Haven’t updated this in a while. I’ve been using twitter mostly.

I just watched the Apple press conference that was held on the 16th of July about the iPhone 4. I’ve also been seeing all the reports about what happened and obviously all the coverage up to now about the issues with the antenna on the iPhone4.

I can’t say that there was anything new. Lots of people claiming apple saying there is no problem but then getting annoyed and can’t understand why they’re giving out iPhone bumpers. e.g. Dave Nanian’s tweeted summary of today’s event:

“So, in sum: there is no problem, all phones have this no problem, a case fixes this no problem, free case to fix your no problem. Got it!”

To be honest, I think people will read into this what they want to. For me, Apple did say there was a problem, just not in so many words, PR spin hard at work. For the neigh sayers they didn’t come out with a clear “This is broken, we’re sorry” kind of admission. It’s just not the earth shattering problem that the press would like it to be and would justify some sort of comments like that. The stats Apple presented seem to back up the general consensus of users reports that I’ve read, i.e. “yeah, if I try really hard, then I can make the bars drop. But when I’m actually using the phone regularly, I haven’t noticed anything wrong”. 0.55% of people that bought the phone have contacted Apple support about the issue. According to AT&T, essentially the same percentage of calls are being dropped on iPhone4 as are on iPhone 3Gs, albeit with a marginal increase of < 1 in a 100 calls in favor of the iPhone 4.

I’ve got an iPhone 3G and I can make the bars drop significantly if I hold it in a death grip, as is possible with the majority of other smart-phones, if the user tries. When the iPhone and iPhone 3G came out there where all sorts of complaints from people about signal loss, dropped calls, poor reception etc. I haven’t really see people comment on this lately in relation to the Antennagate story. In fact, I also remember that there was an update to iPhoneOS 2 that addressed a signal bar problem too. Possibly that was the inflation of signal strength representation that has turned around now and bit them in the ass and now rectified in iOS 4.0.1. Shrug, don’t know.

To me, Apple basically said, ‘Yes, there is a problem with the iPhone4 antenna design, BUT possibly all smartphone antennas suffer from the same flaw in some form, it’s just easier to trigger on the iPhone4 ‘cause you can see the spot. Yes, you can loose signal if you hold it in a particular way. If you naturally hold your phone in a way that will cause the signal loss then we’ll alleviate the problem for you by offering you a free iPhone Bumper. If you already bought one then we’ll refund you. If you’re not happy about having to use the bumper then give the phone back for a full refund and no hidden charges.” Apple must be pretty confident in their product and are letting the market decide. 3,000,000 iPhone4’s in 3 weeks ain’t have bad.

So far, the public haven’t had problems with the iPhone4 that warrant them returning them. The stats so far are considerably less than the iPhone 3Gs and the iPhone 3Gs was one of the most successful smart-phones to date. If I recall the figures correctly, for the same period of time after the iPhone 3Gs launch, 6% of phones where returned. So far, for the iPhone4 that figure is only 1.7% I think that says a lot.

My plan for this year was to upgrade my iPhone3G to an iPhone4 and pass the 3G along to my wife. That’s still the plan.