“Jobs got a lot of heat about his response,” Adams writes. “Where was the apology? Where was the part where he acknowledged that the buck stops with him, and that Apple made a big mistake that never should have happened? That’s public relations 101, right?”
“I’m a student of how language influences people. Apple’s response to the iPhone 4 problem didn’t follow the public relations playbook because Jobs decided to rewrite the playbook,” Adams writes. “(I pause now to insert the necessary phrase Magnificent Bastard.) If you want to know what genius looks like, study Jobs’ words: ‘We’re not perfect. Phones are not perfect. We all know that. But we want to make our users happy.'”
“Jobs changed the entire argument with nineteen words. He was brief. He spoke indisputable truth. And later in his press conference, he offered clear fixes,” Adams writes. “Did it work? Check out the media response. There’s lots of talk about whether other smartphones are perfect or not. There’s lots of talk about whether Jobs’ response was the right one. But the central question that was in everyone’s head before the press conference – ‘Is the iPhone 4 a dud’ – has, well, evaporated.”
Full article – highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote earlier today: “Apple has now successfully changed the conversation… Better start looking for another FUD talking point, iPhone roadkill, present and future.”
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “_phil_i_am_” for the heads up.]
Right on, Scott!
Scott, you are brilliant, and always have been.
I am as bored with the whining about this issue as I am bored with whining about the rest of the world.
This has never been and never will be a debacle! It’s media-generated frenzy promoting a thin, vaporous nothing into something! It’s how Obama got elected!!! Zero times infinity = zero!
SJ is a master of all he surveys. His use of the HGM was not only brilliant, but pure genius. He did exactly what he should have.
And, in a way he is a master hypnotist. One may disagree with me, but it’s a hatred based on jealousy, greed and, in some cases, downright stupidity.
By the way, I have not lost one single call in the almost three weeks since waiting in line. But then again, as SJ stated, I live in Texas where it only takes three weeks to get approval to erect a tower. I happen to have seven towers within five square miles of me. San Francisco needs to loosen their belts a little.
Scott, your entire article was beautifully articulated.
The essence of “natural” is wasted on a world of contemplated squares.
But didn’t Scott Adams also think Bill Gates should be your (ie. American) President?
http://www.billgatesforpresident.net/11/scott-adams-beats-us-to-the-punch.html
This “AntennaGate” is just a media creation, typical of recent years. The media, in the never-ending drive to preserve old media (newspapers and magazines), promote current media (TV, websites and blogs), and still try to attract attention by being the first or having a controversial story, has blown this issue up to something it’s not.
And that’s how the media operates these days. And yes, bloggers are part of the media, because they want to break stories and have people read their websites so they can make money off advertising or spin the blog into a larger gig with a big media company.
What’s sad is that all a company has to do is apologize, say it will work hard to fix the problem and change so that it never happens again, and then all the media moves on to the next victim.
We’ll probably be bombarded with reports of those dangerous Air Nike shoes “exploding” any day now, when in fact only a few left the factory with a small leak. But the same dog and pony show will be put on.
If I had been dropping calls because the signal dropped caused by the way I hold it, at least with the iPhone I know where not to hold it and would therefore experience less dropped calls. Other phones hide it unless you find it in their manuals.
So this needs to be spun differently. iPhone reminds you how to hold it everytime you pick it up. Other phones dont. Therefore, iPhone is better.
Go Apple.
The situation is comparable to if Bose came out with an FM radio with an innovative antenna, and then some “specialist” blogger came out with “Hey look, if I move the antenna this way the reception changes! And check this out, if I put my hand on the antenna the reception goes down! What a piece of junk!” Dahh! That’s the way antennas work, dodo.
What’s insane is that even though it’s been exposed how fabricated this issue is, people are still milking it in any way they can. Jobs’ response was eminently reasonable, it was like he said: “Hey folks, we’re glad you all recognize the way antennas work in cell phones, and we at Apple will continue to push the innovation envelope to improve on these basic characteristics of all antennas. But we recognize we have a PR issue with our customers, so we will provide them with bumpers to address this PR issue.
But media outlets like the Washington Post (a rag if there ever was one) give Jobs a “C+” for his efforts because he didn’t “apologize”, because he didn’t wallow around enough in the muck, ingratiating himself to the almighty press. It’s really sick, and I’m really glad Jobs stuck to the high ground.
My proximity sensor is still out if whack! Don’t hear too much about that. FaceHold, FaceDial, etc. My 3G never did this!
Scott Adams writes a popular comic strip, and he sounds (and is) smarter than most of the industry talking heads out there.
He is absolutely right. Steve Jobs generalized the problem from iPhone 4 to all phones. He baited the competition to whine about the demo videos, in knee-jerk “low ground” reactions, taking the spotlight off of Apple. While Apple did not generally act defensive about the situation, they are now acting defensive.
Apple always takes the “high ground.”
What did Jobs / Apple have to apologize for? I dont get it. The antenna works like an antenna, doesn’t it? The phone works, doesn’t it?
Oh, people want it to work better? Is that what the apology is for?
Then I wish everybody would apologize for everything because everything can work better and everybody can be better.
@ iMaki
Obama was elected just as every President was elected, by getting votes from from real people. People decided he was worth voting for. The real FUD nowadays comes from Fox News and The Tea Party people funded as they are by various vested interests.
But I agree that Mr Jobs did a superb job dispelling the claims of many journalists and vested interests regarding the iPhone 4.
I just love MDN. I wonder if the guy who operates this site has gotten anymore than 1 minute of sunlight this year.
The pseudo investors have once again played the media and manipulated the stock price down ($145) just before an earnings report. Expect the price to bounce back up by $25 to $30 over the next days and weeks. It would be so easy to pump a bunch of money out of unknowing investors who sell on these overblown reports of huge problems – but I can’t bring myself to join the sleaze that has highjacked true investment.
Yellow journalism! Dogs, all of them!
In reading the comments on Scott’s page and made me wonder did anyone see the whole speech. Apple is giving away free bumpers or cases to fix the problem as fast as posable. Maybe SJ did not apologize the way they wanted, however he is doing the customer right. He backed up his story, showed that they were on top of the issue. He was a bit of a smart ass with the video, but it was funny and true. I liked the underhanded did at BP (22 days vs. 3 months). Apple is fixing the problem, the fasted way posable.
I liket the part about hypnotist, that does explain a lot.
In spite of many false assertions posted by cellular trolls around the Web, Steve Jobs most certainly did acknowledge the existence of iPhone antenna problems and customer concerns in his Jukly 18 “Antennagate” press conference and he did acknowledge that Apple might have made mistakes (at least seven times by my count). Most importantly, he also apologized to customers. To many observers, Jobs simply did not come across as defiant or arrogant, — not at all. Anytime Jobs’ is on stage, he typically uses the “we” word when speaking about Apple products and the design, engineering, marketing, sales and retail teams that make them all possible. He routinely shares credit and seldom seems to use the [capital] “I” word.
Some important truths about the Steve Jobs press conference can be found in these relevant excerpts plucked from the press conference transcript:
10:06 a.m. – “Good morning, thank you for joining us! We saw that [video] on YouTube today and we wanted to share it…”
10:07 a.m. – “…We’re not perfect. Phones aren’t perfect. We know that, you know that. But we want to make all our users happy. If you don’t know that, you don’t know Apple…”
10:08 a.m. – “…We’re going to talk about the problems and the data we’ve got. The iPhone 4 is perhaps the best product we’ve ever made at Apple. We’ve sold over three million since we launched it just over three weeks ago. It’s been judged the number one smartphone by a variety of publications — people seem to like it. Users seem to love it…”
10:09 a.m. – “…It’s been 22 days. Apple is an engineering-driven company. The way we work, we want to find what the real problem is before we come up with a solution. We wanted to find out what the real issues are, and we want to share what we’ve learned. So let’s go to the data…”
10:35 a.m. – “…It has the highest customer satisfaction rating of any iPhone, and of any smartphone. However, we started getting some reports about people getting issues with the antenna system…people have been seeing a large drop in bars, and this has been since dubbed ‘Antennagate’…when we fall short — which we do sometimes — we try harder. We pick ourselves up, we figure out what’s wrong, and we try harder. And when we succeed, they reward us by staying our users, and that makes it all worth it….”
10:36 a.m. – “…When we have problems like this and people criticize us, we take it really personally. Maybe we should have a wall of PR people to insulate us, but we don’t — when our users have a problem, we have a problem…”
10:46 a.m. – “…To our customers who are affected by the issue, we are deeply sorry, and we are going to give you a free case or a full refund. We want investors who invest in Apple for the long haul, because they believe in us…”
11:01 a.m. – “…Of course we’re human, of course we’ll make mistakes…”
Scott is brilliant. I wonder is his spasmodic dysphonia (laryngeal dystonia) is still considered cured? Hope so!
@ WetFX
> Apple is giving away free bumpers or cases to fix the problem as fast as posable.
Not true. If there really was a “problem” and Apple was acknowledging it, Apple would fix the problem, not give away cases. Apple would never expect customers to use cases to cover their beautiful products, if it really didn’t work properly without a case.
The problem was perception, not reception. Steve Jobs fixed the perception by generalizing the “antenna problem” to be something that affects ALL mobile phones, not just the iPhone 4. And he demonstrated it with those videos. So yes, he did acknowledge a problem, a problem that the entire mobile phone industry is working hard to minimize.
But the expectation was that Apple should take some immediate and non-trivial action “to fix the problem.” That action was to give every iPhone 4 customer who asks a case as a free gift. So now, Apple is perceived to have done something “to fix the problem,” even though Apple is not fixing anything on the iPhone 4 itself. In fact, he provided customer data from ATT and AppleCare that proves the opposite; there is no real world problem with iPhone 4 (at least from real customers who paid for and use the product every day).
@stillanissue;
Take the F’ing thing back. That’s what real people do when stuff doesn’t work as advertised.
I’ve never had Apple refuse to take a product back when I demonstrated a failure, and most people do not have that issue with the iPhone 4.
all steve wanted to do was walk on stage and say, The antenna is a none issue, “now harded the fuckup” and then walk off.
SJ said baaicly the same thing rigorously fed here. Attenuation is apart of all radio technology. Instead of making the week spot a mystery, which is easy to affect. It put a line on it as if to say touch here. I say genious all around please don’t loose sight of that.
I had a blackberry world edition, and before that a palm treo 650. Both had signal issues by the way the device was handled ( I discovered this out of boredom). I did not launch lawsuits or mass media panics. They are radio devices. I might be dating myself but anyone who has handled a transistor radio or cb radio can appreciate and remember how touching them could affect reception for poorer or better. Better yet remember when you needed to extend the antenna on your tv?? Wrap a ball of foil on the end, and while touching it, stNd on one foot and extend your arm northeast. The human body is a conductor but also a resistor. The internal antena connected to a metal chasis exterior is both brilliant and flawed combined. I don’t have a solution but anyone with a brain or knowledge of fundamentals would understand this
Also anyone who takes consumer reports as a gospel from the bible is a retard. Those are written by schmucks who are paid. Read the fine print. Ignorance wins for anyone who can’t research for themselves