As Apple's PR disaster grows, some say recall

I love my new iphone 4 and I haven't had any type of problem with anything related to the phone. Guess that I didn't get one of the .0006% that needed to be returned and hit redo. I spend a lot of time taking photos and making iphone movies and then uploading them into chimpout.com and I haven't experienced any phone related issues. Just a lot of problems with talking apes that are trying to kill me or steal my stuff.

If any other phone came on to the market with the same issues, it would have barely made a headline for a day.

While I agree that apple needs to fix this issue and compensate those early adapters in some way, I believe it is been blown out of proportion just because of who it is producing it.

Should we expect excellence from a company like apple? Absolutely. We are been asked to pay a premium for their product, from a company whose reputation is built on the quality and superior design of said products.

The issue at hand is how many people will return to try again? Out of 100, it is pretty obvious if apple rapped a piece of crap between glass, 20 people would buy, just because, 20 wouldn't, just because. That leaves 60 people sitting on the fence...That's a lot of people you want to not only buy your product, but want to return and try something else or upgrade.

A launch issue like this could lose you a lot of potential custom if you choose to leave your loyal customers out in the cold.

I think apple has lost its way over the last few years, which is a shame, it can, when it wants to, produce some really awesome stuff.

I would wipe my ass with anything CR says. I trust antenna guys, and they say it's ok.
However, Apple should offer a free bumper to anyone who needs one.

They could make all this go away by simply offering a $29.00 Apple Store credit to be used expressly on a bumper or case. A LOT cheaper then a recall and a lot cheaper then the credit they gave iPhone 1.0 buyers too.

I don't think a recall reduces confidence in your brand or your products when done so properly. However, Apple has handled this whole thing so poorly already, discounting user reports after PILES OF EVIDENCE proving that an engineering defect exists. I don't know that it can get any worse. Admitting they were wrong now probably won't help things given the statement they made before - basically ignoring the issue. Had they admitted the problem right off the bat, it would have been a different beast and not such a blow to the brand.

What virtually everyone is ignoring here is the fact that there is no evidence of a design flaw or hardware defect. Other phones also suffer from this same issue, yet nobody seems to be worked up over it or demanding a recall.

Instead, TUAW and others grab onto anything that seems to validate their bias against the iPhone 4, even though most people are not suffering from this issue. CR is hardly unbiased in their testing, as they were looking to validate claims of this issue, so when they appeared to find it, the looked no further for any exculpatory evidence. At the same time, they are not qualified to test these devices and don't have the necessary budget for the equipment needed. Testing in an isolation chamber, in one market, and simulating a network is not a real-world scenario, so the results certainly can't be correlated to the experiences of all other users in every other market.

Instead of jumping on the bandwagon of conspiracy, wise up and wait for real, unbiased evidence or reports from Apple that there is an issue.

So if it has the best reception of other iPhones then why cant they recommend it?

If users are really having a problem, Apple already said they could return the iPhone for a full refund. Apple doesn't need to do a recall, http://tinyurl.com/3628lm4

Still cant replicate the problem on my iphone4 at all. Weird.

I went to the Apple store today over my lunch hour. Still trying to decide whether I'm going to upgrade my 3G to an "S" or pull the trigger on the 4. The trip didn't help me much. Here's why:

1. None of the iPhone 4's in the store exhibit the problem so I couldn't decide how annoying it would be. I assume it didn't happen because the AT&T signal was very good and I know it doesn't happen as easily on the 3GS. (+1 for the 3GS)

2. The screen on the iPhone 4 is truly beautiful, something you have to see if you haven't. Compared to the 4, the 3GS looks like crap. (+1 for the iPhone 4)

3. iOS 4 on 3GS seems to be less buggy than on my 3G but it's still buggy. I had to restart the phone to get the built in notes application not to crash when pulling it out of suspended animation. (+1 for the iPhone 4)

4. The King of Prussia Apple Store was out of stock on the iPhone 4. This is hard for me to believe. I'm wondering if the slowdown in production is due to a redesign. (+1 for the 3GS)

5. The 3GS's on sale now are the 8GB model, which I thought was weird. I guess they do this so they only have to support one model and can in turn make the 3GS look less "powerful" but I didn't want to downgrade on storage from my 16gb 3g. (+1 for the iPhone 4)

6. The 3GS is $99 (+1 for the 3GS)

So in my mind it's still a tie. I need to upgrade soon as I'm getting a bit annoyed with iOS4 on my 3G, am getting tired of waiting for bugfixes and consider the iOS 4 multitasking a real productivity win.

Is my logic sound?