First, my own flame: Silicon Alley Insider (SAI), you ought to be ashamed, running the headline “Steve Jobs Is In Serious Denial Over iPhone 4 Antenna Issue” over yet another hit piece. Why not link to a serious analysis of the issue?
Same with Boy Genius, though at least your headline was moderate. But a reader has to go all the way to the comment section to find the above link to some real in-depth analysis. That link should have been in your report.
Should we trust these bloggers? No way. The headlines and even the stories are misleading and sometimes outright bullshit. Having read through the reports of the conversation with Steve Jobs, I’m more impressed with Steve’s answers. He never goes ballistic, even though the emails to him are full of vitriol and one even refers to Jobs as a “jackass” — is that any way to ask a question or make a request to a CEO?
Meanwhile, Steve is the voice of reason. “Calm down” etc. He even turns the other cheek — “You may be working from bad data. Not your fault. Stay tuned. We are working on it.”
What’s wrong with these flamers? What more do they want? They want blood, because it’s fun, and because it’s profitable. They have ulterior motives.
First the so-called attenna issue, a tempest in a teapot: Read this analysis. The bottom line is this: The iPhone 4 attenna is better because it’s on the outside of the unit, but it’s also a problem depending on how you hold the unit. Nevertheless, overall reception is still better than with an iPhone 3GS. Most cell phones have this problem with their antennas, but their antennas are not on the outside of the unit, so it is not as noticeable. A software update might reduce the signal-to-noise ratio, but otherwise don’t expect Apple to be able to fix this without a design tweak. In the meantime, people in very low reception areas can use a bumper, or hold it differently. Sounds okay to me, and I’m one of those people.
Besides, the most important part of the iPhone experience is iOS. If you don’t like this year’s phone, wait until next year. I’ve used my 3GS everywhere, and yes I’ve had problems in low-reception areas, but so what? It’s still a fantastic device to browse the Internet, run apps, and use as a phone. And it offers better reception than any previous phone I’ve ever used.
This is new technology, folks. You take it or leave it, depending on what you want. Lots of us want these new gadgets, and we’re willing to help these companies make them better, so that our lives will be enriched by them. It’s that simple, for consumers.
It’s not that simple for stock manipulators. They need to shoot down Apple’s stock price in order to profit from its eventual resurrection. There have been accusations and rumors (see here and here), but no proof; nevertheless, where there’s smoke there’s probably fire.
It’s also not that simple for journalist/bloggers, who need to use sensational headlines to draw in readers. Many of them jump on bandwagons without checking the facts, passing along the phrase “a faulty antenna design” because it appears in other reports. Some resort to fear-mongering, as in SAI’s “this is really spiraling out of control for Apple.” Is it really? Why do so many of them have to join the Rush Limbaugh Institute of Factual Irrelevancy, or the Sarah Palin School of Sarcastic Innuendo? Do they really think readers are that stupid?
I saw Microsoft hounded in the 1990s for being a monopolist (and I was among the hounders), and that company grew more entrenched as time went on, until now it seems incapable of real innovation. Will this happen to Apple as the jackals begin to circle around it? I hope not. Apple is truly doing something innovative, despite its mistakes.
As consumers, we should fight back against the fearmongers. For my part, I will no longer click on sensational headlines, and I’ll continue to avoid reading bloggers and journalists who tarnish their reps with this crap.
As for fighting (or anticipating) the stock manipulators while still winning big in the stock market… well, good luck with that.
