Let’s review the events in Apple-land over the past few months, shall we?
1. An Apple engineer either leaves an iPhone 4 prototype, or has one lifted from him, in a beer garden
2. Said iPhone 4 prototype gets plastered all over the world, taking away a meaningful measure of excitement from Steve Jobs’ planned reveal
3. During Jobs’ big unveiling of the already-unveiled, the Wi-Fi is so saturated by the media’s WiFi networks that he can’t do his demos properly, if at all
4. Apple has no backup plan in place for such a predictable situation
5. Beyond this point, I won’t even mention issuing the Safari 5 press release claiming immediate availability and then not having the pages or the download online for two hours (we’re used to that move from minor league iPod case makers, not Apple)
Perhaps Jobs is getting a bit soft as he grows older. Maybe he’s not banging heads even when heads beg to be banged?
Those five items above are silly, stupid, utterly predicable mistakes. That’s not the Apple, under Jobs at least, with which I am familiar. (Please, don’t remind me about the Apple without Jobs. For that Apple, the four items above would be successes.)
Okay, so event number one is a youthful mistake or maybe a crime. We’ll find out someday. If it’s the former, that Apple engineer should be former, too. Event number two, well, that pretty much had to follow, given Apple’s secrecy fetish. I’m not excusing any crime, if one was committed, but take away the tremendous vacuum Apple has created for the last decade plus and then filled in all at once, in one fell swoop in a beer garden and #2 wouldn’t have happened. Apple created the demand for Apple secrets. And, yes, I understand perfectly why Apple does the secrecy thing, but it only works when you can keep your secrets.
Now, #3 and #4 are just ridiculous. How Apple didn’t see this coming is beyond me. And not having a backup plan beyond asking/telling the media to stop reporting? I have to say, there’s no other word for it than “Microsoftian.”
I would’ve liked to see the iPhone 4 for the first time today. Failing that, I would at least liked to have seen those demos as Steve Jobs intended them to be seen.
I happened to catch the end of NBC’s Nightly News tonight. Brian Williams mentioned there was a new iPhone, but the main thrust of his story was that Steve Jobs couldn’t connect the new phone to the network. Now, there’s some great publicity. I’m not sure if Williams mentioned that Jobs also lobbed a setup made in heaven, “Scott, got any ideas?” to which several “Scotts” sang back a clearly audible chorus of “Verizon,” or if I just read about that one on approximately 1,100 websites.
No wonder Apple’s QuickTime stream of keynote speech isn’t online yet. It may never be.
The funny thing is, Apple brought this WiFi failure upon themselves. Apple used to stream their keynotes and even broadcast them via satellite, but supposedly, this became “too expensive.” Well, that B.S. no longer flies, Mr. Bigger Market Cap Than Microsoft. In fact, it hasn’t flown for many, many years. Apple’s been doing this on the cheap for years and it finally bit them in the ass.
Stop being cheap, Steve.
$40 billion liquid in the bank means that you can hire Akamai or whomever to stream your infomercials, sorry, your “keynotes” and “special events” along with an HD yule log 24/7/365 worldwide to everyone with a screen for the next six and a half centuries. Heck, forget streaming: Comcast just bought a controlling stake in NBC Universal for a mere $13 billion. Imagine, you’d still have $27 billion left and you’d even have some fresh content for your little hobby, too. (wink)
Bottom line: Broadcast your events like you’re supposed to and you can have all the WiFi you need for your demos. If not, you’re either going to want the ‘Net mainlined straight into your 30-pin Dock Connector (that’s your backup, at least; why do I have to tell you this?) or don’t do live demos that depend on wireless connectivity because asking the media to stop doing your job of delivering your event to the world, as you should have been doing all along, isn’t going to work out any better than it did Monday morning. In fact, it’ll almost certainly be worse the next time around.
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a semi-regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section who, among other things, basically described the iPhone on December 10, 2002.
@ElderNorm obviously Apple had their own wifi for the demo iPhones however there are only 11? Channels. This leads to wifi pollution “Wi-Fi pollution, or an excessive number of access points in the area, especially on the same or neighboring channel, can prevent access and interfere with other devices’ use of other access points”. Steve said there were 514 wifi hotspots in the room.
Mr. Jack many times can’t see the forest because of the trees. This latest drivel would have us assume that he has access to Apples internal meetings, when in reality all of his babel is based on his own over active imagination and assumptions based on conjecture rather than fact. He is often far off of the mark, this is one of those times. Those who dwell on Steve Jacks as being an Apple guru qualify for membership in the dumb ass sheep club.
Maybe Apple & Google could chip in a few bucks to upgrade the Moscone Center WiFi system, including a separate secure system for demos, classes etc. along with a public one to be used by attendees and media. Google’s already done that city-wide in Mountain View, so doing Moscone (both main center & West) should be easy, & they’ll reap the PR benefits.
What about this?
AT&T;and Apple changed the iPad 3G data plans barely a month after the 3G device shipped to consumers… and now the unlimited plan is gone. In short, the unlimited plan has now been replaced by a 2GB capped plan at 25.00 per month…. so if you ever stop paying for the 29.99 unlimited plan, you can’t ever get it back… This has effectively turned a “no contract” plan into a de facto contract plan.
Seriously, if the iPad 3G was launched with the 2GB capped plan, it would not have sold nearly as well as it did. Many of those iPad 3G purchases were based on the reasonable expectation that the ability to cancel and restart a “breakthrough” unlimited data plan would last longer than a month after the device shipped to customers.
File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC is empowered by law to investigate and address deceptive marketing practices such as these by Apple and AT&T;. The Better Business Bureau can also investigate complaints of such activity.
It’s easy and takes only a few minutes to file a complaint.
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/
http://www.bbb.org/us/
Here’s the company info to make filling out the forms easier:
Apple
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
408-996-1010
AT&T;175 East Houston Street
Dallas, TX 78205-2255
210-821-4105.
I believe that the key points are:
Apple touted and advertised the $29.99 data plan as a major inducement to buy the iPad 3g.
Apple described it as a “breakthrough deal” with AT&T;, leading consumers to believe that Apple had locked in the terms and price.
A key, heavily advertised, feature was the ability to jump between plans or have no 3G plan as dictated by needs and budget.
The “grandfathering” announced by AT&T;forces customers to either keep an unlimited plan continuously active in order to not lose it.
The change in the plans has significant impact on the value of the device and the manner in which it can be used.
We want AT&T;and Apple to honor the advertised deal, not give us money, a coupon, a refund, free service for a month, etc. (That’s what I want, anyway.)
If you’re one of the people cheering because your bill got cut by $5 per month, don’t bother with replying to this. This is a legal issue related to FTC rules and regulations on false and deceptive advertising, not whether you like the new plans better because you don’t happen to move more than 2GB per month.
NONE of the above examples are important in the big picture.
Except to reporters that like to pick apart every LITTLE thing so they have something to write about.
Two things that ARE important. (and Apple is doing)
1. Produce good products. (nothing in the above article points to Apple not doing that)
2. Better to be human than knock a few heads around. Employees are human beings who’s work are their lives. They are not widgets. And you shouldn’t fire a hard working and dedicated employee for making a mistake. My iPhone isn’t worth someone’s life.
But on that same note, sue the pants off of Gizmodo!
You know those guys who when their favorite sports star or team fumbles it becomes a reflection on them?
Yeah.
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Just wanted to mention Google ran into a similar wi-fi problem at its I/O event.
Disappointment is only cause by your expectations being too high, period.
1/2 : Shit happens, we’re all human. Would you be crying for the guy to be canned if it was Jony Ive? Fact is you know zero bout what happen.
3/4 : Contrary to popular belief, Apple can’t predict the future.
5 : As for safari being late, I’m sure there’s a starving child in africa crying for you. “How could the make them wait 2 HOURS”.
And seriously, remember when the did live keynote and it sucked, was always super slow and expensive. So what you’re saying is, apple should drop some serious cash cause you can’t wait a couple of hours to see the keynote? I’d rather they spend that cash on actually making a new cool product. The reason apple is in the green is exactly because they don’t use money wastefully. You make it sound like apple owes you something!
Also I’d say that Steve and apple have handled everything that happened VERY well!
@Willie G: I’m in agreement overall with what you wrote, but wanted to expand on this:
As for the live stream… did you ever actually try to watch one of those? It constantly froze and dropped. It was awful. And that was at a time when Apple was nowhere near as popular as it currently is. There simply isn’t an infrastructure to be able to live webcast to such a heavy load.
Content streaming is one of the next big things. Some have said the only thing AppleTV needs to for them to replace their cable box outright is streaming live events (sports, news). I don’t know what live streaming numbers are for major sports events like the Superbowl or the Olympics, but they must number in the low millions at least, so the tech and infrastructure is available–it would just be an enormous cost for a two-hour event.
I know that Seve Jobs must have gotten on somebody with the WiFi fiasco. I can assure you that nothing like this will ever take place again. That said, it was not just a big deal. Sure, a bit embarrassing, but the iPhone is such a good upgrade, that it didn’t seem to matter after everything was said in done.
Wow… Nice rant!
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Thx!
You make it sound like apple owes you something!but the iPhone is such a good upgrade, that it didn’t seem to matter after everything was said in http://www.tiffany-uk.org/ done.that it didn’t seem to matter after everything was said in done.
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