I’ll just come right out and say it: I was disappointed with Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna press conference. The outcome was exactly what I expected (after all, a complete recall is too expensive and damaging to Apple’s reputation, and having the people at the Apple stores apply some simple insulating tape would cost a fair bit in training and yield less consistent results than simply giving away bumpers that cost pennies and are already distributed), but the show was a whole different story. In case you missed it, let me summarize for you:
Mom: “Son, the teacher said you had an accident in class today. ”
Son: “The other kids tickled me in my special spot. I couldn’t help it, and I just let go! But it is okay, Mom. Last week, Jim Blackberry got squeezed really hard, and the same thing happened to him! Jim might be (in) a lower grade, but he’s really popular.”
Mom: “I have always told all the other moms how amazing you are. You are so bright and vibrant and unique. You are one of the best kids ever, but I suppose if you want to just point fingers and show yourself to be only as good as that Blackberry kid who peaked in kindergarten, well…. I guess I can just put you in the same class as him.”
The one hint that Apple still has some decency was Steve admitting the iPhone 4 drops more calls than the previous iPhone. He played it down by saying that it was less than one extra call per hundred. I thought for sure this nugget would be all over the tech sites, but they mostly focused on how irate Steve appeared.
Let’s do some simple number crunching. We’ll be generous and say the iPhone 4 drops only one more call per two hundred. If the 3GS dropped just one call per hundred, this would be a 50% increase! I guess you can be “optimistic” and hope the 3GS dropped five calls per hundred, so the increase would only be ten percent.
I don’t know about you, but I want them to have to measure dropped calls per thousand or ten thousand. That they can be measured in whole numbers per one hundred tells me cellphone technology has not come as far as I thought.
