| Friday, July 16, 2010 |
15:19 - Appa culpa
http://www.macworld.com/article/152732/2010/07/iphone4.html?lsrc=top_1
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Regarding the iPhone 4 antenna debacle: Jobs says free cases for all, and refunds for anyone who wants one.
Just wondering something:
Jobs: Certainly what was portrayed in that total article never passed my consciousness. And I talked to Ruben and Ruben says it's total bullshit too.
Is that a direct quote? Rather strong language for a press conference, I tend to think.
Anyway, I guess this is how a company gets to make its customers happy when it has all the money in the world. According to the data, though, not a lot of people are very likely to jump on this offer.
Something that's been common to all the Stevenotes going back the past ten years or so is that they're packed to the gills with supporting information, positive press stories, data that backs up the company's line—stuff you wouldn't get from any other source, possibly because it sounds so suspect coming from the horse's mouth. I wonder how much of Steve's beguiling stage presence has to do with his ability to wrap up any piece of juicy information in a pillow-fort of customer satisfaction numbers, performance stats, raw numbers of features, and other such numerical hors d'oeuvre such that by the time you actually get to the main course of the missive you feel like anyone would be an idiot not to jump on board.
But hey, he even had a piece of unexpected bad news to deliver in this one: according to customer data, more calls are getting dropped with the iPhone 4 than with the 3GS. Not many more, but more nonetheless. Certainly judging by the independent benchmarks we've been seeing from various sites, you'd think the reception would be far more robust even with the Grip of Death taken into account. But apparently it isn't. (Steve does have a theory for why this is, though: people upgrading from their 3GSes haven't bought new cases yet.)
Anyway, the big question is whether holding a press conference like this and making this kind of customer-pacification offer will help calm the shouting, or if it'll just exacerbate it. That's probably the trickiest question anyone in Steve's position has to make. I certainly can't guess which will happen; but I think this was the right move. Lots of upsides, and considering Apple can absorb the cost pretty easily these days, one (potential) downside: it might just spawn memes as enduring as "Apple's Windows Vista" or "Eat Up Martha". And that, they don't need.
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Brian Tiemann
