My contract expires this month, and after checking out some of the reviews, it looks pretty good. I'm sure it'll feel like talking into a Pop Tart, but it's between that and the Palm Pre, and the Palm Pre is a little too adorable for my taste. I'll try out both, though.
I heard Steve Jobs's ego is swelling so much that he is going to publically kill himself at the conference. It's going to be biblical.
Stranger things have happened, but opting for a hardware fix can create some logistical nightmares for Apple not to mention a hassle for customers. Look at how Larry Ellison lost in his bid to buy the Warriors even though he was the highest bidder. Weird things are going on here in the Bay Area. I have to say that the Droid X's size isn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's a powerhouse when it comes to smartphones. Of course, if you like the qwerty keyboard, then wait for the Droid 2 which is out in late August.
If you buy the Palm Pre, I might have to kill you. It is AWFUL. The keyboard is so small-put your two thumbs side by side-the keyboard is smaller than that. The buttons are slippery and hard to grip, and the thing is impossible to type on. For your own good, don't get the Palm Pre. Get the iPhone 4, the Droid Incredible, or the HTC Evo from Sprint
Ellison's bid was late, so it wasn't legit. You snooze, you lose. I really don't think Apple's going to make people wait on a repair though. Besides being outside the norm for Apple's warranty procedures on mobiles, it's only going to make this PR nightmare worse than it already is. The smartest thing would be to let people exchange for the new units with the antenna isolation and be done with it. Take care of the customers now, make refurbs out of their new massive stockpile of spares later. Anything else will set the blogosphere buzzing angrily again.
I'm tuning down my expectations for this press conference. I'm going to try to presume that this is just going to announce sales numbers, and probably also return numbers, which I assume are very low. And that may be that. Of course I'm hoping for a free handout our a new design and recall that gets rid of the attenuation completely, but I doubt that's a realistic expectation. And the thing is that I'm getting a better signal and signal in more places then I did with the 3GS, so I am very happy with my iPhone 4. What I hope is that Apple can climb out of this PR nightmare hole that has both been dug for it, and dug by itself. I also hope that Steve Jobs' email privileges have been permanently revoked.
I think most would agree that this antenna issue has been overblown and sensationalized by the media. Having said that, you live and die by the sword so Apple absolutely needs to address the issue in tomorrow's press conference. Apple has played the media to its advantage over the years, and now it's getting the other side of that. Bluntly put, Apple's PR team has done an inadequate job (no pun intended) in dealing and managing this. In defense of the PR team there, Steve comes off as charming and exudes the magnetism fanboys have come to love in the public eye. But, working for him probably isn't the most pleasant of tasks. He probably doesn't take counsel or advice willingly which is why Apple is in the situation it is now. I know everyone thinks Apple is invincible and iTunes will forever be the market leader. But keep in mind, they said the same thing about Microsoft way back when. And you see where they're at now. No one is invincible and Apple better get off its pedestal.
Indeed. Apple's popularity has only grown since Steve came back to the fold; they've never really had to deal with a mountain of bad press, yet here they are in exactly that position, and Steve is going to have to manage it very carefully. Yes, the problem has been overblown, but that doesn't matter. The problem is as big as the media makes it, and he can't excuse it away anymore. Nothing short of an actual, legitimate fix for this problem -- not a band-aid, not a free bumper -- is going to make the media back down.
So, there's the solution then. Free cases for everyone. Meh ... not the fix I was hoping for, but at least they're not just throwing bumpers around; you get a choice of actual cases, so that's not bad. Still, I think they should be coating the outer chassis with something non-conductive so you don't end up attenuating the signal so much. Whatever. At least I now know Canada gets the 4 on the 30th, so I'm going to make damn sure I'm up bright and early to order.
It is a fix to the problem though, as obvious by their low return numbers this has been entirely overblown by the echo chamber of tech blogs who have turned 15,000 people returning their iPhones in to Steve Jobs' Katrina. When you buy something and it doesn't work, you return it. It's as simple as that. For most friends of mine who have iPhone 4's, the reception is substantially better than the 3GS. Hell, as I mentioned before, I can finally get reception in my faraday cage of a bathroom which I was never able to do on my 3GS. If the way you naturally hold the phone bridges the attenuation point, you can get a free case. If you don't feel that's an appropriate solution to your problem, you can return the phone entirely. Given the actual statistics cited by Apple and how few people are experiencing problems compared to the vast majority who are enjoying their new phone, I think this is a pretty good solution.
As mentioned in the conference, the iPhone 4 still isn't available in a good number of countries. Now bear in mind that many of these places suffer from low network coverage and weak signals already... it'll be interesting to see if the rest of the world reacts differently to the US. I have a friend whose brother owns an iPhone 4, they live in the north of England and their reception is average, yet reliable enough with regular cellphones... his calls with the iPhone 4 cut out every single time when it's held "incorrectly". It's not a mere drop in signal, it's a total absence of signal.
