Oh Apple…

I’m a mac. I’ll be the first to admit it, and I’m not ashamed. I’m a mac person. I love Apple products, more than I do Microsoft or otherwise PC-related products. I have my reasons, but in an effort to not turn this post into a Mac/PC war, I’ll just leave them out.

Anyway, as I’m sure everyone knows (and if you don’t, well, get out from under your rock and take in sunlight, you know, that stuff that comes from the bright hot ball in the sky), Apple recently released the iPhone 4. I don’t have one myself (I’m waiting for an announcement for an upgraded iPod Touch), but I find it quite funny what’s been going on.

Apparently, the iPhone 4 has been having some issues, including but not limited to display and reception problems. The display issues, I’ve read, were addressed by Apple at first, but soon enough (after enough users started getting issues like a yellow band on the screen) Apple began telling customers to just wait it out, and see if it fixes itself. I don’t read much about the display issues anymore.

The reception problems, however, have been a huge issue, even leading some people to decide they want to sue Apple over them . Personally, I find that ridiculous. So, you’re going to pay a ton of money to sue Apple, over reception problems no less, instead of just modifying your grip, OR spending ~$30 (which is, admittedly, not cheap, but certainly cheaper than hiring a lawyer) to buy a case that grants even better reception than holding the phone in an open palm with no case.

I’d direct these potential plaintiffs to this modified version of a classic joke:

iPhone 4 user: Doctor, doctor! My iPhone 4 gets really poor reception when I put my finger over this part of the antenna!
Doctor: My professional recommendation is that you stop putting your hand over that part of the antenna. That’ll be $50.

Regardless of the fun I poke at it, the reception is a legitimate issue with the phone, and along with the display issues, it’s just another reason for me to hold on to the rule I have when considering buying Apple’s products. With any new Apple product I want to buy, I always wait about three months until the inevitable issues are exposed by other more eager (and less patient) consumers so I know what I’m really getting into.

At first, I, as I’m sure many others did as well, found Apple’s response to the issue to be rather laughable. They blame the problem on themselves, which is interesting in and of itself, but they direct the blame towards something I never would have guessed. Covering the slit in the antenna, they say, only drops the number of bars displayed, not the phone’s actual reception (or at least, not as much as some would suggest), due to a faulty algorithm within the phone. In actuality, they continue, in those instances, the phone probably never had as many bars of reception as it displayed. They’ll be offering users an update to the iphone OS4 software to fix the issue.

This would seem to suggest that the phone overall doesn’t get very good quality…if putting one’s finger over the antenna slit shows users what their “real” reception is, doesn’t that mean the phone overall is just…bad?

But even so, to some (including me at first), the explanation seems suspicious. However, it may be true. According to that article, the quality of a call was monitored before and after putting one’s hand on the antenna slit. The bars went down dramatically as expected, but the quality of the call stayed fine. I suppose it’s not as clear-cut of an issue as I or anyone assumed.

What are your thoughts?