back to article Steve Jobs denies Judas Phone antenna problems

There's nothing wrong with the iPhone 4 that isn't wrong with any other phone, says Steve Jobs. However, because Jobs and company "love our users," Apple will provide a free case to any Judas Phone owner who wants one. "There is no Antennagate," Apple's CEO told a select group of reporters gathered Friday morning on the …

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  1. TkH11

    @Dan Paul - Tin Foil Hats

    if one were to extend the concept of the tin foil hat to cover the entire body - or even just to cove the family jewels you'd be creating a Faraday Cage, heck, you might even be able to comply with Military tempest regs...:)

    1. Dan Paul

      Only if the "Faraday Cage" was grounded!

      The Faraday Cage has to be grounded to direct the signal away from your body. It's difficult to do that and remain mobile. All the tinfoil does is reflect most of the signal, but some will conduct through the foil and into the body.

  2. TkH11

    @tardigrade

    I agree the issue almost certainly affects a minimal number of users, but I want to correct a point you made:

    "tried it as well, put my thumb on the "death spot" and nothing happened. No loss of signal strength whatsoever, wherever we went"

    No loss of signal strength? What you should have said "no indicated loss of signal strength".

    You then went on to use that as the basis to arrive at the conclusion that the problem must just afflict a one off production batch.

    Jobs has admitted there's a problem with the bar graph signal strength display.

    So we know that's not reporting the signal strength correctly, and further the resolution will be quite coarse.

    Whilst there may be no indicated change in signal strength, there IS a change in signal strength, which if you're in areas of strong signal to begin with, weakening the signal by holding the IPhone incorrectly, isn't going to make much difference, and may very well not see a reduction in the number of bars on the signal strength meter.

    I'm willing to bet, if that signal strength meter was showing the actual strength expressed in dBm, that it would show a reduction.

    Each Iphone is identical, so the problem will not as you suggest be limited to particular batch, it will affect all.

  3. Luke 11
    Jobs Horns

    Bumper? WTF?!! RECALL THE PHONE JOBS YOU TWAT!

    I don't want a plastic or rubber bumber to get my fucking phone to work properly... I want to phone to work as it was sold to be, with the steel casing showing.

    Steve Jobs can stick this phone up his arse, I'm going to jailbreak the mofo as soon as possible and never pay for another ffing app ever again.

    Jobs, you're such a douche bag (American speak so he can understand)

    1. Doug Glass
      Go

      A Little Dab'll Do Ya

      Clear nail polish on buddy's slot area seems to have fixed his problem three days into the nail polish job. Just gotta be non conductive which most (if not all) are in the USofA.

  4. Doug Glass
    Go

    The Sacred J

    Idiot.

  5. Doug Glass
    Go

    This Just In

    Shooting buddy did what I suggested and swiped the slot area with some of wifey's clear nail polish. Have to look hard to see it and three days later his problems went away.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Blown out of proportion. Isn't that the Apple way?

    "This has been blown so out of proportion, it's incredible," says Steve Jobs. Funny he's not saying that when the hype works in Apple's favour. What a hypocrite!

  7. Randy Hudson
    Stop

    1% is huge

    typical dropped-call rates are < 0.25%. 1% sounds like a small number, but this means the iPhone 4 is 5 times more likely to drop a call!

  8. D. M
    FAIL

    Only Apple can get away from this crap

    I must say it is great fun to watch fanboi out in force. This is exactly what I'd expect from die hard religious mad.

    On the other hand, it is rather sad that Apple can get away from it. Not long ago, Toyota did similar F&ck up, watch what sort of problem they get themselves into. They had problem with their cars, they say "there is no problem with our cars what so ever", and people were pissed.

    Apple did the same, yet you still watch "people" love their lord and God Steve. NO ONE should get away from this sort of f&#% up.

    You know something is really wrong when a company acts like church.

  9. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

    Rule 1 of crisis management..

    ..is to avoid patently false statements. Epic fail, thus..

    "One thing I’ve learned is that when there's a successful organization, people want to tear it down," Jobs said.

    Well, one thing I learned when analysing crisis is that the BS thickens in a direct relation to the depth of the problem. Not that I needed it, but Jobs has just 100% confirmed that there IS an issue, and that they are far removed from sorted it.

    That is the problem with hype based sales: if you screw up, you screw up in large volumes. The amount of BS here indicates that Apple is absolutely desperate to avoid a recall, but I cannot see it solved any other way. Oh, and as for "few people calling in with a problem", well, yes, that IS kinda hard f the phone doesn't work, duh.

    I've seen some people say that the problem is present in all phones, that's BS too. I avoided the Motorola brick by buying a more slick and discrete NEC P3, but I have been using mobile phones pretty much since they no longer needed a carrying handle, and I have in those years never seen a similar pronounced problem. The 3GS has it to some degree, but you have to hold it in a weird way to kill reception, only the 4 takes no effort whatsoever. It is a problem specific to the iPhone 4, and the iPhone 4 only - any other statement is simply not consistent with the facts.

    As someone with a mechanics, electronics and computing background I'm impressed with what Apple has done with hardware over the last few years, it makes the disappointment with the way they handle this evident cock-up even greater.. It makes you wonder what else they haven't told you about..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Paris Hilton

      iDislike being lied to.

      I too have been using mobiles for longer than I care to remember too and there can be problems with reception in certain circumstances (in extreme circumstances and some very odd hand holds) although I have never experienced a phone as easy to disrupt as the iPhone 4 (yes, I have tried one, yes I am left handed and yes, it's a turd, although Apple do a good job of polishing it).

      It's fairly simple to understand though, as the size of phones has decreased the available space for antennae has been squeezed so reception is reliant on more and more clever designs. Making a phone with uninsulated exposed antenna that can be bridged with the wrong hand hold is plain stupidity though.

      Denying it and telling people that they're using it wrong is arrogant and shows a huge disrespect for customers.

      Jobs would have gained a little of my respect if he'd stood up and admitted there was a problem but no, Apple and their hype based marketing relies on BS, if you strip away all the BS you've got a vaguely competent MP3 player manufacturer (who've dropped the ball a little with the recent models) who make commodity hardware pretty and sell it to the style conscious.

      With a little luck their fortunes will start to wane again but hopefully this time uncle Bill won't bail them out with a gift of several million dollars.

      Paris, very receptive if held in the right way.

  10. Joey
    Jobs Halo

    Bumper

    Yeh, I bought a bumper just after getting my iPhone 4. Nothing to do with reception whatsoever. I haven't had any reception problems that I can attribute to the phone at all - note, all those people that haven't actually tried. My problem is that I keep my iPhone in my shirt pocket. Several times, with my iPhone 3, I have leaned over to pick something up and the phone has slid out and fallen on the floor. Eventually, the glass broke and I had to have it fixed. £40! So I bought a rubber case which would have softened the fall but hey, the rubber case stopped the phone falling out of my pocket in the first place. Hence, the bumper with my new phone. The slippery iPhone no longer falls out of my pocket. So, the real 'design fault' is fixed with the bumper too!

  11. chipkost

    I would beware of apple if I was a developer for their products

    If Jobs denies anything is wrong with the iphone 4, what is he likely to pull in the future. Developers BEWARE! Maybe now is a good time to take care of yourselves and send Jobs a message.http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/jobs_horns_32.png

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The biggest issue

    is the breathtaking arrogance of Apple in the first instance, the leaked customer services monkey sheet and the high and mighty Jobs basically holding every icrap user in contempt. **

    If they had just said yep, we fucked up but we are looking into a solution they would have been respected more and this would have been a non issue.

    **He is not related to Oleary of Ryanair by any chance?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Jobs talking Bollox

    We have about 30 Bold 9700's in the company, never have we had a dropped call problem like I am hearing from users who have bought personal iPox4's.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Haters out in force

    Gahd, it's like a wet dream for them...

    What would actually happen if Saint Jobs was actually telling the truth...that there is no "Antennagate", and that the vast majority of '4' users have no problems at all?

    Certainly the 5 '4' users in our office are wondering what all the fuss is about - theirs have been utterly reliable, pre and post 4.0.1. Which they also had no problems installing btw.

    If he does turn out to be right, and this *is* a storm in a teacup, you're gonna look like a bunch of credibility-challenged whingers.

    Perhaps we should wait until someone does a proper impartial test using the same competitor phones Jobs quoted, before the mud slinging?

    Typed (slowly) on my Samsung Galaxy (which has it's own problems btw), but that won't stop the hating downvoters who will consider my stance "pro apple", simply by virtue of not being "100% anti-apple".

  15. alwarming
    Paris Hilton

    DENIAL

    Apple has reached stage 2: Denial. Anger should follow soon.

    (Shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance).

    Paris, cos she broke the cycle went to Party after Shock.

    1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      Linux

      Anger and bargaining

      I think they went through denial, anger, and bargaining all in one go in His Jobsness's press conference. Anger was lashing out at other manufacturers, bargaining the attempts to buy off the unbelievers with rubber bands. So, depression next?

      GJC

  16. Paul 191
    Jobs Horns

    Taking it personally?

    Wow so no wall of people, its big Steve deleting all the threads on the Apple forum, who knew!

  17. Dark Apple
    FAIL

    Why apple never knew of the Apple-tenna issue.....

    As we all know all apple employees are Jedi of some form or another hence they use the force to levitate their iphones. Hence, they didnt / dont and wont acknowledge or acknowledge their acknowledgement of the issue. They have never used "hands" to hold the iphone.

    My 2 pence worth anyway..

  18. Dark Apple
    Troll

    Steve Jobs is deleting threads on this forum too....

    Sith powers dont you know....

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Barf !

    If crApple spin this any harder I'm going to throw up.

  20. Neill Mitchell

    Returns

    It will be interesting to see if the number of returns now shoots up. Jobs was saying there can't be a problem because they have had a tiny number of returns. This could simply be down to the fact that people were waiting to see what Apple would do.

    Now customers realise the "fix" is bullshit, the return rate will probably shoot up. I can also see people getting upset because they can't have the official Apple condom instead of the 3rd party one being offered when the stock rapidly runs out (if it hasn't already).

    1. Rolf Howarth

      Number of returns

      That will indeed be very interesting. There's obviously a huge furore about this antenna issue, but one suspects most of it is from people who don't like Apple, rather than from users actually experiencing any problems. Assuming what was said at the press conference was true, Apple have an awfully long way to go to catch up if their return rate is 1.5% versus an industry average of 30%.

      As that annoyingly catchy song says, "If you don't want an iPhone, don't buy it. If you bought one and you don't like it, bring it back."

  21. Arclight

    And she said

    "One thing I’ve learned is that when there's a successful organization, people want to tear it down," Jobs said.

    Hmm, isn't that kind of what Jobs has been trying to do with Microsoft for the last umpteen years.

    "We're the good guys in white, fighting the eebil microsoft"

  22. Chris Byers
    Jobs Horns

    Alternative compensation

    As regards to the free giveaway of the bumpers. There is a parcularity of the US legal system whereby 'compensation' may be offered without the guilty party ever having to admit liability. This compensation, once accepted, whether cash, gift or otherwise is then classed as having closed the matter and no case can then be brought. This happened to my company where a large US based publisher was (as far as our research pointed) at fault over a particular matter. We were then offered a quite attractive proposition as 'compensation', which we took as it was good for both parties. It was only later when it was explained to me why we got such a deal that the penny dropped. The actual act of offering this 'compensation' is, to my mind a way of them offloading their legal worries, as long as people take it up en-mass.

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