Manjoo writes, “Still, if you want to be a total jerk about it and keep insisting there’s a problem with your magical iPhone, Jobs has an offer for you. ‘OK, great, let’s give everybody a case,’ he said. Happy now, whiners?”
MacDailyNews Take: This was/is a FUD campaign. And, it’s not even the first time it’s been tried:
• Additional testing of Apple iPhone’s 3G antenna again shows completely normal results – August 27, 2008
• Apple iPhone 3G antenna test verdict: completely normal – August 25, 2008
• Apple hit with lawsuit over iPhone’s 3G speed and reliability – August 21, 2008
• Apple: iPhone 2.0.2 Software Update ‘improves communication with 3G networks’ – August 20, 2008
• Apple releases iPhone, iPod touch 2.0.2 Software Update – August 18, 2008
• Steve Jobs: iPhone 3G reception issues affect 2% of total units shipped; software update coming soon – August 18, 2008
• iPhone 3G reception issues could be fixed via firmware update as early as this week – August 18, 2008
• WSJ: Apple preps software fix for iPhone 3G reception issues reported by some – August 15, 2008
• ABC News, Associated Press propagate iPhone FUD – August 15, 2008
• Nomura analyst Richard Windsor and his extraordinary knack for sniffing out Apple iPhone ‘issues’ – August 14, 2008
• Software fix on the way for iPhone 3G reception glitches – August 14, 2008
• Aussie telco source blames Apple secrecy for iPhone 3G reception issues – August 13, 2008
• Apple and AT&T investigating reports of iPhone 3G connection issues – August 12, 2008
Déjà vu all over again.
Manjoo continues, “Things got worse when Jobs took the stage and offered a blizzard of statistics to suggest the problems people are reporting aren’t unique in the phone market. Apple, he said, has sold more than 3 million iPhones in the last three weeks, yet only 0.55 percent of purchasers have called the company with reception problems. Very few people are returning the phone, he continued, fewer than returned the iPhone 3GS [1.7% or 1/3 of iPhone 3GS return rate.]
MacDailyNews Take: Some blizzard.
Manjoo’s rather pedestrian hit piece continues – Think Before You Click™ here.
Another leftist rag gets it wrong.
While I agree that iPhone 4 is an amazing device, I also believe there is a problem.
Yes, physics is responsible for attenuation. However, hold an iPhone 3gs and an iPhone 4 both using the “death grip,” and it becomes evident that iPhone 4’s issue is also a design issue.
MDN noticed it and ranted about it, and 40% of MDN readers who responded to the poll noticed it as well. I love Apple, but there is an issue with the antenna design on the iPhone 4.
Is it a dealbreaker? No, i dont think so.. But I’d also be willing to bet that iPhone 5 will have a different antenna design.
The press conference was excellent. Not condescending. Informative, accurate, explanatory.
Steve & crew are awesome.
Here is my apology, I’m Sorry you are an idiot!
Manjuice is wacked.
Jobs offered a logical and rational explanation. He said Apple wasn’t perfect and proceeded to go above and beyond the call of duty by giving everyone a case regardless of if they were having a problem.
Is this new and commonplace whining a gen-x thing? I’m hearing this wacko logic more and more these days
Now that the actual problem has been addressed, now we can go back to reading attacks on Apple just because the article author doesn’t like them.
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Whining scumbag needs to be taken out to the shed! Like everyone else, my iPhone works perfectly! Complete nonsense magnified by tired, left-wing anti- business media outlets who can’t stand success as they implode with the exception of Fox! STFU already!!!
My iPhone 4 is on the FEDEX truck for delivery as I type this, I really don’t care what some dic-weed name Manjoo has to whine about, eat me Manjoo.
Condescending? Look, they showed other phones doing the SAME THING? And if you look on YouTube, there are videos of phones doing it….even on VERIZON. Daringfireball had a few links to some.
I applaud Apple for actually showing some facts, and remedying the problem if people experience the problem. I’ll take a free bumper from Apple. No problem. Just like I took the $100 that Apple gave me when the original iPhone’s price went down.
I repeat, anyone who uses the iPhone – whatever model – is wise to use a case/bumper to protect this slippery little beauty from accidental drops or skidding off your desk. Vanity is most likely the key reason for not doing so.
I wish clowns like this would stop acting like Apple kicked them in the crotch or something. Steve Jobs apologized to the only people he needed to apologize to – the people who actually experienced the problem. Everybody else can listen to the “Antenna Song” and take a flying leap. “If you don’t want an iPhone 4 don’t buy it!” I’ll add that “If you don’t want an iPhone 4 stop writing about it! There are plenty of people who do want it and who do know how to hold it like they’re not choking a chicken.
How dare Apple interrupt our FUD campaign with facts!
Manjoo is neither a liberal-slanting business-hater nor an Apple hater. In fact, he’s written some very good articles defending Apple’s products and services, including this excellent one in which he explains why the iTunes store (and other online services) can’t offer virtually every movie ever made for streaming online: http://www.slate.com/id/2216328/
On this topic of Jobs’ press conference, he just happens to have an opinion which many of us, myself included, don’t agree with.
Google has a diagram in its instruction leaflet with a KEEP CLEAR WITH YOUR HANDS diagram for all to see.
Maybe that would be an idea for Apple?
Having said that, I’ve never had an issue with my 3GS and suspect the same might be true of the iP4.
Either way, they’ll only take mine from me at the point of a Kalashnikov (though far more likely a Heckler & Koch in the surveillance society known as UK Today).
Slate’s been owned by MS and the Washington Post, neither of which are “liberal.” If you think the Post is liberal, read any of their editorials during Bush’s presidency regarding the Iraq War.
Manjoo wrote some terrible pieces about Apple when he was at Salon.com.
Dear Farhad,
Blow me, you Socialist towelhead.
Sincerely,
Ed Anger
Manjoo wrote, “Happy now, whiners?” I got a bumper when I got my iPhone 4. It is what you do when you are making a several hundred dollar 2 year investment. If I damage the bumper, I can replace the case. Not the iPhone.
Has Manjoo been a WHINER for a long time now? Or just lately?
Manjoo, grow up and take care of your investments. I got cases for my 2 iPads also when I bought them. It is what you do!
@Ed….
hey, don’t hold back, tell him what you really think!
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It seems that if you put a band-aid or some kind of clear non conductive cover over the unbridgeable area–the iPhone no longer exhibits this attenuation problem.
Now, if this is so, and other phones attenuation issues can not be solved with a band-aid, has Apple not conquered the laws of physics? If they haven’t exactly conquered said law, are they not within spitting distance of the solution?
Either the band-aid eliminates the problem entirely or reduces it to the same level as a typical smartphone with an internal antennae. I’m still unsure as to why this is even an issue but it seems to break Apples way in any case. The tech press is having too much fun right now to notice though. Maddening.
It’s fairly simple. In areas of poor reception, as long as you don’t use the death grip, you get better connections than most cell phones. So it is a better antenna than almost all others, as long as the death grip isn’t applied.
So, who applies the death grip? Only iPhone users with an agenda. Normal iPhone users do not try to break the connection when making a call or downloading data.
So, is there a problem. Not for normal iPhone users.
I see that the problem is only for Apple Haters and Apple Competitors
I wrote a comment in reply to Manjoo’s piece on Friday. In my reply, I criticized him, journalist-to-journalist, for attacking the news conference in regards to tone. The tone of an event he admittedly covered based on two liveblogs of the event.
So, he built his entire column on the tone he perceived from secondhand accounts of an event he didn’t attend.
I also logged in to comment using my Facebook account, believing that if I was going to be so directly critical of his poor journalism, he deserves to have my name and face by it.
I was surprised to check on the comments thread a few hours later to find that my comment had been removed, no reason given.
Any respect I might had had for Manjoo (which was already damaged by demonstrably poor reporting on other issues) is now gone. Any respect I had for Slate is severely diminished.
What does SJ have to do??? He demonstrated other phones doing the SAME thing. He acknowledged there was a problem and explained why. and NO, Apple hasn’t figured out a way to alter the laws of physics. He’s giving out free cases for the people that are grossly affected by this. I prefer to use my phone naked (the phone that is). If I’m in an area with a borderline signal- I’ll hold it a little different. I have yet to drop a call and I’m getting better reception than my 1st gen iPhone. I don’t care about the bars- I don’t even look at them. I’m left handed too.
It’s simple- don’t buy the phone or take it back if you already have one. Take it back – take it back… … but you know you won’t.
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Manjoo can’t see past the blizzard of FUD in his head. Stop shaking your head around and the FUD will settle into you colon where it belongs! You can then flush it in a day or two.
He called a Steve Jobs presentation a “blizzard of statistics” and then said the press conference was condescending?!?!?
The bumper should have been considered part of the phone and in the box from the beginning. Had they done that they would have had themselves covered.
Over all this is mostly just people being OCD about watching their bars.
I can make my bars drop, not a big deal as it doesn’t drop my calls or affect the performance of my phone.
I’m very happy with my iPhone 4.
The only grudge I have with Apple is for sticking only with AT&T still, especially after the bait and switch on the iPad 3G data plans.
I can’t believe they are getting away with that. THAT is what should be getting all this attention.