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On the Media had a segment a few months ago about how a company should handle itself in a crisis using the Tylenol poisoning as a positive example. Apple doesn't seem to have learned that lesson and keep trying to deny that there's a problem and blame the consumer. They seem to think that there's no internets and that they can control the message.
iPhone 4 will be forever known as Apple's 'Shark Jumping/Fridge Nuking' moment and the beginning of a long, painful decline (but not immediately; it has a lot of goodwill left to destroy). Of course it could be avoided if Apple gets its corporate ego under control, which is dependent on Steve Jobs getting his personal ego under control, which should happen about 15 minutes after Sarah Palin does.
oneswellfoop: You're hilarious. Do you realize that CR also ranked the iPhone 4 #1 in its smartphone ranking (#2 is...tied iPhone 3GS and HTC Evo 4G).
Given its profitability and cash horde, Apple isn't close to its peak. One could argue that it's the most powerful corporation in the world at the moment.
The idea of a peak will be plausible when they use their massive cash balance to do something big, like buy Disney or another major media company.
I own Apple products but buy alternatives whenever possible, e.g. my beloved Droid phone and my series of Sony Vaio laptops. Why? Because Steve Jobs seems a lot to me like Big Brother. No thanks, Steve, I like my liberty more than your stuff.
Well, dg, Consumer Reports, like many Iphone users, says that if you try to hold the phone as normal people do, you lose reception. So maybe you will want to look at a smartphone alternative that actually lets you make and receive calls too.
I guess I'm not normal then, because I don't hold my phone so my hand covers that corner. I know that this is an issue in one way or another for all phones - living in an area with marginal 3G coverage means I'm used to having to contort in all sorts of ways to maintain a signal when I'm at home and this applies in different ways to all phones I've used. It would have made more sense to me to put that critical component at the top of the phone where it's less likely to be an issue, but maybe that's why I'm not an industrial designer.
Don't get me wrong, iPhone 4 antenna problems are real, and Apple's response hasn't been especially good, but this is the biggest CR publicity stunt since the Isuzu Trooper.
Ranking the thing #1 and giving it a 'Don't Buy'? Thanks for the useful and unambiguous advice.