What should Apple do next?
San Francisco, 07:30 BST: There has been plenty of talk about the options that are open to Apple as they deal with this so called "death-grip" malfunction that has resulted in dropped calls for some users.
One avenue is to do nothing, which is clearly not going to happen given that Apple has called today's hastily arranged news conference to discuss the phone.
They would not assemble the world's media unless they had something up their sleeve to kill off the flurry of negative headlines.
Apple could dispense free plastic bumper covers which do seem to resolve the issue with the antenna according to reports. Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray estimated the cost of this plan at just under $180m (£118m):
"One option for Apple is to give away Bumper cases it currently sells for $29. Assuming 85% of all iPhones sold over the next year are iPhone 4s and Apple gives a Bumper away to every iPhone 4 customer, we estimate the company would give away 36m cases at a $5 cost per case for a total cost of $178.5m."
The killer option is a total recall as has been demanded by a number of people. But common sense tells you that Apple is not going to voluntarily go down that route because of the impact on its reputation, its brand and its bottom line.
Toni Sacconaghi an analyst with Bernstein agreed that an iPhone 4 recall is "highly unlikely," but he priced out the cost at $1.5 billion (£1bn).
Other suggestions include an in-store credit as posited by Ryan Kim at the San Francisco Chronicle.
Farhad Manjoo at Slate.com isn't asking for much. Just two words but they are among the hardest to say - "I'm sorry."
And there are reports that the company has a fix in the works and all will be revealed later today.
The word comes from Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, who said the long-term fix is mechanical. "Our supply chain checks reveal that Apple has instituted a design fix for the iPhone 4 that more adequately insulates the transceiver module."
No one is really sure just how many people are having issues with dropped calls, but there is little doubt that from a public relations standpoint this problem has taken on epic proportions as well as giving life to a really bad moniker in the way of "antennagate".
While stories about the so-called "death-grip malfunction" have persisted since the handset launched in late June, the tipping point came earlier this week when the product review site Consumer Reports issued class action lawsuit in the works and New York senator Charles Schumer has joined the chorus of voices calling for action from Apple.
In a letter to Steve Jobs, Mr Schumer wrote:
"I am concerned that the nearly two million purchasers of the iPhone 4 may not have complete information about the quality of the product they have purchased.
"To address this concern, I ask that Apple provide iPhone 4 customers with a clearly written explanation of the cause of the reception problem and make a public commitment to remedy it free-of-charge."
I would bet that any solution will be one that does not interfere or compromise the aesthetic integrity of the product, which it could be argued is at the root of all this when you consider what Bloomberg News has had to say.
According to a story by Bloomberg that got big play, Apple boss Steve Jobs ignored concerns from his own engineers that there could be a problem with the antenna in choosing the design he did.
The report cited unnamed sources who claimed that "Ruben Caballero, a senior engineer and antenna expert, informed Apple's management the device's design may hurt reception."
Bloomberg added that another source told them "a carrier partner also raised concerns about the antenna before the device's June 24 release."
In typical fashion with anything to do with Apple there are many twists and turns to this tale and the company told theWall Street Journal "we challenge Bloomberg BusinessWeek to produce anything beyond rumours to back this up. It's simply not true."
Today is Apple's chance to take charge of the story and get ahead of future negative headlines. The BBC will be there to report on what happens.
What solution do you think they should offer?
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~17~RS~)
Comments
A recall would be a disaster and is a non-starter. Offering a free cover would reduce the phone's aesthic quality which is one of it's main selling points. Store credit would suit Apple fans but wouldn't stop the negative stories.
Apple need to show that it's not as much of a problem as people are making out (I get fine reception and have never had any dropped calls despite living in a low signal area), apologise, and try and move on.
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Free bumpers for all. :D
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Ultimately the free market is going to win out. If it is Apple's long-term financial interests, they will do a full recall. If their finance and strategy folks think that they can get away with something less costly than a full recall and not harm the brand in doing so, they will.
If given the choice though, customers will simply want a new phone though, not a repaired one. Also, no customer is going to be willing to go without a phone while the fix is made. So if there is a full recall, expect 2M refurbs to be on the market selling for $50 lower than a brand new one after this. But there won’t be a full recall…in my opinion.
Or maybe the announcement is just to say that Mel Gibson is going to endorse the new iPhone. That is the rumor I read here.
FUNNY
dailygoat.com/?p=1659
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I think the solution for most people is this: Don't pre-order on hype. Try before you buy and you won't look like a fool next time.
For Apple? They'll still have their fans but this might be too little too late.
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bought an apple computer once. the hard-drive crashed about 3 months later. sent an e-mail to apple.....received no reply. will never buy another apple, they are simply unresponsive to customers.
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A product recall is out of the question as it will cause a crash in Apple share price, Apple will offer a free case to those whose request it.
The problem with the current issue is not a the device (all first releases have issues) but the PR disaster and Steve Jobs comments to customers, it exposed a nasty arrogance in the company who pre-ipod were on the brink of bankruptcy and whose existance today is due to the unwavering loyalty of its fanatical customer base.
Maybe Steve Jobs should simply apologise and say Apple will thoroughly test future products & all future complaints will be investigated instead of rejected as "impossible because Apple is perfect".
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Even while admitting "We're not perfect", which is probably as near to sorry as he can manage, Mr Jobs tried to spin the problem by saying that reception problems were endemic throughout the smartphone industry.
At least we have clue now as to the next excuse by the BBC News website editor for his latest iteration of the site, along the lines of all sites are poorly designed.
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From the BBC website:
"This has been blown so out of proportion, it's incredible” -
Steve Jobs Apple chief executive
I agree, Mr Jobs. And it's your own fault. He who lives by the hype shall perish by the hype.
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Such a non-story from start to finish. All phones get varying receptions depending on where you are: everybody knows this. That's down to the networks. Maybe there is a real issue with iPhone 4, maybe not, but most people buy protective covers for their iPhones and iPods anyway, as they don't want to damage them. I suspect that people feel slightly more disappointed by this particular event because they have greater expectations from Apple, given they make better products than anyone else.
Oh, and post 6: sorry you had such a bad experience. I had a MacPro fail on me last year (the only time in over 15 years of using Macs that I had any problem at all), and Apple gave me a brand new (better) one, threw in an extra 2GB RAM and some other goodies for my trouble.
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I find this really funny.
The general public out there don't really know what goes on behind the scenes getting a handset ranged and approved for use on a network. Its not as straight forward as many think there are all types of approvals the handsets have to go through and self declarations to say the handset performs and works to the 3ggp standards.
These don't happen over night it takes months and months of lab testing. One of the fundamental tests is to test the SAR rate which is basically the handset RF radiation performance.
Now you see this really couldn't have been done correctly or they would have found the problems whilst testing and reporting. Or they knew about the problem and decided to ignore and release any how I will let you draw your own conclusions.
Also everyone relying on a sw fix, this will not resolve the issue unless they try a underhand way and alter the RSSI to make the handset look as if it always has good level of service. However if they take this approach the newtorks will know as they record all drop calls they can tell between a network issue and handset issue.
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I posted before about not being the first to buy the first of anything (why be a crash test dummy?); wait for the 2nd iteration at least.
(Who does buy? There's always the sheep. Sorry guys.)
However Apple to seem to be clawing back some goodwill on this.
Jobs saying "we're not perfect" (not easy for him I imagine), an offer of something for nothing (a bumper) to fix the problem, a refund on the bumper for those that had bought one.
Most of Apple's dedicated user base will probably be satisfied; the real damage may be in putting doubt in the minds of those looking for a smartphone, but not committed to Apple.
Smartphones are nice pieces of kit, and the Apple brand has true kudos (and Apple are innovation [and design] pioneers).
However there are some other really nice pieces of kit out there. e.g. HTC's Desire & Incredible phones; Samsung's Jet, Nokia's N series and so on. Prices are dropping too.
Apple's problem is it is the new Microsoft. In some sectors Apple is numero uno; the market leader (particularly in design and innovation), where they go others follow.
But it's hard staying top of the heap. Problems, however samll, puts doubt in people's minds. This could be Apple's Vista.
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...Steve Jobs says: "OK I'll let you have a refund on this occasion "(why thank you Mr Jobs, how generous)
"ah....but wait! I am keeping all your music, ebooks, software etc. if you dare go elsewhere and buy another (let's face it, much better)handset....."
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It looks like Steve Jobs at Apple didn't want to listen to his RF people whom know that a metal band antennae wrapped around the IPhone4's case was just an instance of "sloppy engineering." As I've stated previously in another BBC forum, the Apple RF engineers should have explored the use of fractal antennaes for the IPhone4. Better signal to noise ratios and superior signal strengths are primary characteristics of fractal antennaes. Dr. Nathan Cohen whilst at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) developed the fractal antennae using the fractal branch of mathematics. In this day and age, you use the latest proven technology and not just a cheap metal band wrapped around the IPhone4 that is susceptible to signal interdiction or degradation by the user's hand. I again appeal for the Apple engineering staff to explore the use of fractal antennaes as a remedy for their current problem of dropped calls. If it's a matter of having to pay a bit more in the IPhone4's manufacturing process, then so be it. At least Apple shall have a viable antennae that handles both fast data packet exchange and normal voice usage. It makes sense for them to pay a bit more for a fractal antennae and not have the extreme embarrassment that Apple are now experiencing whilst trying to market their IPhone4.
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@12 Technically this is the 4th generation so how much longer should people wait? Just a minor observation.
From what I have read this appears to be little more than fuel for flame wars and trolls, which is amusing at times but tedious for the most part.
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Maggie:
my simple solution: is to offered the required items needed to make the phone work better and, if not, then refund the customers money....
(d)
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The whole episode has been so overdone it's ridiculous. It is a proven fact that other phones have antennas that lose effectiveness when the phone is held. That's down to physics. There is no fix for that issue, other than returning to the days when the antenna extended from the top of the phone, and was therefore not surrounded by the hand of the user. Actually I avoided phones with antennas built into the body of the phone for as long as possible, purely because they were never as effective at clinging onto a signal as my old Motorola with it's stub aerial at the top of the phone. It would hold onto a signal way beyond the point other phones gave up.
As for the iPhone 4, the design choice for the antenna has been positive in that it has been shown to hold onto a signal better than most previous models. The design that has allowed that improvement since the 3GS has also introduced a negative aspect where it has made the reduction in signal strength more obvious when a finger creates a link between the two antennas. When in an area with low signal strength this reduction could potentially drop a call (as could happen with any other phone if you grip it in the wrong place).
The fuss made about this is of course mainly because it is Apple. As there are 'fanboys' that go over the top with their love for all things Apple, there is an ever-growing army of anti-Apple people who delight in anything negative about the company and it's products (in that respect Apple is the new Microsoft!). What is most amusing is that they brand anyone who buys an Apple product a sheep while behaving like sheep themselves. Let's face it, if this problem happened with an Android phone the issue wouldn't have travelled any further than the usual tech forums.
As for whether the iphone is a good product, that is subjective. It depends entirely on what a user wants from a device. For some it's the best option, and for others an Android or Symbian devce is better. No-one has the right to insult another because that person bought a device that they wouldn't have chosen for themselves. People have different requirements, so get over it. The fact that some people seem to spend hours posting over and over again slagging off the iPhone suggests a serious level of insecurity in their own choice of phone!
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Like very many others, I have experienced the dropping call phenomena on my recently upgraded iPhone4. However, in my case it seems that apart from the well advertised antenna problem, ANOTHER cause for dropped calls when holding the phone to one’s ear, is that the ‘END’ key may get inadvertently pressed (e.g. by touching my ear,) whilst the screen is still active.
Naturally, having also experienced the antenna problem when a call terminates unexpectedly, the user automatically ascribes the problem to the antenna, when this may not always be the case. Have others noticed this same problem …?
In my view, Steve Jobs needs to also modify the phone screen so that the END key can not get touched in error in this manner.
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Bluepeters-
A problem I have experienced. Not as a user, mind. I've been the poor b*gger on the other end. Trying to talk to a friend who owns the iPhone 4 when they keep terminating the call with their lughole is pretty frustrating to say the least. And then listening to them complaining about it after I call them back to find out what happened.
If my phone had that problem, all I'd need to do would be to fire up X-Terminal, access root and decrease the delay settings for the proximity sensor. But, of course, you can't access root on an iPhone.
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Oooops!! Forgot to say what Apple should do next.
As I said in a previous blog comment: They need to cut the hype. Stop coming on like they've saved the world from disaster. Apple are not the Second Messiah, so they should stop behaving like it.
Be like the rest of them. Do what you do best and have a quiet launch, with a few posters, a couple of adverts on TV and in the press like the other manufacturers.
Hopefully they've learned something from this "Antennagate".
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I think it was totally wrong for apple to lie about the cause of the problem. It is entirely obvious to anyone with a slight grasp on physics that if you bridge the gap between the aerials with a sweaty finger or palm (which would be a fantastic conductor) you are going to have something strange happen to your signal. Trying to pass it off as a software problem is just plain silly as the iphone 3gs (which I chose over an iphone 4) has the same software and no signal problem.
Come on apple lose the pride and admit you made a mega design mistake by attaching one of the most important parts of the product outside the case (which is inherently there to protect the components from short circuiting etc!)
I think they need to issue free bumpers to all customers (to show good faith) and also change the design which is causing the problem and release it as Iphone 4.1 or something.
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