It's just a phone, but several hundred dollars spent on a faulty product is guaranteed to annoy people. I understand that a calmer attitude overall is a good thing, but Jobs' continual dismissal of real issues comes off as rude and uncaring. From a 3rd party, I'd say it's good advice, although I would also advise them to return the phone if it isn't working for them. However, coming from Jobs, it just seems rude, considering it's his company that caused the issue.
He's not dismissing the issue at all. I'm sure he's spent most of his days since the launch overseeing the response to the issue(s). I think he's more referring to people starting class action lawsuits days after getting the product and people spending all day furiously blogging, emailing him about it, etc. It's Apple, the product's flaws will eventually be fixed because their image is necessary for their success.
> It's Apple, the product's flaws will eventually be fixed because their image is necessary for their success.
That, unfortunately, is their image.
They release flawed products, that eventually get fixed. The flaws are dismissed as not necessary, useless, or a waste. Eventually the features might get added, or the flaw fixed. All too often, I hear from Apple fans to wait until after the 1st generation.
So that's their image.
While I think a lawsuit is pretty silly this early on (thought not unwarranted if they knew about the problem before launch), a solid release would do their image better then always fixing flaws.
The guy was pretty rude.I am not saying that he was unnecessarily rude. He has every right to be pissed off. But, it's a fact that he was rude. It would have been really easy for Steve to ignore his message or to shoot back. Jobs' calmness actually earned my respect. I think he handled that guy perfectly. Jobs told him that Apple was working on the issue. Yet, he wasn't satisfied. So, Jobs just advised the guy to relax a bit.
Have you ever been in an argument with a spouse/significant other and told them to "calm down"? Did saying that ever make them calm down? Telling someone to "calm down" is pretty much guaranteed to make them even more upset/frustrated. I don't know if Jobs said that on purpose to annoy that guy, but the outcome wasn't exactly surprising.
I don't think you can compare an argument with a significant other to this.
I have no doubt that Jobs was being perfectly transparent when he said that and meant exactly what he wrote. However, you're right that it's not exactly the best way to diffuse the situation, so he did say:
"You may be working from bad data. Not your fault. Stay tuned. We are working on it."
Or $325. If you can afford an iPhone but not the ETF, you shouldn't have bought the iPhone.
I'm surprised Apple isn't taking the Nexus One approach. Buy the phone with the radio that you want, and use it on any network. No ETF, no subsidy, just a phone.
I agree. $200 is a lot of money for some people. It doesn't matter who you are - as long as you are selling something, you need to respect the fact that your customer was willing to spend time and money in purchasing and using your product. You need to respect the fact that they paid for your product.
Orthogonal to that, I would be angry if I bought a phone and it didn't let me make phone calls consistently.
In the UK, an 'unsubsidized' i4 starts at $630. Even if you only use it as an expensive iPod Touch HD with an unused 3G antenna, the phone costs more than $200 to own, any way you want to look at it.
Orthogonal to that, I think this whole antenna kurfuffle is ludicrous hysteria.
Is the problem really that bad? I feel like this is just TechCrunch exaggerating to get a story. Three people I know personally are having no antenna problems, and I've heard the same from many others. Are they just lucky?
No. Your mileage will vary, of course: a large part of this is rumored to be tied to how strong your AT&T signal is, so it may be I live and work in areas of relatively strong signals. I very rarely have experienced a signal strength problem with iPhone 4, however. Admittedly, I was a little concerned at launch — if I tried hard enough I could reproduce the signal problem — but I've found it just hasn't mattered in normal usage of the phone.
I think it'll eventually blow over, and I think we're starting to see signs of this in the Apple press already. I suspect Jobs knows it's a relative non-issue and is trying to brush it off as such. Unfortunately, it is an issue new iPhone users are concerned about and his words sound callous in that light. It likely would make more sense for Jobs to sit on his words and instead quietly ship the upcoming 4.01 release, but hey, it's Jobs.
Yeah, when I got the 4, I couldn't reproduce the problem at work, but I have a strong signal there. At home, I can set the phone down and it gets four bars. If I cover the bottom gaps, it will drop to "Searching..." in about 30 seconds. Touching the rest of the case will take it to one bar - pretty much unusable. I had similar problems with the 3GS, they just weren't as bad. I'm still glad I bought it, my biggest beef is that I can't just bitch about AT&T's coverage any more.
It's a real issue, but it only manifests itself in areas of low signal strength. I can get my phone to go to No Signal just by holding it at home, but at the coffee shop I frequently work from, I cannot reproduce it. My guess is that for all the bitching we tend to do about AT&T, they might actually have pretty decent coverage in general and it's only the people with homes or offices in the lower-power zones on the fringes of a cell's coverage area that see the problem.
> they might actually have pretty decent coverage in general and it's only the people with homes or offices in the lower-power zones on the fringes of a cell's coverage area that see the problem.
My friend with Verizon gets full 3G in the middle of Nebraska. I barely get Edge. No contest.
Um. Okay. All that proves is that Verizon has better coverage in the middle of Nebraska. My speculation is that the reason there hasn't been an enormous outcry about the iPhone antenna issue from the general public is that maybe AT&T is actually doing a pretty good job of covering the majority of their customers and so they don't even notice. The fact that there's areas where other companies have better coverage hardly disproves that.
I believe it's an issue. I'm also starting to think it's a manufacturing problem that primarily effects first or second shipment phones.
I just got my iphone yesterday and cannot replicate the problem. I thought maybe I was in a good signal area so today I went to an area where I know signal is poor. When not in my hand the phone sat at 3 bars. If I touched the spot I could get it to bounce around from 2-3-4 bars. Never once did it go to no signal. Also, no matter what hand I hold the phone in my particular grip doesn't naturally touch the spot.
A friend of mine who also just got his phone has has the same experience as I have. No real issue.
Another friend who received his phone on launch day can touch the spot and go from 5 bars to no signal in minutes.
The only commonality between the 2 phones that appear to have no problem is that they were bought at best buy from a very recent shipment. The phone with the problem was bought from Apple and received on launch day.
IMHO, the biggest problem with the whole situation is how Apple has handled it. Clearly some people have issues, but Apple being Apple has been arrogant about the whole ordeal. This is one time where a little communication would go a long ways. I'm going to guess they still aren't sure of the exact problem and that's why they have been totally quiet on the issue (other than SJs typical quips).
Also, the whole design defect thing needs to have some logic enter the equation. Do people really think that the phone went through an entire hardware design cycle and a group of engineers never thought to test of the phone was held? Even the worst developers I've worked with and managed do better testing than that. I think it's much more likely that there is/was either an issue with software and/or manufacturing.
To understand the problem I think everyone needs to have a really good concept of 1.7 million devices sold. It could effect 5% of the owners and that's almost 100,000 people. If 10% of those people are very upset about the problem and e-mail tech sites, post to forums, etc can we really get a good idea of the scope of the problem? 10,000 people being vocal online could represent 100,000 real problems or it could represent 1.7 million real problems. There's really no way of knowing. The lack of some massive army of people returning their iPhone 4s makes me think it's probably closer to the 5% mark than the 100% mark.
Imagine the problem was with ATT (not hard to imagine), and Jobs sends the CEO an email expressing his dissatisfaction, to which the CEO replies, "Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it." I wonder how Steve would react.
He sure as hell doesn't market the iPhone as "just a phone," so how can he expect his customers to think of it that way?
Indeed. You don't get to sell someone a magical life-changing device that will make you breakfast in bed on Tuesdays and then dismiss it as trivial when a bit of user dissatisfaction comes along. Apple doesn't sell "just a phone" - they sell a brand, an experience, an identity. For Jobs to dismiss it as "just a phone" is somewhat disingenuous in light of his marketing approach.
"So some guy says his iPhone 4 is having reception issues. I say there is no reception issue. Now it’s his reality against my reality. Which one of us is living in the real reality?
There’s a two-part answer: 1, there is no real reality, and 2, it doesn’t matter.
The only thing that matters is which reality our customers will choose to adopt as their own.
Of course most people would rather live in a reality where everything works and there are no problems. And now, thanks to me, that reality exists. Because I’ve created that reality for them."
If something can bring you a lot of joy, by not working it can take that joy away, making you upset. I'm not saying that guy expressed himself correctly, but I can understand why he would be upset at the idea that Apple and Jobs doesn't seem to think this problem is real and needs a fix.
Steve's comment makes sense from his buddhist perspective:
Life is suffering and suffering comes from attachment.
He clearly wants iphone owners who are attached to their phones to suffer :)
I buy a lot of gadgets, so I'm used to being upset when I realize my $600 toy is not going to be much use to me. But most people do not go through the cycle as often, and they think that buying a product means it's going to work as advertised and not give them problems because they hold it wrong. The fact that the phone loses reception is irrelevant; the disappointment comes in knowing that you have a flawed half-baked product, and that there will never be one that works. Next year, there will be another iPhone, but it will be flawed in some way too. Now Apple isn't as cool as you thought. Now you aren't as cool as you thought. Now the Universe isn't as cool as you thought.
An angry letter seems like a pretty rational response if it means that you can still feel meaning in your life.
Exactly. I own an iPhone 4 (upgraded from an iPhone 3G) and "switched" to Macs a while back. My coworkers - many of which own an Android-based smart phone - are loving every moment of this.
And to be honest, some of the videos, photos, etc., they've shown me have cracked me up.
The world isn't "crashing"; It's a phone. One that works pretty damn well.
“When this whole thing with Gizmodo happened, I got a lot of advice from people that said you’ve got to just let it slide. ‘You shouldn’t go after a journalist because they bought stolen property and tried to extort you.’ And I thought deeply about this, and I concluded the worst thing that could happen is if we change our core values and let it slide. I can’t do that. I’d rather quit.”
It's funny because my advice to Steve throughout this ordeal would be akin to "retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it."
Perhaps Steve should widen his perspective a bit and realize that it's much easier to accept something is "not worth it" when you don't feel like you're the one that's been wronged. He should know.
Having something stolen from your company and having a product you just purchased, which is 100% refundable not work exactly as you had hoped, are hardly the same thing as far as I'm concerned.
Further, had Jobs decided to just let that incident go, it could encourage similar acts of espionage in the future as people would think they could get away with taking a device that's not theirs and selling it in the same manner.
On the other hand, had this customer decided to let it go and just return the iPhone and grab, for example, an Android device, there would be few consequences.
It's one thing to get frustrated about someone stealing/selling your items. It's very much another to feel a sense of entitlement for something you purchased which is returnable for a full refund and demand compensation or otherwise instead of just getting a refund.
The point is that if you read the public comments Steve's made about the Gizmodo affair, it's very clear that he took the entire thing very personally. For Steve, it became personal, whereas it was simply business for Gawker.
A customer angry about a flawed product isn't upset because it's a phone; they're upset because it's their phone. It's personal for them.
I'm not saying that the two situations are perfectly analogous (though, as a disclaimer, I do think Apple handled the Gizmodo thing poorly): what I am saying is that it's much easier to tell somebody else to not take things so seriously when you're not the one that's internalized the problem.
Well, and there you have Gawker's great miscalculation in the whole ordeal - they expected Apple to react as a business entity rather than as a proxy for Steve Jobs himself.
You need to include the number of instances of harm in this sort of calculation. Is someone who steals $1000 from one person a worse criminal than someone who steals $1 from a million? Many people purchased defective goods, but only one corporation had its secrets stolen.
> Except where prohibited, a 10% restocking fee will apply to any non-defective item
If you can prove its defective, there is no restocking fee, alternatively, they'll likely replace the phone with an new one if it is just a problem with certain models.
Apple claims this is the best that they have ever had and have explicitly advised their support staff that this is not a problem. Their recommendation is to just hold differently. In other words, its the user who is defective, not the phone.
Just how do you propose anyone proves its defective given that, and avoid being charged the restocking fee?
In practice, you walk into the store, tell them its not working properly and they will either take back the item you have claimed to be defective or replace the item.
In general, Apple's retail stores are extremely straight forward, offer great customer service, and don't yank you around like other brick and mortar retailers.
I picked one up on launch day and I seriously think all these "problems" are no big deal. Yes, if you intentionally place your hand over a particular spot on the phone you lose signal strength, but in my experience, it takes a deliberate effort to reproduce, so who cares? It's kind of like saying "gee... every time I throw my phone in the bathtub, it doesn't work." Just don't throw it in the bathtub and you're fine!
Well, using a generational milestone doesn't really work well here. That's like saying every Ford these day, with so many models before it, should be flawless.
I was under the impression that left handed people naturally hold the phone in the problematic position? Is that not true? It's estimated 10% of people are left handed, that probably translates into about 10% of iPhone owners seeing as your handedness has little to do with your penchant for trendy gadgets.
I'm left handed and find it extremely awkward to hold the phone in a manner that would cause the problem. I understand that if you do hold the phone the "wrong" way then this would be a huge issue for you, but my gut still tells me that this isn't really such a big deal in terms of sheer numbers.
I'm right handed and I've always held phones in my left hand. If other people hold the phone in the hand opposite their strong hand, that would raise the percentage affected by this issue, assuming your impression is correct.
Out of curiosity, is there a karma threshold for downvoting stories, or is downvoting stories not enabled on hackernews at all? I don't think this piece adds anything to hackernews other than more flamebait, but I'm hesitant to flag it since it's not spam.
That article says that there is downvoting, but that there is a "karma threshold." The article states that it is 100, but I have over 100 points and no downvote arrows, so it must be higher.
This whole "thing" is just ridiculous, it makes me laugh.. its all talk & bs. Every AT&T iPhone owner out there has/does experience really poor network service since the iPhone launched back in 07, yet, some still complain, rage, blog, create class actions lawsuits about the antennae issue on the new iPhone, but disregard the crappy service for years?? I'm not saying to sue AT&T, but to look at the bigger picture. Quit complaining, it's an amazing device, and I'm sure the issue will be resolved soon, remember - everyone at apple uses the phone too, its not some fly-by device just to make money, but to actually make life easier, to have a device that really represents innovation, that's why apple created the iPhone, "they" were sick of using the crap on the market, and now what? Everyone smartphone resembles the iPhone in some form or another...get over it, soon everyone will have an iPhone 4, just like the first gen, and iPods. No need to get mad, or rage - address your issues, and I'm sure apple will take care of it, eventually :)
I'm sorry, that's not correct. We have all three generations of iPhones in our family, and we all use AT&T. I don't have an iPhone, I have a Motorola handset. My Motorola will make calls when the iPhones can't get any signal. The whole family has to use my phone when we go to remote areas. Furthermore, my AT&T/Motorola combination outperforms the same model phone on Verizon in the marinas on the Northeast coast (Boston - Baltimore) and in the mountains of W VA and Western Maryland. These are the only places I've been able to do direct comparisons, but I've never been in a situation where some other service had better coverage than AT&T (that is, I've never had to borrow someone else's phone on a different network to make a call).
The reason I haven't bought an Android is that I don't want to give up AT&T service. Not a fanboi at all; in fact, I've been pissed at them in the past. But in my observation they are superior, at least in the regions I haunt.
I understand the transceiver sensitivity of the iPhone 4 is finally quite good, and I was/am looking forward to maybe getting one. But until now, it has never impressed me as a phone, which is what I mainly need it for (it's my primary business line and I won't take a chance on inferior coverage).
That may be the case, but, here in San Francisco, 3G coverage lacks. AT&T told me that the towers in my neighborhood are "degraded", and even when directing my phone to new towers, I'm still unable to make calls, while 3G is enabled, nonetheless, my point is that this antenna issue is minor, and "people" should not go on a rant just because. I find your case very interesting, and am very jealous. :(
I agree with you that this doesn't seem to be an issue to get that upset about, especially if a case is all that's required to fix it. And that really sucks about AT&T in SF; I wouldn't have thought they'd let that city get away from them. I'm interested to see if there is more to it than meets the eye, though.
What's funny is that the little signal bars on the phone don't really mean anything. "Signal Strength" is not a useful measure of anything important if you're not also taking the noise into account. And nobody does that with their phones because the number would constantly be jumping all over the place.
The little signal bars use an algorithm to represent the constantly moving signal-to-noise ratio. The problem with them is that we know nothing about what's inside the algorithm. From observing the output of field test mode on an older iPhone, I gather this:
* The bars represent a moving average (instantaneous readouts aren't very usable anyway)
* There is a delay in what is reported, even when accounting for the moving average; conceivably to prevent jumpy reports
* The bars use some type of logarithmic scale, which makes sense when you understand digital signal degradation
Honestly my iPhone 4 works just fine. Bad reception where I had bad reception with the old one, and good one where it was good before. I was able to replicate the problem only holding the phone in a very un-natural way and in an area with bad reception.
Just knowing the kind of character that Steve Jobs is portrayed as being, I can hardly believe he actually said those words. They usually have an insert with his email header and signature when they post these kinds of comments (not like that couldn't be faked).
I have trouble believing this story is true since it seems like an incongruous thing for Jobs to say and there's not even an attempt at showing evidence that the email is legit. Blogs get lots of views if they have a story about Steve Jobs saying something controversial, so there's lots of incentive for these two blogs to report on it even if it's totally bogus.
So far, none of the videos I have seen show the iPhone being held "normally". They first show it lying down. Then they grip it like its a million dollars. Then they show "oh look, its ok if I just hold it by the top".
Why don't you hold it like you're making a fucking call?
Oh. Because then it would work fine.
But the real reason I don't believe the bullshit: my wife has one, and if there was a problem, oh boy would I know about it.
I doubt Apple/jobs would have the same reaction if the money they received from iPhone buyers was as defective as the phone. That being said, I do think people are going a little bit overboard in their reactions. Just about every phone, especially smartphones, has unusual reception quirks, the iPhone 4's quirks are worse than most but also not completely debilitating and there are plenty of functional work arounds.
I question the credibility of the exchange. The whole thing could've been some elaborate troll to try to elicit a response and then sell it in the first place.
I'm far from Apple fan: my MacBook Pro is disappointing, telling devs which languages they can use is insane, the fanboys queuing overnight for a chance to overpay for the latest, designed-to-expire-in-two-years gadget are ridiculous - but these Jobs emails actually make me like the guy. (The recent "Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?" one was pretty sweet too)
I thought you were incorrect, but Boy Genius Report just posted this update:
--
UPDATE: The last line in the email exchange was actually not said by Mr. Jobs; rather it was by “Tom.” We corrected it as soon as we were made aware.
Strange... it doesn't seem to really make sense in context. Why is he telling Jobs to relax and that it's "not worth it"? He's irate that his phone doesn't work right but then when Jobs says they're working on it, he tells Jobs that it's not a big deal?
93 comments
[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 168 ms ] threadThat, unfortunately, is their image.
They release flawed products, that eventually get fixed. The flaws are dismissed as not necessary, useless, or a waste. Eventually the features might get added, or the flaw fixed. All too often, I hear from Apple fans to wait until after the 1st generation.
So that's their image.
While I think a lawsuit is pretty silly this early on (thought not unwarranted if they knew about the problem before launch), a solid release would do their image better then always fixing flaws.
I have no doubt that Jobs was being perfectly transparent when he said that and meant exactly what he wrote. However, you're right that it's not exactly the best way to diffuse the situation, so he did say:
"You may be working from bad data. Not your fault. Stay tuned. We are working on it."
reasonable, yes?
"
He's stuck with this phone for two years.
I'm surprised Apple isn't taking the Nexus One approach. Buy the phone with the radio that you want, and use it on any network. No ETF, no subsidy, just a phone.
There should not be an ETF if the product has a major flaw (it is the iPHONE, so the phone part not working is pretty important imo).
In the UK, an 'unsubsidized' i4 starts at $630. Even if you only use it as an expensive iPod Touch HD with an unused 3G antenna, the phone costs more than $200 to own, any way you want to look at it.
Orthogonal to that, I think this whole antenna kurfuffle is ludicrous hysteria.
I think it'll eventually blow over, and I think we're starting to see signs of this in the Apple press already. I suspect Jobs knows it's a relative non-issue and is trying to brush it off as such. Unfortunately, it is an issue new iPhone users are concerned about and his words sound callous in that light. It likely would make more sense for Jobs to sit on his words and instead quietly ship the upcoming 4.01 release, but hey, it's Jobs.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2
My friend with Verizon gets full 3G in the middle of Nebraska. I barely get Edge. No contest.
I just got my iphone yesterday and cannot replicate the problem. I thought maybe I was in a good signal area so today I went to an area where I know signal is poor. When not in my hand the phone sat at 3 bars. If I touched the spot I could get it to bounce around from 2-3-4 bars. Never once did it go to no signal. Also, no matter what hand I hold the phone in my particular grip doesn't naturally touch the spot.
A friend of mine who also just got his phone has has the same experience as I have. No real issue.
Another friend who received his phone on launch day can touch the spot and go from 5 bars to no signal in minutes.
The only commonality between the 2 phones that appear to have no problem is that they were bought at best buy from a very recent shipment. The phone with the problem was bought from Apple and received on launch day.
IMHO, the biggest problem with the whole situation is how Apple has handled it. Clearly some people have issues, but Apple being Apple has been arrogant about the whole ordeal. This is one time where a little communication would go a long ways. I'm going to guess they still aren't sure of the exact problem and that's why they have been totally quiet on the issue (other than SJs typical quips).
Also, the whole design defect thing needs to have some logic enter the equation. Do people really think that the phone went through an entire hardware design cycle and a group of engineers never thought to test of the phone was held? Even the worst developers I've worked with and managed do better testing than that. I think it's much more likely that there is/was either an issue with software and/or manufacturing.
He sure as hell doesn't market the iPhone as "just a phone," so how can he expect his customers to think of it that way?
"So some guy says his iPhone 4 is having reception issues. I say there is no reception issue. Now it’s his reality against my reality. Which one of us is living in the real reality?
There’s a two-part answer: 1, there is no real reality, and 2, it doesn’t matter.
The only thing that matters is which reality our customers will choose to adopt as their own.
Of course most people would rather live in a reality where everything works and there are no problems. And now, thanks to me, that reality exists. Because I’ve created that reality for them."
If something can bring you a lot of joy, by not working it can take that joy away, making you upset. I'm not saying that guy expressed himself correctly, but I can understand why he would be upset at the idea that Apple and Jobs doesn't seem to think this problem is real and needs a fix.
An angry letter seems like a pretty rational response if it means that you can still feel meaning in your life.
Oh come on.
And to be honest, some of the videos, photos, etc., they've shown me have cracked me up.
The world isn't "crashing"; It's a phone. One that works pretty damn well.
“When this whole thing with Gizmodo happened, I got a lot of advice from people that said you’ve got to just let it slide. ‘You shouldn’t go after a journalist because they bought stolen property and tried to extort you.’ And I thought deeply about this, and I concluded the worst thing that could happen is if we change our core values and let it slide. I can’t do that. I’d rather quit.”
It's funny because my advice to Steve throughout this ordeal would be akin to "retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it."
Perhaps Steve should widen his perspective a bit and realize that it's much easier to accept something is "not worth it" when you don't feel like you're the one that's been wronged. He should know.
Further, had Jobs decided to just let that incident go, it could encourage similar acts of espionage in the future as people would think they could get away with taking a device that's not theirs and selling it in the same manner.
On the other hand, had this customer decided to let it go and just return the iPhone and grab, for example, an Android device, there would be few consequences.
It's one thing to get frustrated about someone stealing/selling your items. It's very much another to feel a sense of entitlement for something you purchased which is returnable for a full refund and demand compensation or otherwise instead of just getting a refund.
A customer angry about a flawed product isn't upset because it's a phone; they're upset because it's their phone. It's personal for them.
I'm not saying that the two situations are perfectly analogous (though, as a disclaimer, I do think Apple handled the Gizmodo thing poorly): what I am saying is that it's much easier to tell somebody else to not take things so seriously when you're not the one that's internalized the problem.
In general, this is how it works for public figures and the press.
1) stealing business secrets (and paying for stolen goods)
2) being unhappy with a $199 purchase
Sounds like Apple is following Jobs' advice, actually...
[search for restocking fee]
If you can prove its defective, there is no restocking fee, alternatively, they'll likely replace the phone with an new one if it is just a problem with certain models.
Apple claims this is the best that they have ever had and have explicitly advised their support staff that this is not a problem. Their recommendation is to just hold differently. In other words, its the user who is defective, not the phone.
Just how do you propose anyone proves its defective given that, and avoid being charged the restocking fee?
In general, Apple's retail stores are extremely straight forward, offer great customer service, and don't yank you around like other brick and mortar retailers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LkusicUL2s
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/the-value-of-downvotin...
No, there is no downvoting.
There is no downvoting, and, as I understand HN's etiquette, you should not flag a story just because you don't like it.
The reason I haven't bought an Android is that I don't want to give up AT&T service. Not a fanboi at all; in fact, I've been pissed at them in the past. But in my observation they are superior, at least in the regions I haunt.
I understand the transceiver sensitivity of the iPhone 4 is finally quite good, and I was/am looking forward to maybe getting one. But until now, it has never impressed me as a phone, which is what I mainly need it for (it's my primary business line and I won't take a chance on inferior coverage).
* The bars represent a moving average (instantaneous readouts aren't very usable anyway)
* There is a delay in what is reported, even when accounting for the moving average; conceivably to prevent jumpy reports
* The bars use some type of logarithmic scale, which makes sense when you understand digital signal degradation
Anyway, something smells fishy.
It's just an issue with your phone. Fix it.
Why don't you hold it like you're making a fucking call?
Oh. Because then it would work fine.
But the real reason I don't believe the bullshit: my wife has one, and if there was a problem, oh boy would I know about it.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/01/exclusive_conv...
I question the credibility of the exchange. The whole thing could've been some elaborate troll to try to elicit a response and then sell it in the first place.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/01/exclusive-conversa...
-- UPDATE: The last line in the email exchange was actually not said by Mr. Jobs; rather it was by “Tom.” We corrected it as soon as we were made aware.
Strange... it doesn't seem to really make sense in context. Why is he telling Jobs to relax and that it's "not worth it"? He's irate that his phone doesn't work right but then when Jobs says they're working on it, he tells Jobs that it's not a big deal?
UPDATE: The last line in the email exchange was actually not said by Mr. Jobs; rather it was by “Tom.” We corrected it as soon as we were made aware.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/01/exclusive-conversa...