Last week Consumer Reports made quite the commotion by stating that even though the iPhone 4 was the best smart phone they had ever tested, it didn’t meet the standards for reception and thus could not be recommended. Today after the Apple press conference CS made this statement to re-affirm their view:
“Consumer Reports believes Apple’s offer of free cases is a good first step. However, Apple has indicated that this is not a long-term solution, it has guaranteed the offer only through September 30th, and has not extended it unequivocally to customers who bought cases from third-party vendors. We look forward to a long-term fix from Apple. As things currently stand, the iPhone 4 is still not one of our Recommended models.”
Although it has been reported that CS has not tested a large number of “recommended phones” from their list as stringently as they have the iPhone 4, their statement is a fair one. Perhaps this type of negative press will cause Jobs and Apple to rethink their stance by September 30 when the free case offer ends.
Today at a special press conference on Apple’s Cupertino CA campus, Steve Jobs announced that there will be no hardware fix for the iPhone 4 . Instead, Apple will be giving out free rubber “bumpers” as a fix to the reception issue to all users who buy the iPhone 4. Refunds will be available for those who already bought cases to fix the issue as well.
During the first half of the conference Jobs explained how this issue occurs with almost all smart phones. He claimed that the issue is not as bad as it is perceived to be explaining that the problem is with bar algorithm. The iPhone 4 would show 5 bars of reception when in reality there may have only been 3 or 2 bars of service available. This gives the appearance that the phone is losing 5 bars of service when in reality only 3 or 2 bars are being lost. Apparently yesterday’s iOS4 update solved this problem.
He also showed other data (AppleCare customer service reports and comparisons to the iPhone 3GS) to minimize the appearance of the issue while claiming that smart phones “aren’t perfect.” During the Q&A section Jobs and his comrades, in a hailstorm of excuses, went on to call out some of the critical articles written by Bloomberg and the New York Times, calling them “false” and “total bull &$#@”.
Though a nice gesture, this “fix” misses the point and will force those 80% of iPhone 4 buyers who walked out of the iStore without getting a bumper or case to have to use one so that the phone works. Though some questions were answered, the conference seemed to be full of excuses and attempts to convince the public that the problem isn’t really that big. We will just have to wait to see the effect it will have on iPhone 4 sales and returns.
When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 4 at last week’s WWDC, one of the most intriguing features was the new retina display. The new display has been described as “pushing against limits of the human body” and “as clear as most printed magazines.”
According to Apple, the iPhone 4g screen touts a 4x increased pixel density with 326dpi resolution making it so the pixels are not discernible to the naked eye from ten inches away. However, since the Apple keynote there has been plenty of skepticism as to just how sharp the image actually is. Just click on these pictures to see for yourself how crisp the retina display is as compared to the 3g display.
Today at the WWDC Steve Job’s unveiled the long awaited iPhone. Job’s called it the biggest leap since the original iPhone. Some of the features that we’ve found to be most intriguing are:
-Gyroscope tied to the accelerometer and compass for 6-axis motion sensing
-iPhone OS 4 renamed iOS4, now has multitasking
-iMovie app now available
The iPhone 4 will be released June 24th with pre-orders starting on June 15th. Great news for anyone who was looking forward to the keynote as it did not disappoint. The bad news, still no mention of dropping AT&T.
