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Comment by donohoe | Hacker News Reader

It's only been out a week or so... If you are unhappy with your iPhone then bring it back to the store and get a full refund. Simple.

This culture of lawsuits baffles me.

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I agree. This is idiotic. Take it back or wait for Apple to fix it and they will fix it.

I don't think Apple is planning on fixing it, as that would require a massive recall. Take it back and wait for iPhone 5.

They could make changes to future production runs however (assuming it really is a widespread issue which I'm still not really convinced of)

I've heard enough "cannot reproduce" reports to suspect it's a minority of devices, still that's a lot of people affected. My suspicion is that there is a coating process that is failing in some cases, which would mean it could probably be resolved for future production runs.

I've only been able to reproduce it in areas where the signal was awful to begin with. In areas where my 3gs drops calls weekly, using other people's 4's I can reproduce a dropped call with some regularity. My guess is that it's so hard to reproduce because even by attenuating the signal by holding it wrong, a lot of users are in an area where the signal is strong enough that it doesn't matter.

Anandtech had an interesting article where they showed both the 3GS and 4g having problems based on how you hold it. With the 4g's worst case being better than the 3GS's worst case, however the loss was more dramatic so the perception is worse even though the device is significantly improved.

Edit2: here it is: http://buzz.amaltas.org/story/anandtech-iphone4-gets-better-...

If Apple has to they will give everyone who complains a free "bumper" case. Those things will probably cost Apple less than a dollar.

I'm thinking of just buying bumpers preemptively, since they will also solve the vital "which of these otherwise identical iPhones is my wife's phone and which is mine?" problem.

Unlikely, according to this (posted to HN eariler today)

http://mashable.com/2010/06/29/leaked-iphone-4-docs/

They seem reluctant to give cases away, which is a bizarre move, imho. A few thousand or tens of thousands of cases would sweep this ongoing PR bleed under the rug, simple-dimple. That is, until the lawyers get into it. Then it gets legs of its own, can go on for eons, and there is the very real possibility of a document subpoena revealing some mention of the possibility of the problem by an engineer which can be spun up into punitive fines.

I don't know what's more sad -- the people who dream up these lawsuits or the lawyers who take the cases.

The world is full of opportunistic parasites. Having a legal system that encourages it is the real travesty.

Encourages seems a little strong. I'd say the legal system doesn't encourage this behavior, but rather allows it.

Definitely the people who dream them up. The lawyers know that they'll make piles of money either way.

And the 'plaintiffs' will get a coupon for $2 at the Apple Store, or some similar negligible benefit.

The lawyers taking the cases and the people dreaming up the suits are most likely one and the same. They then go and recruit clients.

The issue isn't about being unhappy with it. The issue is that the plaintiffs think Apple knew about the problem before hand and did nothing. The discovery period for this case will hopefully clear this up, one way or the other, instead of just having speculation.

What full return? See here: http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/salespolicies.html

There is a 10% restocking fee.

Another article claimed that AT&T charges a 10% restocking fee, so you couldn't get a full refund.

I returned 6 opened, activated iPhone 4s to the Apple Store the day after buying them and Apple did not charge a restocking fee.

I also called AT&T to ensure the service was cancelled and to find out whether there would be any fees and they said there would not be. We'll see what happens if/when they send me a billing statement.

Why take it back to the store for a refund when you can get a lawyer a million dollars instead?

This culture of benevolence baffles me.

Ok, I know tone doesn't translate in text, but did the three downvoters really think I was serious here? Really?

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