Jobs: free iPhone cases for all
Written by Matthew JC Powell Saturday, 17 July 2010 04:10
Answering the storm of coverage surrounding reported reception issues with the iPhone 4 (the so-called "Death Grip") Apple CEO Steve Jobs took to the stage this morning both to explain the real extent of the problem with real data and to offer a solution. It was a textbook demonstration of how a CEO should respond to a problem like this has been.
In summary: the problem is very small, so the solution is relatively easy. Most importantly, the future international ship dates for the iPhone 4 are not affected.
Jobs went through data that had been gathered from Apple's own engineers as well as AT&T, and showed that of all the customers who have complained about problems with the iPhone 4 to AppleCare, only 0.55% of those were reception or antenna-related. He also said that at this stage the rate of returns on iPhone 4 is lower than the rate of returns on iPhone 3GS at the same period after its launch. Three million iPhone 4s have been sold since its launch and, according to Jobs, the rate of customer returns and fault reports has been very small.
He also demonstrated that other smartphones (he showed an HTC and a BlackBerry) also lose signal when gripped in a particular way. he said that Apple has "waved a red rag to a bull" but putting a small line on the steel frame of the iPhone 4 at the exact spot where squeezing it would have that effect. He also lamented that Apple had "painted a big target" on its back with the sheer success of the iPhone.
Bob Mansfield explained that since everyone's body absorbs signal and, since all smartphones had internal antennae, the problem was one of physics. And you cannot change the laws of physics.
However, data from AT&T demonstrated that the iPhone 4 does drop a tiny percentage more calls than the iPhone 3GS. Therefore, he said, he had to admit there was a problem.
Apple's solution is twofold: first is a software update (available now) to iOS 4.0.1 which changes the algorithm by which the phone displays signal strength in bars on the screen — a faulty algorithm has means that the drop in signal looked more "catastrophic" (Jobs's word) than it really was. The update also fixes a bug with Exchange compatibility.
Second, Apple is giving all iPhone 4 purchasers a free case until the end of September. Since the problem reportedly vanishes when the iPhone is used in a case, that seems a viable solution. Since Apple can't manufacture as many cases as it would require for every iPhone 4 sold, customers will be given a choice of third-party cases as well.
American customers who have already bought Apple-made iPhone cases can get a refund. That does not extend to purchasers of third-party cases, but, as Jobs explained, there really aren't that many of them on the market yet anyway.
The offer of free cases was widely predicted and certainly it's more sensible than the recall that some publications such as Consumer Reports were calling for. Much cheaper too.
Importantly for Australian users, the 30 July ship date for international customers is unchanged, and the free case offer is global.
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