“Chief Executive Steve Jobs announced the news at a rare media conference on Friday, when he admitted that Apple and the phone were ‘not perfect,'” Madway and Gupta report. “But he defiantly asserted that smartphone reception issues were a problem shared by the entire wireless industry, including devices by Apple competitors such as Research in Motion and HTC Corp.”
MacDailyNews Take: “Defiantly?” Bias much, Reuters? Why not “truthfully?” It’d be more accurate and far less biased.
Madway and Gupta report, “‘This has been blown so out of proportion, it’s incredible,'” Jobs told an auditorium at Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters. Jobs said that if iPhone 4 users were still not satisfied, Apple will offer a full refund within a month.”
Full article here.
Make sure Al Gore gets an extra Bumper case
Did I miss the part about how we GET these free bumpers?
@Innhitman : From the live feeds, sounds like they are setting up the process, and it will be ready sometime next week.
I’m waiting for the lawsuit for the phone makers with the smug ads, about being able to hold their phones in any manner without any antenna attenuation.
@Innhitman – Yes you missed that part but we got it.
Lets see 3,000,000 iphones sold 51,000 returned equals 2,949,000 happy users. Yep sounds like its defective to me.
Then again you must factor in that not all those returns were for signal issues and that a percentage just got a replacement phone and were happy.
Anyone else notice that Jobs was careful to say “free case” rather than “free bumpers”? He also re-iterated that they “couldn’t make bumpers fast enough”.
I may be a victim of the particular feed I was getting of the event. Can anyone confirm that Apple is actually giving away bumpers rather than some (unseen as yet) case?
Free bumper for those who want it. OK. Still the best phone on the market even without it. Now more people will buy it… best phone… free bumper case… software update soon. Got to love it.
Isn’t it ironic though that Consumers report won’t recommend the phone until it’s software update is complete, but it still rates the iPhone 4 the best in class? Hate to be the ‘perfect’ HTC variety and still can’t beat a ‘problematic’ iPhone in a head to head.
Full disclosure
Free bumpers
Full refunds
All is right with the world.
I for one am putting my rose colored glasses back on. Camping out for iP5 starting Monday.
P.S. Anyone catch what’s going on with that oil thing?
Lol!
The feebles are asking for Schumer/government to force a recall.
I’m telling Rush on you.
The iPhone return rate is irrelevant. I wouldn’t and didn’t return my phone because of the issue. 1. I switched from another carrier and have completely settled into a new contract and phone. 2. It’s not that big of an issue, just an obvious one that should be fixed, and shoulnt be an issue to the masses. It’s too much of a hassle to go through to return a phone just because holding it in ur left hand a particular way causes interference.
Like I said, the issue is that it’s so obvious and easy to replicate. But not return worthy of the best phone there is.
I love my iPhone 4 completely, and am having no problems with it whatsoever.
ALSO — I will NOT be taking advantage of Apple’s unnecessary kindness by asking them for a free bumper.
For the rest of you losers who want to continue to complain about the iPhone 4, return your damn iPhone 4 or give it to me.
I think it may not be completely accurate to say Apple is giving away free “bumpers”.
From CNET article:
One takeaway: Buyers of the iPhone 4 will be getting free cases to help prevent users’ grip on the phone from weakening the signals carrying conversations. Jobs said Apple cannot make enough of the bumpers that some people have been buying, so it is working with third parties to get the cases for users.
Jobs said if you bought a bumper already, you’d get a refund. But I suspect that if you buy an iPhone 4 between now and Sept. 30th, you’re actually going to get a free “third-party” case.
I don’t believe for a minute that Apple can’t make enough bumpers at $29 each to meet demand. Virtually everyone thought those were way overpriced. The only lack of inventory is going to happen now that people can get the bumpers for free.
Notice that you must have bought your iPhone 4 by Sept. 30 to qualify, which must be the date the iPhone 4.1 goes on sale with it’s newly insulated antenna.
This is ridiculous… Apple do the math and find that there is no problem, it’s just media hype. Then they do a PR event and show everyone that THERE IS NO PROBLEM, unless you count laws of physics as a problem. They even go as far as to give out free bumper cases because they, unlike most tech companies, actually give a shit about the end user, and *still* people won’t shut up about it.
Gods, I’m so bored of hearing about this non-issue. Give it a rest people, they’ve solved the problem and then some.
The best moment of the press conference was, when John Gruber asked the Apple executives on the Q&A panel if any of their phones were sporting bumpers…
…they all pulled out their iPhone 4s and none had bumpers. The entire audience chuckled.
Apple made their point, offered a viable fix, and opened it up for questions. I couldn’t believe my ears, to hear some of the questions coming from the audience. It was like pulling teeth having to listen to some of the stupid questions ever.
This coming from the very people who are writing crap about an issue where hits are more important than the truth. Honestly, Jobs found himself repeating himself over and over, because it seems these “journalists” all came prepared to ask the same damn question.
Then of course, we have dickweeds like confession who refuse to accept reality,
“So, lord Jobs admits his claims of iP4 being the best ever were false.”
Steve Jobs stated, “iPhone 4 is best product we ever made. Sold over 3M in 3 weeks.” That’s not a direct quote of course, but that is the gist of what he said early on in the conference.
Confession is the kind of person Jobs was referring to when he said, (quoting Jon Stokes of Arstechnica) ‘it’s human nature when someone or an organizaiton gets really big, people try to tear it down’ (Jobs stated), “sometimes I feel that, in search of eyeballs, people don’t care what they leave in their wake. this is a new phenomenon.”
That pretty much sums up confessions existence.
Go AAPL!
@confession Its not just Steve 99% of the people who have touched the iPhone 4 Call it the best phone Apples ever made. Most users report better reception and fewer dropped calls than there 3GSs.
And a note …no 3g phone reports signal strength to the user in any way. The bars have nothing to do with the strength of the signal only its clarity. Bars go down as the number of errors in the digital transmission go up. There is no absolute quantitative measure for this. It’s only relative to itself… 4 bars on your iPhone is better then 3 bars on your iPhone but it has no relation to 4 bars on any other phone.
Oh and if Apple’s darkest day is when they have their best selling product ever. I think Apple will be OK.
@MacBill
Great idea. If you complainers don’t want your iPhone 4s then send them to Canada where we’ll happily take them without a bumper case.
You’re tired of hearing about this? Too F’king bad. I don’t believe Apple’s figures. Didn’t they say they couldn’t make the bumpers fast enough? That’s an admission that they’re lying about the figures. Nice to have Al Gore on your board isn’t it? Nice to have Obama have private tech tours in your plant for the Russian President, right? This is a CROCK OF SH*T!
@Deus Ex Technica
I think he said you would be able to choose one from a variety offered, online, late next week; from a variety of sources.
@Confession
Why, why, are you here?
I agree with breeze, MDN give us something to get rid of the trolls. It’s making this site not about Mac’s or their products but for scumbags to come and make ridiculous claims that has no real use other then to take up space. As in their real lives, they just take up space and consume food and oxygen that the rest of the real world needs.
@TRRosen
where’d you get 51,000 phones returned?
I heard that less than half of one-percent were returned. Wouldn’t that make the number of returns 15,000?
I’m not good at math, never was, but isn’t the formula 3,000,000 / .005 = 15,000?
I could be wrong, but not enough to embarrass myself publicly, because I don’t do math.
😀
@Rip
Did your trailer run out of cold beer today?
My post was for you as well.
OMG, you think you could do better? Tell us what you really do for a living? I’ll bet it some great gift to mankind right?
The only “crock” here is the trolls like you.
Have a nice day and go kill yourself.
What a joke that conference was, I mean REALLY.
So a case or a piece of tape fixes something that Apple, let alone the industry can’t fix? Fixes something that Apple can’t fix due to laws of physics?
SJ said: “But this happens to all phones. We haven’t found a way around the laws of physics… yet.”
Lol, yeah right, so like Steve, wouldn’t incorporating tape, case or something similar (like non-conductive coat) during production fix this issue for the industry??
Steve, lose your ego..you know that bitter taste in your throat? It’s kind of wrapped around your uvula? That’s what’s left of your pride.
It’s time for CR to go back to reviewing toasters and coffee makers. They clearly know little about anything technical.
iPhone 4 is an incredibly great device.