The Consumer Reports/iPhone 4 antenna non-issue goes mainstream

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All the big news networks are picking up today’s ‘do not recommend’ rating on the iPhone 4 from Consumer Reports.   Here’s the thing: If Apple came out and said three weeks ago that there was an antenna problem and it could be fixed with a free bumper or a piece of uber-cool Apple tape, we wouldn’t be talking about it right now.  Instead, the antenna issue is now snowballing and getting bigger by the week.

In fact, my dad who shares a flip feature phone (something not as good as a RAZR) with my mom, asked me what the deal was with the “new iPhone and the broken antenna” today.   Anyone who is considering getting an iPhone in the US now hears more about this antenna issue than the merits of this particular phone, which happens to be pretty stellar.

Yet, Apple keeps telling us that our eyes are deceiving us.  We don’t see that when you hit the spot, the signal drops.  Everything is fine.  

At what point does Apple come clean?  They have dug themselves in a hole so deep that they can’t tell the truth and save face. But can they continue lying?  Is there some way that after they say there is n’t a hardware problem, that they’ve tested it in their labs, it now does?

This feels almost like a giant horrible combover you see on “that guy”.  You wonder how he made it out of his house without one of his friends or family telling him how ridiculous he looks.    Everyone who looks at him for two seconds knows he’s is bald but he keeps insisting that pulling the hair from the very edges of his scalp makes everything fine.  Apple’s PR, to this point, has been the combover.

The issue now isn’t that people think Apple make faulty products.  They let one or two things slip on this one, but 98% of the iPhone 4 is top notch, best money can buy.  No one is perfect.  If Apple could tell the truth, people would be singing the praises of the iPhone 4.  Instead, people like my dad only hear that it has a broken antenna.

The issue is much bigger for us.  

People who’ve been following this and have reached out to Apple for comment now know Apple has ‘issues with the truth’.  

I’d much rather think that Apple had an antenna design issue than be embarrassed for the spectacle they are becoming.    

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

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