TECHNOLOGY The iPhone cometh

iPhone 4 hits Ireland on July 30 (and, yes, the signal IS dodgy)


Fergus Kelly

A hastily organised Apple press conference was held last Friday to deal with the iPhone 4’s antenna issue, the so-called Antennagate. It was most unususual for Apple, one of the world’s most media-savvy and PR-aware tech companies. CEO Steve Jobs had to fly in from holiday in Hawaii to present it, though the simple fact that he was there added seriousness to the event.
The company, and Steve’s latest jewel, has had quite a few knocks recently. One thing that just would not go away was an issue noticed as soon as the phone was available to the public. If the device is held in a particular way the signal drops, sometimes dropping the call entirely – Antennagate. Just about everybody agreed that it was down to the design of the phone. It has an unusual feature: The bezel (a stainless steel band that runs around the phone’s edge) is the antenna. Users noticed that when the phone was held in certain ways the reception on the phone reduced.
So Steve was put a in a rather difficult position. He couldn’t possibly deny this fact. The master showman had to somehow use his famed reality distortion field to turn a PR disaster into a media coup. We’d all been wondering how he’d spin it and, to my mind, he pulled off a master stroke.
“We’re not perfect” read the first slide. This was quickly followed by “Phones aren‘t perfect”. The tone was set. Jobs, by his standards, was contrite, but the defence of his baby was ready.
This problem is not unique to the iPhone 4 he argued. He showed video of Blackberry, HTC and Samsung phones, all exhibiting similar signal loss when gripped. All smartphones, he said, drop signal when held.
Jobs claimed Apple had also made errors with their signal -strength bar display algorithm, now corrected with a software update. He even claimed that Apple had made it obvious where not to hold the phone by making lines in the bezel. He went as far as to say that the iPhone 4 drops less than one more call per hundred than the 3GS, but he didn’t say how many that model drops.
Apple has known all along that there was an issue. Jobs admitted this, and he’s now trying to spin it. The party line is that all phones have this issue, it’s not iPhone specific. This, then, raises a simple question: Why didn’t Apple tell everybody at the start and avoid this PR nightmare? The simple solution is the one it is now employing – supply a case with the phone. A potentially perfect solution had already been designed: Apple’s iPhone Bumper, a simple plastic cover for the bezel/antenna. The fact that it was designed at all implies an expectation that it would be required at some point. Maybe Apple just considered it a way to make an extra few quid off every iPhone 4 buyer (and their marketing would imply this)?
Apple reckons that most of its customers are happy with the iPhone 4. According to its customer care stats only 0.55 per cent have complained about the antenna issue. Return rates in the first few weeks stand at around 1.7 per cent. This compares well to the 6 per cent iPhone 3GS return rate, but we are still in the early-adopter honeymoon.
For a couple of dollars per phone sold ‘Antennagate’ could have been avoided. Mind you, when you sell a million phones per week those extra costs add up fast0. Surely though, for a company with a market captalisation in the tens of billions it’s a small price to pay for good PR.
Oh, in other news, Jobs also announced that the iPhone 4 will finally be available in Ireland on July 30 and the iPad will be out this week.

The iPhone 4 will be available in Ireland on July 30. Pricing has not yet been announced.
Three Ireland are now taking registrations of interest in the iPhone 4. It expects the new phone to be available in late July or early August. It has not announced any details of pricing or contract length, but there is speculation that the minimum term for a contract will be 2 years – the UK arm of the company have set two years as a minimum.
Vodafone also has a pre-registration page on their site. O2 has not announced any details and is not taking pre-registrations yet.
Apple has started a ‘Notify Me’ service on their website and the phone is now on its online store as a ‘Coming Soon’ product. It has also announced that every purchaser of the iPhone 4 will be entitled to a free bumper case – the unusual antenna design has caused calls to be dropped and the case helps alleviate this problem.
The iPad, Apple’s touchscreen tablet computer will be available in Ireland from Friday, July 23.