are not experiencing this problem. In actual use, they never encounter it — just like any phone, certain customers will hold it in a way that exposes its weakness, and we want to get ‘em a case. 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.
Didn't answer the question.Q: Did you consider a recall?
Steve: When you love your customers, nothing is off the table. But we want to be data driven. We send engineers to people’s homes with test equipment and take logs…
Bob: For the record, we told them we were coming.
Steve: And we didn’t bash down any doors! [Laughs.]
Can't be bothered with any more of this sanctimonious drivel.
So there it is. A free bumper.
And that's it. Not even a promise of a fix.
If that isn't showing contempt to your customers, I don't know what is.
I leave them still drivelling on about how nasty the NY Times is.
Actually I'll post this last one for Daffy:
We asked if there was possibility of a software fix... based on the NYT article stating an inside source claimed there could be a fix of that type coming.
Steve had a long answer largely dismissing the question. Then Scott Forstall asked for a mic, and he said that the statement in the Times was "patently false."![]()