If you are an iPhone 4 owner or if you, like me, are patiently awaiting its release in your country, you most likely did not miss that Apple held a press conference last night regarding the antenna issues. The whole press conference is available from Apple to watch if you are interested to watch it. They sadly did not include the Q&A with the media that was afterwards.
The Antenna Issues
Steve Jobs opened by again, stating that a very low number of customers are having the antenna issues, a move which can hardly be passed as surprising. On the contrary, based on Apple’s past history it was always more believable that the issues were going to be minimized as much as possible.
Jobs was not late either in pointing out the media coverage, blowing the issues fully out of proportion, a statement which I must agree with. I have read many reports that have the story right up with the oil leak and other very serious disasters. Yes, correctly said, this has been tremendously blown out of its proportions.
Now, there is no denying that there is an issue here with the antenna that affects users. Apple will be solving this for now, by giving everyone that purchases an iPhone a free bumper or one of their licensed cases, until the end of September. Furthermore, if you have already purchased a bumper, you will be given your money back.
Apologies?
As far an apologies go, I think this is as far as Apple will go. Giving away free bumpers/cases as well as giving previous bumper-buyers a refund, albeit for a limited time, is in some way an apology saying that yes, we screwed up.
It also begs the question what they are going to do on September 30th. I would bet my money that they are trying out some new ways to insulate the little black line between the two antennas and that this will happen on new phones from now on, even if they did not make any official mention of so.
Steve Jobs did get the question afterwards, in the Q&A session for the invited media, about the choice of date for the cutoff. He clearly stated that they will be taking another look then and that they hopefully have a clearer idea of the problem, then.
This is again I think, the closest we are going to get to Apple saying: “We screwed up and we have no idea how to fix this problem in a way that is feasible for us without recalling all phones”.
Further Rollouts
Apple did close by saying that the iPhone will be available in white on July 30th. On the same date, the iPhone 4 will be available in 17 more countries. It hold me waiting patiently, because, July 30th means Swedish release and it means that I can get my hands on an iPhone 4. Yes, I am going to get one.