What do you call the iPhone 4 antenna … thing? A disaster? A non-issue? Is it a tiny problem blown way out of proportion, or an embarrassing blunder from a company that’s supposed to be known for genius engineering?
Ever since users discovered that they could kill an uncased iPhone 4’s signal simply by holding it a certain way, the company has faced its worst PR disaster in quite a long time. Critics said it was a blot on the brand that made it seem Cupertino was dead asleep at the wheel when it came time for field testing. Apologists countered that antenna attenuation can and does happen with any phone, and the only reason there’s so much rabble-rousing going on is that it’s the iPhone — and every time Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) bleeds, it leads.
It soon became clear that Apple would do itself more harm than good by ignoring the issue and hoping it would blow over. So what were its options? Earlier, when the problem first came to light, there was a quick suggestion that Apple should give iPhone 4 owners free Bumpers — those little plastic cases it makes (and frequently sells out of).
But as the grousing grew louder, and as Consumer Reports weighed in with a thumbs-down, talk of a product recall started making the rounds. That would be a huge gesture of commitment to customers, but it would also be incredibly expensive. And it would be a clear confession on Apple’s part that it had made an engineering mistake. From Apple’s point of view, doing that could be every bit as damaging to the brand as letting the complaints continue indefinitely.
So the company finally opted to tackle the whole thing head-on in a press conference Friday, and it offered up a remedy for disgruntled customers, albeit one that left a slightly passive-aggressive aftertaste.
The gist: This shouldn’t be a big deal. Of course we tested the iPhone 4’s antenna, and all cellphones have issues like this, and we’re going to show you a bunch of other cellphones that have the exact same problem. Very few customers have actually come to us directly and complained about this specifically. But even though the media has blown this way out of proportion and everyone’s going crazy about a really little thing, and Steve Jobs had to interrupt a vacation in Hawaii because of all this, all we want to do is make everyone happy.
So free cases for everyone. If you bought one from Apple, you get a refund. If we’re sold out of Bumpers, we’ll get you a third-party case. If you don’t like that, you can return your iPhone, full refund, your contract re-up disappears, no restocking fee. You can just pretend none of this ever happened.
The quote of the day came from Steve Jobs himself: “Maybe we should have a wall of PR people to insulate us, but we don’t.”
I had to think about that for a second before I figured out that he meant his top people don’t live in a bubble and they’re sensitive to customers’ unhappiness, and that’s at least plausible. But I assure you that Apple does indeed have PR people. They may not wall off company execs, but they certainly can wall off everyone else.
Source:http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Apple-Happy-Now-70434.html?wlc=1279369613
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