To alleviate iPhone 4 antenna problems, Apple will give free bumper cases to everyone who bought or will buy the phone through September 30. For people who already bought a bumper case, Apple will refund the cost. Users who are still unsatisfied can return the phone, with or without a case, for a full refund within 30 days. Apple CEO Steve Jobs made the announcement at a hasily-called press conference this morning.
An online application will go live on Apple’s website next week, where iPhone 4 owners will be able to choose a free bumper case from a variety of vendors.
Jobs stressed that the iPhone 4 reception issues are common among smartphones. On the iPhone 4, occur when the phone is held over its lower left-hand corner, blocking the external antenna. Nonetheless, Jobs said, he wants to keep customers happy, hence the free cases and full refund.
If you listened to the press conference, it sounded like “take the case and quit bothering me”. If it were me, I would get a full refund, then wait till they have a fix, then buy an Android. For now you can view the news conference here.
Oh baaaarother
Go feast your eyes upon its wondrous screen. What you use 3G not wifi with it! What a phone!
I guess now Apple won’t gross the $60,000,000.00 or so from selling the bumper.”
Apple still hasn’t admitted that there’s a reception problem unique to the iPhone 4.
[never happen – ed.]
There comes a point were the Fanboys are going to have to grow a pair and stop letting Steve and Apple take them for granted.
Come on guys, if it were another cellphone company, you wouldn’t take this crapola from them…
This could have been a wonderful marketing opportunity:
“For enhanced sensitivity, we announce the new iPhone 4 skin.”
#4. Ha!
I watched the “press conference” coverage on Engadget. Steve should have skipped the Q&A part.
He just looked bad avoiding the obvious questions about knowing (or not knowing) about the problem. He can’t admit anything without facing more lawsuits.
It was stupid to sell the bumpers for $30. Now everyone gets a free one. After Sept 30th, they’d be smart to just sell them for $5.
“We love our users” – that part was hilarious. It reminds me of Mom’s Friendly Robot Company from Futurama.
#6. The Q&A was the best part of the show!
#2 “Apple still hasn’t admitted that there’s a reception problem unique to the iPhone 4.”
Define unique?
From AppleInsider’s Live chat:
“Jobs maintains that he could go on with the list of rival phones that exhibit the same behavior, adding that smartphones are not perfect, overall. ”
“Jobs maintains that the separation in the antennas on the bottom left of the new iPhone exploited the issue. ”
Don’t know Job’s exact words. But He says they have an issue and are working on it. But it says the issue is so small from customer complaints, that he wonders why the Media is making the big deal out of it. So now you can return it if you want to, get a free bumper or wait until you buy a case, or not even buy it.
#9 Jetfire:
It’s unique because no other smart phones have two external antennas that can be accidentally shorted together resulting in loss of signal.
Actually, unlike you said, they are not not giving a ‘refund’ to those who already purchased a bumper case to try to deal with the problem.
They are only giving them a credit to their account. So Apple still keeps the money, and the customer has to buy something else to use it.
I still came away with the feeling that they don’t really think there is a problem and are just giving away the plastic to shut people up. They repeatedly made comparisons with other smart phones and insisted that the iPhone4 is superior. In other words it’s the customers fault for not buying the bumpers in the first place.
The Q&A didn’t go any better as they continued to avoid the question. I was amused that they claimed to have sent Apple employees to visit user’s homes to test the equipment. This was news to me. Has anyone else heard of Apple doing this?
#4,5
Shouldn’t that be i4skin
#11:
Steve Jobs quote: “A free case for every iPhone 4 buyer. If you got one, we’ll give you a refund.”
he said refund. not credit.
PC World also reports it’s a refund.
What, no 10 minute standing ovation?
“Jobs stressed that the iPhone 4 reception issues are common among smartphones.”
If the issue is caused by the hand shielding the signal and not shorting two antennae, then how exactly would giving away a $30 rubber band remedy this?
The joke for me was when he was all preachy about smartphones having this issue as a shared issue.
When he said that, I rolled over to my friends Milestone(Droid) and deathgripped the shit out of it and it never even lost one bar off the graph. And my old HTC Touch only lost 1 bar. To make it spaz out, I had to take the battery cover off and smoosh the antenna that is under tape just above the battery right on my hand and even then, it only lost 2 bars.
My Wife’s HTC Legend is the same. Hug the hell out of it and it still has the same or very close to the same snr.
If you ask me, Jobs cherry picked those 3 example phones as being the ones that are the most sensitive to sig attenuation.
Check out Apple’s videos on the the issue
http://apple.com/antenna/
I here fan boys like Alex Lindsey constantly say “most iPhone users don’t make calls anyway.” That simplifies the solution…….stop calling it the iPHONE! Call it the iThing. Does a lot of incredible stuff and sometimes you can even make a phone call with it.
The thing that Jobs got very weaselly about was the dropped calls issue. He admitted there were more of those than with the iPhone3. He pointedly didn’t say how many.
However if you want your money more than the phone you can take it back. If you want a bumper, which seems to fix most of the antenna problems, you get one free. To me that’s all Job’s needed to do and the rest is up to the customer. If you want it, buy it and if not don’t.
However if you are like Leo Laport and your iPhone has other problems, I say take it back and ask for a trade at least.
Well, I tired of holding my iPhone 4 with salad tongs. I’m getting a refund, pay the termination and getting the Droid X at Verizon even though Motorola has botched that too.
Don’t get me wrong, I still like my iPad and Macs you Microsoft fucktards.
Any other suggestions for a phone?
I’m a Microsoft fucktard and I like my iPad too.
#18 – as the videos show, Apple seems to have gone through a lot of testing to figure out the exact place you’d have to grip a BlackBerry or Droid to make the signal drop.
In the case of the Droid, for example, since the antenna is at the top of the case, it appears you have to wrap your entire hand around the phone, with your finger at the top to affect the signal.
The iPhone4’s problem is that the position that many (it seems) people happen to hold the iPhone4 is the exactly the perfect place to affect the signal.
I’m not an engineer or antenna expert, but it seems logical to me that the antenna should go at the top, as high as possible.
A refund is way better than a recall. There are not many companies that would do that.
How many people that opt for the refund will tell you how many are actually dissatisfied with the phone.
This is the first time I have ever watched Jobs give a talk and the thing that struck me the most was his use of cadence, body language and that he moves from one end of the stage to the other. these techniques are similar to those employed by self help guru’s and evangelical preachers and produces an hypnotic effect.
Back and forth, back and forth, your getting sleepy. Back and forth, back and forth, your getting sleeper. Back and forth, back and forth, your getting sleepy. Back and forth, back and forth, your getting sleeper. Back and forth, back and forth, your getting sleepy. Back and forth, back and forth, your getting sleeper. Now at the count of G4 go out and consume.
[Now that’s just ridiculouzzzzzzzzzzzzzz- ed.]
Mine works better than the Motorola flip phone I used before…
But I wonder how the old Motorola ‘bricks’ would work now with their high power and big antenna..
or, how about a ww2 walkie talkie?
I think it might be interesting to fashion a clipon antenna and have a contest like the wifi distance connect contest…
A urban legend is if you hit transmit on you CB radio (remember them?) while going across the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge you can talk to another planet on the other side of the galaxy…
Hey! amateur radio folks how about it?
#22 – Not you Hop!
#24 – Yeah, you fucktard! 🙂
#24@pedro – “#9 Why are macfans so stupidly blind?? They got a defective device out for sale! You’ve been screwed! Gosh!”
Why do you care? Let people spend money how they please. If they feel they got their bang for their buck that is their choice and not yours.
#29 Because they blindly defend and evangelize about their shiny iProducts all the damn time, despite the many many failings.
You should have heard those 2 shills Andy Whatshisname and Alex Lindsay on the last 2 macbreak Weekly podcasts.
The only way that should could have been worse is if they brought in Scott Bourne who’s unconditional love for sucking Steve off is legendary. He was almost in tears defending apple a couple of years back when they made a small booboo (can’t remember over what though)
The phone has several problems, but they made allowances/excuses and defended EVERY DAMN ONE.
If it was ANY other company’s product they’d have eviscerated it without mercy, but since its an apple they ignore th4e defects and defend EVERY serious issue with it.
Why do apple fans have such a sick emotional dependence on a corporation?
#4. That’s it. Just shove your wonderful trendy fucked- up applephone into a jumbo size condom. Hopefully, a fresh one.
Whatever! It’s simply fun to watch that arrogant shit sweat for his stupid company’s money and reputation.
That is orders of magnitude worse than Ballmer’s infamous monkey dance. At least Ballmer was HAPPY and PROUD of his company, not eating crow before an angry audience who saw their expectations literally vanish in the air.