No iPhone recall, says Jobs at Apple press conference

Friday, July 16th, 2010 By

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs put the record straight at the Apple press conference, and there will be no iPhone recall. Image from Wikimedia Commons

In the wake of turmoil over a possibly faulty antenna on the iPhone 4.0, an Apple Press Conference was scheduled for today. A potential iPhone recall was on a lot of minds, but there will be no iPhone recall. Instead, iPhone 4.0 owners can sign up to get a free case for their iPhones to fix the antenna problem. Apple CEO Steve Jobs addressed the antenna as well as some other issues at the Apple press conference.

Hardware issues dubbed ‘Antennagate’

A partial transcript is available on the Wall Street Journal website. Steve Jobs began the Apple press conference by referring to the issue as “Antennagate”  and saying the issue is common to all smartphones, not just the iPhone 4.0. He pointed out that other smartphones, like the Blackberry, have the same problem.  Jobs did confess that the iPhone 4.0 dropped more calls than the iPhone 3GS, but the rate at which the new iPhone dropped calls was less than one more per 100 calls than the iPhone 3GS.

What will Apple do about it?

There are bumpers for the phone, but there aren’t enough to go around. Instead, Apple is offering a free case to everyone that owns an iPhone 4.0. The offer will be good until Sept. 30, and anyone who bought bumpers can get a refund for the bumpers and a free case. However, those who bought a case from a third party for iPhone 4.0 won’t get refunds. For the next 30 days, people who still aren’t happy with the iPhone 4.0 with or without the free case from Apple can return the phone for a full refund.

What ‘Antennagate’ was all about

What happened in “Antennagate” was that first, a design flaw common to all smartphones was discovered in the iPhone 4.0.  It drops an almost negligent amount of calls more than the iPhone 3GS. Essentially, what happened was that a small amount of people (just more than 0.5 percent actually complained to Apple about the phone) noticed this flaw. It was then exploited by the media.

Apple is working on fixing it and spent $100 million designing the antenna to begin with. AT&T reported to Apple that less than 2 percent of iPhone 4.0 buyers have returned their phones, compared with 6 percent of iPhone 3GS buyers.

Sources

Wall Street Journal live coverage

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  • Denny

    There is the real bottom line, regardless of whether people contacted Apple about their problem or not. I have seen the problem in the 4G and compared it with my 3GS. It truly does exist and I don't believe the story about only a small amount of disconnects. But at the same time my daughter and her husband have not seen the problem on their 4Gs on the east coast. But as I started to say, the bottom line is that it is a great phone, probably at present the most capable smart phone available. The reason so few are returning them, even acknowledging the problem, is that features like the extremely sharp screen, the ability to see who you are talking to, etc., are so irresistible that people are willing to deal with the reception problem. I am sure not talking my 4G back.