Steve Jobs opened the iPhone 4 press conference telling the crowd: “We’re not perfect. Phones aren’t perfect. But we want to make all our users happy. If you don’t know that about Apple, you don’t know Apple. We love making our users happy.” But he claimed that all phones face similar problems and called out specific handsets from rival manufacturers…
Then he pointed to all the positive reviews iPhone 4 has received – notably including Consumer Reports in the list. And Gizmodo got a mention too with Jobs explicitly referencing its video of the iPhone antenna issue.
He said Apple has spent the 22 days since the iPhone 4 signal issue became an issue “working our butts off” to find solutions. He said Apple didn’t trust the videos shown on YouTube and had done its own testing.
Other phones were put up in the firing line with the Blackberry Bold 9700 first up to be compared to the iPhone 4. He showed a dip in signal there. Then the HTC Droid Eris got the same treatment before the Samsung Omnia II completed the set.
Apple was clearly careful to choose a phone from the Blackberry, Android and Windows Mobile camps to demonstrate that no one is safe! Jobs hammered home that point with a slide declaring the signal issues “a challenge for the industry.”
Jobs again stated that Apple “screwed up” with the signal algorithm which it says has been corrected by the iOS 4.0.1 update. But the iPhone 4 antenna issue drop is still an issue. He said: “We haven’t figured a way around the laws of physics yet.”
He went on to show the inside of one of Apple’s anechoic chambers (rooms where outside radio waves can’t penetrate) which were used during iPhone 4 testing. He said Apple was aware of the potential for the signal to drop but that again it was a problem faced by all phones.
Then he was on to Apple Care figures which he said show only 0.55% of calls are about iPhone 4 reception rates. He said iPhone 4 returns have also been lower at 1.7% compared to 6.0% for the iPhone 3GS.
The conference is still ongoing. We’ll have more news for you as we get it. But let us know: what do you make of Apple’s claim that other phones face similar issues? Have you seen the same problems with any of the handsets it named?
