Antennagate won’t quit because the whole issue has become wonderful fodder for anyone with an opinion on which they may or may not have expertise or even proper perspective. What’s overlooked in Antennagate is that the real issue is customer satisfaction with the device vs. the perceived problems of dropping bars, death grips, Apple arrogance, antenna design, corporate deception, Steve Jobs intrigue, ad nauseam. Aaron Swartz misses the boat entirely with Why Apple Doesn’t Deserve Your Trust:
In the grand scheme, the antenna issue is not such a big deal. It hasn’t affected many users, it can apparently be resolved with a simple piece of plastic. But from the beginning, Apple’s response has been denial, misdirection, and outright deception.
The facts would appear to argue differently. Agreed, the antenna issue is not such a big deal since customers don’t seem to find it a problem, and most smart phones have similar weak reception spots.
From there, Swartz goes on the fodder hunt, making assumptions that do not have a basis in fact. Apple was in denial. How? Where? When? Who? Misdirection? How? Where? Examples? Who did it?
Apple deceived us. How? When? Where? Examples?
See?
Apple’s admission of a “reception issue” is merely restating what we already know. All smart phones have similar antenna and reception issues, to one degree or another. That’s not deception, Aaron, it’s reality. Apple refuses to “take responsibility” for a problem that doesn’t exist.
Good for Apple.
If, on the other models they compared the iPhone 4 against, they had shown the actual dBm (the generally-accepted measure of signal strength) lost by “holding it wrong,” we could have fairly compared their issues to the iPhone 4’s.
Interesting perspective, but—good grief. Are iPhone customers expected to understand dBm now? Even with dBM details on every smart phone tested and compared by Apple, we’d still need to know how attenuation differs from person to person, from cell tower to cell tower, from building to building, from carrier to carrier, from sweaty palm to sweaty palm.
Where does that nonsense end?
The dark and seedy side of Antennagate is that too many ill informed, non-technical, wholly judgmental writers have an opinion and a venue—a wonderful new way to pump up page views to their blogs and sites by repeatedly throwing Apple under the bus. It’s sport. It’s fun. Everyone is doing it. Join in. Share your experience, share your YouTube videos, share your anecdotal evidence, regardless of how contrary it is to fact. Hey, if Faux News can do it, we can do it, too.
Or so it seems.
Some would-be iPhone 4 customers may be persuaded by such noise, but most customers appear to be smarter than the technopundits and know a good thing when they see it. It’s not the antenna design. It’s not the bars. It’s the calls. If the iPhone 4 makes calls and does everything else an iPhone 4 does, customers will be happy. Apparently, 3-million iPhone 4 customers are very happy.
Unfortunately, the technonazi media feeds on Apple’s antenna fodder—happy just doesn’t sell as well as controversy. It’s just much easier to make up a controversy and spread it around than it is to report the simple fact that customers really, really, really like their new iPhones.