Hurray iPhone 4! Oh wait...

Note: I'll admit that I've been far from kind to Apple in more personal conversations with people I know with regards to this whole thing, so I'll try and be nicer and more fair here. That is the better thing to do, after all.

There's actually a decent chance that not many of you have heard about this whole situation in general, but here's a quick bullet-point summary:

• New iPhone 4 is released, looks very nice and performs nicely and sells a whopping 1.7ish million units in the first three days
• People begin to notice their signal degrades severely, especially when the phone is held in their left hand
• Problem is traced to the bottom-left corner of the phone where there is a gap between the two antennas that can be bridged by touching that area of the phone
• People complain, a few class-action lawsuits filed
• Steve Jobs tells people: You're holding it wrong, hold the phone differently (not verbatim)
• Apple at first denies the problem, refuses to "appease" (their word choice, not mine) the horde customers with free $30 "bumpers" which were conveniently released along with the phone which covers the antenna and eliminates any and all issues with reception and the antenna
• Tests run by Anandtech show that the phone does show significant signal attenuation, but the phone does indeed perform better then previous iPhones and also that covering the antenna does fix all issues
• More complaining, more evidence mounts against the antenna design and other stuff
• Apple continues to be silent, but then announces a software update that should display the signal strength more accurately, however they neglect to mention that the update still won't fix the issue of the actual signal degrading when the antennas are bridged via human touch. No worries though, not all people were silly enough to blindly believe Apple had magically found a way to fix the problem.
• In fact, Apple hasn't fixed the problem and may not for the foreseeable future, see below

From Gizmodo's article "AppleCare: The iPhone 4 Update won't Solve the Antenna Problem":

We called AppleCare three times today to confirm it. We told them that we were experiencing voice quality problems and call drops, as well as problems with internet access. Their response was immediate and unequivocal, the same in the three cases:

• There is an antenna interference problem when you hold the iPhone 4 in a certain way (the tests by Anandtech and many demonstration videos in the internet show that the signal drop will happen every time when you touch the phone's dead spot, on the left bottom corner).

• One solution is to hold the phone differently, avoiding to touch the left bottom corner of the phone (coincidentally, this is how models hold the iPhone 4 in most of Apple's promotional material).

• The other other solution is to buy a case or one of Apple's $30 bumpers (we are hosting a petition to ask Apple for free cases. You can sign it here).

• The incoming software update will not fix this antenna problem, only change the way the phone displays the available signal, make it more accurate.

There you go everyone. Straight from AppleCare reps themselves. Having the antenna on the outside of the phone does cause issues with reception and the software update won't fix the update and was never meant to (big "duh" on that one). Their response to the situation, as it was initially, is still "tough luck, deal with it, and hold the phone differently".

Figures.

I'm not as upset about the actual design of the phone as I am at Apple's handling of the situation. Hell, I actually like this phone. The design is admittedly very slick, it has good hardware and the interface is nice. However, if a company won't back their product and help their customers and would rather refuse to "appease" (their word choice, not mine) the horde - I mean - its customers by offering them the simplest solution, a free bumper (which I think is way overpriced at $30) or SOMETHING, then it just makes the experience with the product worse in the end because you realize that the company that made it seems to care more about its own image and the product image than the people who paid for it and therefore contributed to the company's livelihood in the end.

So, there ya have it. If you have an iPhone 4, Apple doesn't want you to just enjoy it, they want you to deal with it. Good phone, but it has an unfortunate case of "two steps forward, one step backward". At least there's a net gain in progress, right?

Apple's politics and the way it deals with these kinds of situations is pretty obnoxious. Their products are good, but their PR is far from matching the quality of the company's products. It'll be tough for some to swallow, but Apple seems to no longer be fighting Big Brother, they are now more like Big Brother itself today (Jon Stewart brilliantly pointed this out earlier this year and I pretty much stand where he does: I'll admit that I like the products now, but really, what's going on, Apple?). That's an entirely different conversation that I won't get into. Just think about it though.

This all makes for a more convincing argument to switch over to an Android OS phone further down the line, especially since the newer offerings simply kick a whole hell of a lot of ass. Who knows though, some Android phone maker may drop a bomb of a defect in some phone, but I'd at least have more options to go to aside from just one from Apple.

For now though, I'll enjoy my iPhone 4 - and deal with it because aside from the handling of the whole situation with this product, it is a pretty good piece of kit (Otterbox, please hurry up and release your cases for it!).

I'd just like to add that I don't mean to bash the actual iPhone 4 and I especially mean no offense to the people who bought it with their hard-earned cash. It is a legitimately cool product and serves its purpose really well. The issue that I have with this whole thing is Apple's handling of the situation (and some other things in general), not so much the actual product.

I realize that Apple has its reasons for operating the way it does, but I choose to respectfully disagree with their practices and offer my opinions. There are thousands of other write-ups about how others disagree with Apple's business practices, but I won't go any further into that here. As it would also be unfair to single Apple out on this one, it should also be noted that Apple is certainly not the only company to handle things as such. Also, to its credit, Apple is offering to waive the restocking fee for now for those who are unsatisfied with the iPhone 4. So there ya have it. We'll see where things go from here I guess.