16 July 2010, Friday, USA time - the day Steve jobs took full responsibility for the recently coined phenomenon, Antennagate! Or did he?
Now, I do not personally own any Apple products. But like anyone who has not been living in a cave, I do follow Apple news as would any fan whose psyche has been revolutionized the day the forbidden fruit was dropped on our shores. We are mesmerized even by the dramatic weight loss of the man behind Apple and most would pray daily that Steve Jobs' apparently deteriorating condition would not lead to the demise of a branding that so many have worshipped on their hands and knees and that which has sold gadgets in meteoric proportions.
Enough said. Then came the antenna glitch of iPhone4 and disgruntled consumers in the US went berserk.
Plagued into a tight corner by his latest insanely popular communication device, what is a man to do?So Jobs held a conference to discuss the problems.
Apart from displaying his sexyback moves - perhaps to silence critics regarding his alleged ailing health, he played the nasty card by firing salvos at competition. Bilton of The New York Times, wrote :
As Mr. Jobs paced back and forth on stage, he tried to paint a picture of a world of smartphones that are all rife with antenna problems. He showed videos of signal drops on BlackBerry, Nokia and Samsung phones.
Apple's competitors did not take the accusations lying down. In fact, they lashed back and claimed that his accusations were untrue. A maker of Blackberry phones mentioned that the debacle was just Apple's "deliberate attempts to distort the public's understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple's difficult situation."
So was Jobs trying to skirt around the antenna problem?
Well, some candid folks in the following video actually tried to take ownership of the situation.
In the next 2.53-minute video featuring highlights from the conference (I'm sure the session lasted some gazillion minutes longer), Jobs tried to appease iPhone4 owners, present and future, with a new OS 4.01 update which he claim would fix the antenna glitch.
He also threw in cosmetics to sweeten the deal.
Dare I mention silicon? Yes, you heard me right - SILICON! Maybe it is just hardened plastics. Anyway, now iPhone4 comes with free external bumper casings. Hopefully this will solve the death grip problem and silence the voices of discontentment for now.Just how much will this solution cost Apple? Brace yourself for US$175 million. Actually, this is peanuts compared to what one analyst had estimated at a whopping US$1.5 billion, should the company carry out a full hardware recall.
Do Asian fans get free bumper casings with their purchase? Afterall, having already sold more than 1 million units of iPhone4 in the US alone, Jobs is nowhere poorer after giving away the freebies if you consider Apple's insane profits from the sales!
One question remains : Will I still take a bite on the forbidden fruit when it goes on sale in Singapore? For all the controversy Antennagate has generated (and probably causing Jobs to edge closer to his grave), Apple folks end up laughing all the way to the bank. Would I still want to buy an overly priced gadget and contribute to their burgeoning coffers? You must be kidding right?
Sources :
3) Coated
Labels: things i love thursday
