Bryce’s Reaction: Apple’s Press Conference

Apple did a big thing today. It came forward and owned up, and that was good of them. My qualm was how Steve Jobs started off — by showing how other phones have the same issues. I think that was unnecessary and as I said before, childish. Here we are waiting for a big apology, and then Jobs shifts the attention to other phones, to get the heat of his back. Admittedly though, the conference got better as time went on.

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Apple says they have been working their “butts off” for 22 days, and have invested over $100 million in a state-of-the-art test facility with 17 anechoic chambers, staffed by 18 PhD scientists and engineers. In other words, it has spent a lot of money and did a lot of tests with some expensive equipment and people who should know what to do.

Then came the hard part. Jobs admitted that the handset is dropping more calls per each 100 calls than the iPhone 3GS (though he can’t help but emphasize that this is less than 1 call per 100). I think this was bold of him, because usually companies don’t admit how many calls they are dropping. It’s a big step for Apple that others have not taken. And even though I didn’t like that Jobs had to drag other phones into this, just to deflect the iPhone 4′s issues, it is true that the Apple smartphone is not the only device experiencing this problem. Even my dad’s pay-as-you-go dumbphone has a sticker warning about covering the internal antenna. (Apple posted info on how devices lose signal, so see for yourself here.)

Jobs went on to explain that Apple released iOS 4.0.1 to correct the formula, so people know how many bars they’re actually getting, and that all iPhone 4 customers who buy until September 30th will get a free case. What he didn’t say was that a permanent fix is being pushed out tomorrow, next week or later (or even how they’ll look into a permanent fix). But at least in the mean time, I think Apple did the right thing. Sadly, I wonder if it’s too little too late. They might have to do a little more to regain trust back from customers.

What do you think, is this enough for you to jump back on the Apple bandwagon? Let us know what you think below.

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