…and don’t diss your customer, or the media!
Rewind the clock to June 7th 2010. Steve’s on stage at the WWDC in San Francisco. He’s introducing the iPhone 4 and proudly shows off the new external antenna design. Antennae actually, there are two of them wrapped around the side. Steve touts the very Apple-like combination of function (better reception), and form (elegant design).
And now we enter another part of the multiverse. Jobs stops…and after a slightly pregnant pause, continues: The improved reception comes at a price. If you hold the iPhone like this, if your hand or finger bridges the lower-left gap between the two antennae, the signal strength indicator will go down by two or even three bars. He proceeds to demo the phenomenon. Indeed, within ten seconds of putting the heel of his left thumb on the gap, the iPhone loses two bars. Just to make sure, he repeats the experiment with his index finger, all the while making a live call to show how the connection isn’t killed.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature! It’s a trade-off: Better reception in the vast majority of cases; some degradation, easily remedied, in a smaller set of circumstances.
Actually, it’s a well-known issues with smartphones. Steve demonstrates how a similar thing happens to Apple’s very own 3GS, and to Nokia, HTC/Android, and RIM phones. Within the smartphone species, it’s endemic but not lethal.
Nonetheless, adds Apple’s CEO, we can’t afford even one unhappy customer. Buy in confidence, explore all the new features. If you’re not satisfied, do us the favor of returning the phone within two weeks. At the very least, we want you to say the iPhone didn’t work for you but we treated you well. If you fill out a detailed customer feedback report, we’ll give you an iPod Shuffle in consideration for your time.
One last thing. Knowing the downside of the improved antennae arrangement, we’ve designed a “bumper”, a rubber and plastic accessory that fits snuggly around the iPhone 4’s edges and isolates the antennae from your hands. The bumpers come in six colors—very helpful in multi-iPhone 4 families—and costs a symbolic $2.99.
The antenna “feature” excites curiosity for a few days, early adopters confirm its existence as well as the often improved connections (often but not always—it’s still an AT&T world). The Great Communicator is lauded for his forthright handling of the design trade-off and the matter recedes into the background.
If you can’t fix it, feature it.
End of science fiction.
In a different part of the multiverse, things don’t go as well.
Jobs makes no mention of the trade-off. Did he know, did Apple engineers, execs, marketeers know about the antenna problem? I don’t know for sure and let’s not draw any conclusions from the way Jobs avoids holding the iPhone 4 by its sides while showing it off to Dmitry Medvedev:
There’s a more telling hint. Apple had never before offered an iPhone case or protector of any kind, leaving it to third parties. But now, for the iPhone 4, a first: We have the bumper…at $29, not $2.99. (And which, by the way, prevents the phone from fitting into the new iPhone 4 dock.)
As usual for an Apple product, the new iPhone gets a thorough examination from enterprising early adopters, and many of them discover the antenna gap “feature”. As one wrote Jobs:
It’s kind of a worry. Is it possible this is a design flaw? Regards – Rory Sinclair
Steve’s reply:
Nope. Just don’t hold it that way.
Steve, No! Don’t diss your beloved customer. No tough love with someone who’s holding your money in his/her pocket.
A customer complaint dialogue is structured around a two-position toggle: a) it’s terrible, b) it’s nothing. The first one to grab a position forces the other person to assume the only one left. When Dear Customer calls, “Canon Law” dictates the first words out of my mouth: ‘This is terrible, how could we have let this happen to you!’. This forces the caller to concede: ‘Well, it’s not the end of the world, I just would like to…’ A cooperative conversation ensues.
However, if I argue that it isn’t the end of civilization, civility goes out the window. Dear Customer feels disrespected and insists things are awful. It’ll take time to lower the temperature and hear one another.
Steve Jobs’ cavalier dismissal worked as per the theorem: Dear Customer got mad. The media saw red meat, planted its teeth, and won’t let go.
Steve is an habitual offender. In the Summer of 2007, Apple abruptly (and rightly) dropped the original iPhone price by $200, from $599 to $399. Consumers who had bought their iPhones a few weeks or days before weren’t happy.
Steve Jobs’ first response:
“That’s technology. If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well that’s what happens in technology.”
That pill didn’t go down well. A couple of days later, Apple granted early adopters a $100 rebate and the issue went away.
Recently, when a poor blogger kept pestering Jobs about porn and censorship, Apple’s CEO lost patience and lashed out:
By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?
We can’t help but pity the poor schmoe who challenged Jobs to a verbal duel (full text here), although he should have known better. Sooner or later, Steve would call him an ankle-biter. But…now that Steve has risen to the very top of the world perhaps he could morph into a magnanimous sage—and a cautious one, knowing that these exchanges will be milked for all they’re worth in page views.
As I was traveling, I watched the whole Antennagate mess go on and on, including a longish letter from Apple ascribing the problem to the algorithm used to report signal strength. Too late. As in our sci-fi, the facts in that letter should have been part of the announcement.
With the advantage of hindsight, an obvious question arises: Why didn’t anyone in Jobs’ entourage—or on Apple’s Board of Directors—take Steve aside to reason with him, to remind him of a few customer relations tenets?
Well-meaning but not realistic.
We have to take the whole Steve instead of futilely hoping that he’ll shows us the “good parts” while suppressing his darker side. He’s a genius like our industry has never seen. That’s why, in January 2009, I wrote that we owe him seven statues.
With the possible exception of the Dalaï Lama, our highest achievers aren’t the most pleasant of people. It’s the darker side that fuels their creativity and their relentless pursuit of a vision.
If you want the life energy and the economy of his sublime drawings, you have to accept the real Picasso; you want Kind of Blue, make peace with who Miles Davis was; you want Saint-Laurent’s calligraphs on the Great Wall of Fashion, allow his behavior.
[For good Summer reading, get The Beautiful Fall, Alicia Drake’s amazingly felicitous chronicle of the parallel Lagerfeld and Saint-Laurent years. The book is so “good” Pierre Bergé, Saint-Laurent’s longtime partner, tried to quash the French translation.]
So, yes, I imagine Steve’s lieutenants and directors wincing, but they stick with him because they’ve made peace with reality: Steve is Steve, he’s leading us somewhere, with or without rationality and civility.
We’re now at this past Friday’s “surprise” press event in Cupertino. (You can watch it, minus the press Q&A at the end, here.)
Let’s start with the bad news. Instead of coming out with a simple: “We screwed up, I screwed up. Please accept my apologies. We should have acknowledged the issue when we announced the iPhone…”, Jobs went through a lame “We’re not perfect, smartphones aren’t perfect” routine. Make a clean breast of it and move on.
Second ugly mistake: Blaming the media. Claiming “this has been blown out of proportion”, and whining that “after 34 years you’d think we would have earned some trust” throws more red meat to bloggers and journos. Steve needs to accept there’s payback going on: You can’t dismissively lord over the media and not expect them to kick you when you’re down.
It was a welcome and disarming idea for Steve to play the Antenna Song at the beginning of the conference; less so to imperiously declare there was no Antennagate—that’s for the media to conclude.
The Magnanimous Steve would have said: “We’re proud to be held to higher standards, and we embrace them even if we sometimes fall short.” Everybody nods and moves forward. Complaining about the media when they’ve done so much for Apple (and for themselves in the process—it’s a codependent relationship) isn’t a winning move.
Now, the good news: The numbers. Moving past the sales volume (3 million units, despite the media storm) there are the returns and dropped calls. According to Jobs, AT&T’s retail operation reports a 1.7% return rate for the iPhone 4—compare that to 6% for the previous iPhone 3GS. The rate of dropped calls appears to be 1 percentage point higher for the iPhone 4, a statistically insignificant difference. (After the conference, a few reporters were invited to visit Apple’s on-campus $100 million wireless testing lab.)
More good news for Apple, the iPhone carries features such as FaceTime. This is likely to be the great sales virus that infects families, as Apple very well knows. They hired Sam Mendes, the director of American Beauty, for their first FaceTime commercial, the fifth in the gallery here. Pulling at the heartstrings, shameless, effective. I like Mendes’ last segment the best, two people using sign language over the videophone.
Eventually, Antennagate will be forgotten, leaving only a scar—or a bumper—on an otherwise accomplished product.
Let’s end on a poetic note.
I used to think Apple folks were atheists…until the Jesus Phone. Then they saw the path and the light: only a divine creator could have had the iPhone in mind when iTunes was hatched to bestow upon the iPod its lasting market power. The iPhone comes out and iTunes becomes the godsend that begot the Apple App Store with its five billion downloads. Erstwhile heathens, now believers.
Did that same god just sting Steve to remind him of her existence — and powers?
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72 Comments
Obviously Steve/Apple have given journalist untold opportunity to write stuff and to perpetuate their existence…. but enough already !!!
I enjoy the creation of all good products, it advances our race, makes our lives more pleasant and more interesting. There are far to few developers or creators of truly great products because they are a special breed. I liked the parallels you drew between other great artists and the fact that we have to take their quirks along with them.
Personally I think the media should get off their horse and ride someone else for a while, someone more deserving, someone contributing less to the world.
Video calling, multi tasking, folders, and super fast processing isn’t functionality exclusive to the iPhone.
Nor is the iPhone first to market with this technology.
What Jobs should be praised for more than anything else is the ability to package this functionality in a simple and easy to use interface, and the ability to market it to the masses.
Yes, Jobs is exceptional. I agree that the iPhone doesn’t really innovate with FaceTime but, the beauty of it is, it’s the most simple (therefore, easy) and beautiful implementation of video calling. And nobody beats Apple at that. Not even an Android with lipstick…
I love your blog, appreciate your insights, and am worried I’m going to sound like a hopeless fanboy. So please don’t take this to be some kind of dismissal of obvious fact or something.
Is it really accepted that the “problem” is as you describe? I have read so many times recently that “if you bridge the antenna gap with a finger or hand you’ll drop two or three bars.”
I only have ready access to two iPhone 4 units so I’m obviously not able to comment generally. But I can rarely actually make this signal reduction happen on either unit. Neither phone has a case of any kind. On my own phone, I can manage it in one place in my house, which is the one place my old iPhone 3G never got service at all. At church, where I also had very spotty coverage with my 3G, I get reliable service on the 4, and even there, touching the gap with a finger, thumb, or palm makes no visible change in my 1 bar of service, and everything keeps working well. In more places, if I wrap my hand around the phone and squeeze tightly, I can sometimes get it to drop a bar or two if I have less than 5 bars to start. But again, it never has any obvious impact on actual service, and I have to squeeze so hard it would be unrealistic to expect it to happen accidentally. I’ve never had any accidental call drop because of this, and I’m happy that my new phone gets good service where my old one didn’t regardless of how I hold it. Other people I know who actually own the phone have similar experience. I haven’t met anyone “in the wild” yet who has any kind of problem as it is described.
I have heard that some people out there quickly and reliably drop bars or lose service just by touching this spot. It makes me think this whole thing is exacerbated by a few faulty phones with some kind of exaggerated sensitivity.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that the often repeated explanation of the “problem with the antenna” is, as far as I can figure out, a myth. It is not at all true in general that touching the spot kills your signal.
I think apple laid down the gauntlet. If this is a significant problem for iphone4, then it is a problem for all. Apple initially said the status quo wasn’t a problem, then the blogs ran with the controversy. Friday apple said it was a problem, offering a fix but in a way that should force all manufacturers to also offer a solution. The potential ace in the hole is if apple thinks they can have a real solution in the future, while the incumbents won’t (given their inability to do so over the past decades).
@Geoff: You must be in a good reception zone. In my case, I can reproduce the antenna problem quite readily. It looks like this is much easier to do if you are in a bad reception location. That’s my case in this AT&T Thirld World wireless town called Palo Alto. There are places on the Stanford campus where there is no reception at all, zero, nothing. How could Stanford and AT&T let that happen is beyond me. But then, I’ve seen how the city’s administration works, unprintable.
This said, in our house, I couldn’t make/receive calls with my 3GS, I had to run out of the house. I can now make those calls — most of the time. Sigh…
See this for more on Jobs, AT&T and cell towers: http://tcrn.ch/jobsatt
Finally an objective post about this whole antenna issue. I have not yet experienced it myself, but I think everybody should just take it down. Media, Jobs, everybody! Great post!
And thank you for catching this last scene of the new FaceTime commercial. I am not the only one to think these few seconds just show how much apple is (has been) making a change BIG TIME in telephony… Let’s not forget that!
Wonderful post, the SF version is what should have gone down. And I forgot all about the original iPhone price drop controversy and his first reaction to that. Steve said two other things that were real brain burners that day:
http://mikecane.tumblr.com/post/829156040/the-two-wtf-from-steve-jobs
So, yes, we get to see the real Bad Jobs too. Ugh.
@Geoff I’m glad you’re unable to reproduce and/or experience the antenna issue first hand. As for myself, holding the phone they way I’ve held all of my other smart phones, the signal flat lines and can even go to “no service”. I’ve tested a total of five iPhones and experience the same on all of them, all iPhone 4.
BTW, this is not with the “death grip” or whatever. This is simply holding and using the phone, and I’m generally unaware of it until the signal degrades to point of noticing how slow a page is loading, etc.
I’m disappointed with the “fix”, as the “fix” destroys the look and feel of the phone overall, at least for me.
I’m not your typical user, I’ve probably owned and used more cell phones in the last six months than most use over a few years time – the only phone I’ve ever experienced this with is iPhone 4.
Having said all of the above, I should also say that iPhone 4, when it retains it signal, is one of the nicest phones I’ve owned.
FaceTime is a scam. I’ve had video-calling on my Motorola A920 over 3G since 2003, it’s always been a one click process.
@Charbax: I downloaded the 2003 vintage Symbian-based Moto A920 manual. You’re right, it dies feature a very simple way to make a video call. This leaves me a little puzzled: what happened to that phone or a successor? How well did it or does it still sell? JLG
good article. i love apple
Great post, Jean-Louis, but I have a bone to pick with one item: those ‘lieutenants’ around Steve should not be let off so easily. For all Jobs’ accomplishments, he remains the CEO of a *public company*. They should absolutely speak up and I think this antenna problem will not die as Jobs hopes until Apple actually fixes the problem.
I have long loved my iPhone and admired Apple for understanding that in these new devices we still call ‘smartphones’ that the phone is merely a feature. That said, this feature needs to work!
great post, aplle should feature it
Very well put, Monsieur. In this world perception is way more important than reception.
oh well, whatever problem the iphone 4 had, the apple fanboy will always buy it
@J-LG, I’m interested in the story of people trying to take over the narrative of Apple. We’ve long seen anti-Apple bloggers and commenters on blogs; if the article is about the time of sunrise, these people will chip in about how mindless Apple fanbois are. (Yes, maybe this ugly construct is meant to imply woodheads.)
Recently, we have had three really big stories that involved Apple products and invited others to impose their views.
First, the Flash-on-iPhone story. To my eyes, this went critical mass in mid(?)-April with Lee Brimelow’s “Screw you, Apple” post. Apple.Com’s manifesto on Flash was rather less intemperate, I think along the lines you might ask. But the media picked up on the story that Flash is not on smartphones because Jobs is a jerk. Now that Adobe has gotten its CS5 upgrade out to customers, the story seems to have mostly disappeared. I smell a conspiracy, a strong commercial interest that happened to paint Jobs as the bad guy. Should Apple have responded more harshly or more passively?
The next was the “blood minerals” story that ran briefly and only in our more liberal media, e.g., the NYTimes. I thought the campaign was pure concern-whoring, since they called out Apple disproportionately to its use of the 4 minerals. (E.g., every light bulb with a filament uses tungsten; Apple and other smartphones use only a smidge.) As somebody who somewhat cares about these issues, I thought it badly mis-targeted. Sure enough, as soon as Apple posted a statement that they try, but can only try, to ensure buying these materials from outside conflict zones, the press coverage dropped. Obviously, whatever parties actually help support warring factions made no change whatsoever. I never saw any press commentary about Apple’s statement, although a couple reported it; I never saw any other company even asked to comment. Should Apple have responded differently?
And now Antennagate, which you so accurately characterized.
In each case, Apple lost control of its narrative, which it seems to cherish. Antennagate seems to have been the second hijacking of the iPhone story by Gizmodo. If Jobs cares as strongly about the press perceptions as he seems to, the incident will have a lasting impact on Apple’s operations. They will become MORE secretive and less interested in taking chances, the very traits that can cause these incidents.
In this way, these incidents DO affect the engineering and design. I don’t think it’ll be for the better.
I haven’t got an iPhone 4 and no plans to get one anytime soon. I have tried it in an area which is notorious for cellular signals – my home – where I have to walk around the house/garden to pick up a signal, and it is no better or worse at holding a call than any other Nokia, Samsung or iPhone that are in the house. Course no one I know deploys the ‘death grip’ ’cause if you were making a long call your hand would hurt.
People are very adaptable – objects usually aren’t. When the original iPhone was launched many media names said that typing on a screen would never work satisfactorily, especially on a small screen. Don’t hear much about that any more, do you? Why? Cause people have adapted to finding their best way of doing it well – not perfectly – just well.
And that’s what they’ll do with the iPhone 4 – adapt to holding it to keep the best signal if they ever have the problem.
The only people wanting to ensure that the ‘debate grinds on’ are those with nothing better to do. Be positive, show Apple up, make a better mobile. Do something constructive, but move on.
that’s interesting article…
thanks for sharing the info..
Apple should just fire steve jobs,
ups forgeth that steve own apple
” Antennagate: If you can’t fix it, feature it! ”
And call it a Fixture…
Apple isn’t a creator, it merely copies and increases “style”.
They’ve said that themselves, so having a go at a blogger over creativity is kinda rich considering the source. This is the company that ripped off the Beatles company in name, brand and idea..
I do like their marketing though, the best part about Apple, is the part so many people ignore.
PR is second to none, they can sell whatever they want to whomever they want at any price they choose. The only company with a fanclub instead of a customer base.
Nice post btw, less religious than most.
Seriously, why would someone want a bumper on their phone? Because its such a smart idea Apple’s competition, HP and HTC builds them into their phones.
@WaltFrench: another episode were the suicides at Foxconn, a chinese company with over 400,000 workers that is the main Apple contractor but also works for every other known consumer electronics company. For some reason Apple’s name and no other appeared on the headlines…
If you are rich and famous you’re prey to the media, for the better or worse.
Seems like indeed apple pr has done fine since you repeat what jobs said without checking the context.
He said the same thing happened to several other phones like nokia, etc.
Yes all phones lose signal strength when you hold/short the antena, however thats why they dont place the antena in places you will actually grab.
The design flaw in the iphone 4 isnt putting an antena, its where they placed it.
Jobs gets away with it because of people like you that listens to his “facts” without thinking for yourself (the issuemost people have with apple fans).
Your mileage may vary with this problem – each person’s skin has different electrical characteristics based on your body chemistry. This means that some people have higher conductance – you conduct electricity over your skin better – than others. So, while John may have serious issues with this flaw, Frank may hardly notice it. Also, as another pointed out, you could be in a solid coverage area and the flaw may have lower impact for you as well.
C’mon, this is not a car with failing brakes or an oil spill at the bottom of the ocean! Those things put poeple’s lives and well being and the environment at risk. This is just a cellphone, for god’s sake.
The human body is basically a bag full of water that interferes with radio waves. It interferes with every antenna. In the case of the i4 that effect is more pronounced because the antenna is external and people touch it directly. Because it’s external it also offers better reception that offsets that effect.
It’s not a problem, it’s a feature. Get used to it. If you don’t like, just don’ buy it. If you already have it, return it and get your money back. What else?
Good article.
Apple sucks!
Don’t mean to be a nitpicker BUT: Antennae refers to insects and is a biological term. The plural for antenna, in an electronic context, is antennas. I edit tech manuals for the Navy and it’s an error I see often. Check it out on Google.
Three points,
1. I have seen this “piling on the leader” phenomena before; in the 1980′s-1990′s, whenever IBM or Compaq issued a PC recall …it made big news. But Packard Bell and others had more leeway ….. no one expected much from them.
2. Apple captures much more than there fair-share of media attention and ink. Most of time, this works to Apple’s benefit. I think the numbers (record sales and low return rates) fooled them into complacency.
3. Consumer markets are “hits” driven. By all measures, the iPhone4 is another hit.
Anntennagate will be forgotten soon.
I wonder of the after affects inside of Apple …. will Apple become gun shy about innovation or do they (I hope) get serious about wireless reception and establish iPhone as the best in wireless reception?
-Tek
http://twitter.com/tektonikshift
@Andy: Thanks, antennas it is. I can’t resist: antennae for bugs, antennas _with_ bugs
JLG
@anon: Sorry. I _did_ check. I did check at home, one 3GS and two Blackberries from my children. Confirming what Richard wrote, signal attenuation varied with family members, max with my sweaty palms. Also check on-line at daringfireball.net, a number of videos showing attenuation on a number of products as well as user instructions regaring the “better” handling of some devices. This said, no excuse for late/lame disclosure or cavalier dealings with inquiring users or media. JLG
@Jean-Louis Gassée
Re the comment about the Moto A920. You should know that video calling has been part of the 3GPP specs since 2000 and widely implemented everywhere in the world except the US since the early 2000′s. Pretty much every 3G phone released in the world with a front-facing camera (and that is most of them) supports video calling. It is as simple to use as making a normal phone call. Apart from some quality differences and being only a 3G vs WLAN feature there is absolutely nothing new or special about FaceTime.
@Brian S Hall,
You and many others are not paying attention. Apple can’t “fix” the problem because nobody has fixed the problem to date. That was a large part of Jobs’ message on Friday. This is a problem that persists in the industry, and Apple is working their butts off to fix it.
Armchair quaterbacking is not going to magically make them bend the laws of physics. I’m sure they will come up with a fix eventually, but just telling them to fix it is like telling Sarah Palin to stop being a dope making up words like “Refudiate.” You can’t tell someone to do the impossible by telling them it’s easy.
@Eric: the problem can´t be solved by antenna design itself but maybe, just maybe, it can be fixed in the signal processing by software.
I even sent a mail to Mr. Jobs about this, bur for sure it’s not going to reach him. But anyways it’s like this:
«The main antenna “problem” with the i4 is that touching the ridge on the lower left side in between the 2 antennas with just a finger has a large effect on signal drop.
Then do this:
– detect by touch sensing that the dielectric area is being touched
– if so the signal processing algorithm should decouple the 2 antennas
Ok, someone already told you that, but anyways…»
They sure have the PhDs and geniuses to take care of that.
It may also have an overheating problem. A co-worker was out at the lake (in Texas) and had the phone out. It started to beep and then shut off.
I gotta say – all those people who camped out overnight to be the first to buy the brand new (synonymous with unstable) iPhone got exactly what they deserved. Never, ever be the first to use a new piece of gear – you’re just asking for trouble.
There may indeed be a multiverse with a number of variations of mobile phone history out there. One where no iPhone was ever developed and Google’s Android phone would now look like a weird BlackBerry ( http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/12/a-visual-tour-of-androids-ui/ ), or one where Palm became the game-changer with their webOS Pre, or one where Microsoft captured the consumer market in smartphones and we would all be talking on Kins now (well, maybe not that…).
In any event, we all live in our version of history, and the iPhone, whether you want to admit it or not, redefined the mobile industry in 2007. Like all game-changing products (and all products in general), it is flawed, but the trade-offs have been such that many, many regular folks have purchased it and really like it. With this success comes a certain amount of notoriety. Microsoft’s Windows has unparalleled market share, but also legions of detractors and haters. Apple is still not used to being the big fish, and has historically very poor PR. After so many years as the underdog, their corporate culture is loath to adapt. They are still risk takers at heart–just witness the external antenna of the iPhone 4. Over the last decade, most of the risks have paid off, but inevitably, a risky move can become a liability.
Apple is now a big target, and any flaw or problem with their products is a big bullseye for their own growing legion of critics and detractors. The iPhone 4 antenna is flawed, but not fatally so. Anyone who says that the new iPhone can’t make calls is just plain wrong. If I “hold it that way” the signal bars go down, usually to two bars, but I can still usually (that is to say, 99% of the time) make a call. And we need to be realistic about this. Any mobile phone in a marginal signal area may get better reception if you hold it differently–we’ve all seen the scene on TV or in the movies where someone is walking around with their mobile held up high, hoping for a signal, or on top of their car hood beseeching the mobile gods to connect them. It’s something that we can all smile at and relate to.
With this very visible and reproducible flaw, Apple now has to take its lumps just like behemoths like Sony, Microsoft and Toyota have had to in past missteps. And that’s fair. As consumers, we need to be able to complain about products that don’t meet up to our quality standards. Apple, as a historically responsive maker of good products, will likely learn from this mistake, and their products will hopefully get better. And if they don’t, they will pay for it by losing a lot of customers.
I didn’t invest in a smartphone because I wanted a great phone. The little handheld computers that have come to be known as “smartphones” are not great phones–dedicated candybar “dumbphones” are the ones that get the best reception. I wanted to do more with my handheld device than make phone calls. And that’s a tradeoff I can live with. Personally, I love my new iPhone 4. It gets better reception (for the most part) than my previous iPhone (3G), it is much faster, it has better battery life, it’s an iPod (no one ever says this, but…it’s an iPod!), it has a terrific still/video camera, it has a beautiful high resolution screen, it has the App Store and it feels really good in my hand. I can usually hold it anyway I like, but sometimes, I need to not “hold it that way” to make a call, and I don’t mind. It’s simply not a deal breaker for me.
Apple’s response to “Antennagate” may not be enough for a lot of people. The good news is, Apple will probably make a better PHONE the next time around. In the mean time, Apple may experience a speed bump in growth, a lot of haters will enjoy their cathartic collective gloating, and I will go pick up a free bumper case, although I probably won’t use it very much because I have never used a case for my iPhones, and frankly, I don’t really need it. Honestly, for me, the trade-offs with this phone are hugely stacked in favor of the positives.
And remember, fellow consumers: if you’ve tried an iPhone 4 and don’t like it, you can return it for a full refund (no restocking fee). Nobody’s forcing you to use it, and there are a lot of really good competing products out there from which to choose.
For me, it’s a great device, if only a merely good phone.
@Jody Thanks for the comment about video calling being part of th 3GPP spec ans implemented everywhere in the world except the US. I frequently travel in France and various Euro countries, a bit less to China and HK, Japan, Korea and Canada. Nowhere have I seen videocalling in popular use. Can you help us understand this state of affairs? Do you have numbers dosumenting actual use, as opposed to the number of video-calling-capable handsets?
Surely, Apple didn’t invent videocalling. Let’s see if they are as successful as “making the mayonnaise take” as they seem to be doing with tablets. For tablets, the industry has been trying for more than three decades.
Skype video calling clearly broke the path. JLG
Actually, this antenna feature does sound like a feature. Before if spouse called about picking up milk, etc. you had to fake bad reception. But with GPS chips, she may notice you’re in a clear reception area. Now you can be honest and say your fingers are slipping and you’ll probably loose a couple of bars and her call.
Then you can go to those couple of bars for a drink instead of doing errands. Thanks Steve. Job well done!
Good idea John, maybe next time my mom call me i could use this feature
nice article…. thanks ….
I agree that the iPhone doesn’t really innovate with FaceTime but, the beauty of it is, it’s the most simple (therefore, easy)
good article
@rio –
You don’t think that making Facetime the easiest and best is not being innovative? You’re confusing innovative with inventive.
It’s really work, by using this feature i succesfully avoided task from my mother
I don’t hold the phone closer then six inches from my ear, nor my hand, IF I can avoid it due to the “electromagnetic plume”.
I still have, and always have had reception problems from time to time with all cell phones.
There are two problems here.
BTW: I love my iPhone because of OmniTuner, iLehra and all the other amazing PDA apps, and the remarkable browser.
The whole antenna thing is a media tempest as Apple quarterlies prove. Of course anything that would get Chucklehead Schumer to demand action is obviously a non-issue so why go on and on about how Jobs could have handled things better?
Sure he could have. Giving out limited edition iCondom 4′s would have shunted this story off the main line. However, I kind of like the fact that Jobs didn’t get it right. It makes him more human. We know the stories of his perfectionist behavior and anyone suffering this probably doesn’t see it as an endearing trait. The fact that the product is more often than not a winner attests to the value in this. If Jobs were also a “common man” enough to see the easy way out of this, it would also mean he didn’t have the pride and hard-headed attitude to make sure his products went out the way HE wanted them.
So how about move on to something more important and interesting? I’m really tired of the fanboys…how about go explore RiM’s new OS or something useful?
@ohm Adams: the 3G also shut itself when it got too hot. Reports and my experience was when very far from a base it would use max power to try to send it’s “here I am” and eventually shut down in self-protection. Nothing new or surprising here.
What happened to the comment I posted here July 18 before 6:24 pm MDT? Seems to have disappeared. See my Twitter timeline to see that I did comment. See http://tl.gd/2l5b4n for my reply to @gruber RE his quoting Farhad Manjoo who made basically the same point the following day.
@Jean-Louis Gassée
It seems that the simplicity of video calling has little to do with the uptake of the feature. 3G video calling is about as simple as it gets (choose voice or video in most Nokia phones). But as you pointed out even though it is now ubiquitous in Europe and extremely simple to use no-one actually uses it. I myself have had a video capable phone for years and have made maybe two or three video calls just to try it out. But on the other hand I use Skype (from my PC) several times a week.
Video calling got off to a bad start in Europe despite it being one of the major advertised features of 3G because of several issues. Video calls between different operators were not possible initially. Then price gouging made the video calls far too expensive. But now these are not an issue and many plans now include free video call minutes just like voice minutes. But even when calls are effectively free they still account for just a percent or two relative to voice calls. From what I have read elsewhere the figures are so bad that most network operators have stopped separating out statistics for video calls.
The only advantage I can see that FaceTime might have is call quality. Because of the bit rates involved in 3G video the quality isn’t so great. But I don’t think that accounts for the lack of use. I just think that in general people don’t care for video calling outside of a few special use cases.
Still, it is amusing to see Apple’s FaceTime advertisements and realize that the European network operators were using basically the same themes in their 3G video calling advertisements in 2004.
STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT – ACTUALLY IT IS, AND WITH 100% CERTAINTY
Appreciated your post, but had to comment on an error that several others have made when discussing Jobs’ data:
The increased number of dropped calls from 3GS to 4 is absolutely statistically significant. It would be significant no matter how small or large the number because AT&T is not sampling a subset of calls: They know the exact number! This is an actual count made from every single call in the country, not a sampling. If it was a sample, statistical tests could tell us with a precise degree of certainty (say 95% certainty) whether the difference in the sample was also a difference in the population at large. We don’t have to make that inferential leap from sample to population, since we have the population data here. We can say with 100% certainty this difference is statistically significant (or if you prefer: “real”).
The more important question is whether number of dropped calls is large enough to be meaningful. There are two problems in answering this question. One is that statistics cannot tell us what number or effect size is meaningful in the real world. This depends on one’s perspective (or circumstances) I’m afraid. If you need that “one” dropped call in an emergency situation, then it is very meaningful. If you can deal with waiting and then redialing once or twice a day, then even a very large “effect size” might not be all that important. The second problem is that Jobs did not give us the actual effect sizes. If 1/100 calls being dropped amounts to too large of an effect size for you, then one would assume the 3GS exceeds this threshold too … but we have no way of actually knowing. If your threshold is closer to 1/10 calls, then we simply do not know if any iPhone will work for you. They might both work. Also possible only the 3GS would come under your threshold. But Apple and AT&T didn’t give us the data to make that decision (as Steve said: he “totally agreed” that they shouldn’t).
Long story short, don’t use the language of statistical significance to make this seem like it is an insignificant number. It might be. It might not be. But it has nothing to do with statistics (descriptive, inferential, or otherwise).
@Scott, good point but another way to look at it is as a sample of the types of calls that callers will make in 2009; the cited data is a sample of that larger population. It has a different mix of locations, users, types of use, etc. In that sense, and with huge number of variables, that 1% delta may not hold up in the future. Fr’instance, if all iPhone4 users get bumpers and/or education that shape their call experience, the delta could go negative.
And what we care about is not so much what happened as what is likely to happen going forward.
Another context is WHY the call dropped. If 2% of calls drop overall, and half are due to AT&T congestion while the other 1% are due to losing a weak signal, a 1% increase would suggest that the iPhone4 is twice as likely to drop a call due to weak signals. If 98% of calls originate in strong signal areas, and 2% in weak signal areas, that’d mean the weak-signal-failure-rate went from 50% to 100%.
My personal experience suggests it’s not so dramatic. I think my iPhone4 has better weak-area performance than my 3G. Maybe it’s because I find it uncomfortable to talk when my fist is wrapped around the phone: my knuckles press against my cheek; the square edges make me favor holding it by my fingertips. So many variables that you’d like not to have to wonder about, even if the statistical musings are fun for a bit.
woops, 2010!
@Scott: You’re right. I should have been more cautious. The way Jobs “drops” the dropped calls numbers in his presentation leads to a number of possible interpretations. As a result, I coud/should have written something like: “the meaning of that number is unclear, Jobs isn’t giving us actual numbers…”
With all caveats hereby stipulated, I’ve asked iPh 4 (and former 3GS) users here in Palo Alto, a place, the heart of Silicon Valley, where AT&T provides terrible service. How about call quality? Better, worse, same? I got shrugs. Nothing notable either way. JLG
Jean,
Would you say iPad merits the 8th statue?
Or is the jury still out?
@Jean-Louis Gassée
Is there a way of asking you a question privately? Sorry for posting this here but I could not find a more direct way.
OTHER STATISTICAL “LIES” —
Been surprised at the lack of discussion about two other ways Steve might have used statistics to mislead.
—————————-
1. He only reported AT&T return “rates”. Why not report Apple Store return “rates”. This is a glaring omission and leads to only one logical conclusion: Apple has had more returned than AT&T has, perhaps a lot more. Also given that we are talking about a rate, we need to know the unit time. Wouldn’t be surprised if a different unit of time was used for the 4 vs. 3GS. If true, the direct comparison of these two “rates” would be a very intentional lie. Like saying I’m 175 tall and you are only 5.75. Basically useless information to an educated person, but clearly implying that I’m taller to the uneducated. I may be taller but you can’t tell from these numbers. As soon as I clarify that I’m reporting my height in cm and yours in feet, an educated person can do the math and figure out that we are actually the same height. There is no such thing as a rate without a unit time, though we hear the term used without specifying a unit time constantly in the media and Steve very likely took advantage of that fact. In spite of the true popularity of the 4, I’m inclined to believe Steve told a lie on this one. He didn’t explicitly say anything false. But he very intentionally misled.
———————————————
2. Likewise, when he described the .55% Apple Care complaint “rate” as low, he did not specify the time window. He just said “first few days”. A rate is a unit of measurement that includes (by definition) a unit of time. He did not give us a unit of time, so the .55% figure is utterly meaningless. He could be talking about the first 2 days of sales for the iPhone 4 and saying these figures are much smaller than what we typically see after selling a device for a month. Well no kidding! Again, since he didn’t specify what time units he was using in his comparison, he did not explicitly give out false data. But by comparing two values on different scales without clarifying that they were not measured on the same scale, he very purposely misled us. Again, I don’t know for sure these were different scales, because he never told us what the scales were. But even the less cynical half of me says it is very likely that he mislead us all with these unitless “data”.
Why am I so convinced that he misled us? Because he was not willing to explain the real difference between the iPhone antenna issue and other antenna issues. By this point, he has to know what these differences are. With 18 PhDs and all, its just not possible that he doesn’t get it. He wouldn’t have offered cases as a fix if he didn’t get it. But he still won’t come clean, and Apple continues to post videos implying that the problem is the same for the 4 and every other phone on the planet. That’s simply not true and his engineers know it, and he knows it. Now it may be true that the 4 has better reception than other phones in many scenarios. But this is something he could have explained. Instead they have shown that they are willing to lie to get through this. Would I do the same in his place? Possibly if I believed the success of my company and my life’s work depended on it. Otherwise, no, I’d just come clean, explain the true pluses and minuses of the design, and build that trust he claims he has earned but actively demonstrates he has not. The fact that they won’t come clean makes it seem more and more likely that the design was not a proactive choice but a genuine mistake on the part of incompetent engineers. I find that hard to believe really. But the use of misleading info to patch things over seems to suggest the truth would be worse than a string of lies.
oops
Viz Quiz — Took the New York Times Personality Test. Turns out I’m Culture Curious. Take the quiz here http://t.co/Mjpx9wPN
Oh please Scott, statistical lies. Your arguments fall flat because you have zero documentation for your arguments. Zero. All you have is spin to bolster your prejudices.
Eric,
Which argument was that? You don’t specify, and I made several points, at least three major ones.
Also, what prejudice are you referring to? I do have a prejudice against sloppy use (or misuse) of the English language and the manipulative use of statistics. Not sure there are any other “prejudices” relevant to the now very old discussion above.
3) usar a api do twitter e as funcionalidades para melhorar a usabilidade #intercon2011
I’m no prejudiced. All of your arguments fall flat, because they have no basis in proof. Just your assertions which I question because of your obvious bias towards Apple.
See my above comments, Eric. No bias against Apple mentioned, and none held. I use and prefer Macs and use and prefer the iPhone 4, have a strong bias against Windows and a slight bias against Android … just not blind to misuse of English and manipulative use of statistics, and don’t like either when I see them.
I’m not an Apple stock owner, but that’s mostly for lack of cash; and if I was an Apple stock owner I would offer full disclosure when I posted comments online … I think it is the respectful and ethical thing to do in a public discussion.
Okay Scott, so you’re not biased against Apple. Your arguments still don’t carry much weight because of your liberal use of the word “if.”
Eric, So you have stereotyped me as an if-user and therefore as someone lacking the intellectual worth necessary for you to engage in a discussion of substance? Or maybe you just have a strong personal bias against examples? None of my main points rely on hypotheticals.
Either way, it is only fair to let you know that I have stereotyped you as an intentional-time-waster and as a result I will probably not respond to your parting ad hominem attack. I’m not inclined to have my time wasted. Since you were not inclined to engage in the ongoing conversation anyway, hopefully you will not have invested so much in the ad hominem attacks that this comes as an emotional blow to you. May your parting nag provide whatever emotional healing you may need and sustain you in your search for the next conversation or person unworthy of you.
good points and bad too.
I’m impressed, I have to admit. Rarely do I encounter a blog that’s
both educative and amusing, and let me tell you, you’ve hit the nail on the head. The problem is something which too few people are speaking intelligently about. I’m very
happy I found this during my hunt for something concerning this.
Searching digg.com I noticed your blog book-marked as:
Antennagate: If you can’t fix it, feature it! | Monday Note.
I am assuming you bookmarked it yourself and wanted to
ask if social bookmarking gets you a good deal of site visitors?
I’ve been looking at doing some book-marking for a few of my sites but wasn’t certain if it would yield any
positive results. Appreciate it.
goog very admin
dansöz kiralama servisi
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