Apple to hold iPhone 4 press conference on Friday | Hacker News Reader

Apple to hold iPhone 4 press conference on Friday

loopinsight.com

65 pointsajg197777 comments

As long as Apple holds it the right way, the press conference will work correctly.

I think they are going to own up. I mean, even Microsoft called iPhone4 "Apple's Vista moment". Steve must have spit his coffee out and said "Oh crap! I have to make this right".

Anyway, that is what I am hoping.

By owning up, they are not making it right. Owning up is for the mediocre 90% of the pack. Apple lives and dies by its perfectionist reputation, and "owning up" would shatter that asset. They will most likely announce something big to change the conversation, as someone else already mentioned. This way, they'll make us forget us fast, and this will be making it right for them.

I thought that by definition being a perfectionist means being cognizant of your mistakes. . . At the moment not owning up is making that asset a little toxic: "Apple think they're perfectionists but that's just because they don't acknowledge their mistakes" seems to be floating around right now

> Owning up is for the mediocre 90% of the pack.

Agreed.

> They will most likely announce something big to change the conversation

Changing the conversation is for the pathetic lowest 40%.

A brilliant company fixes the problem, does something extra to make up for the pain, and makes their customers happy.

I don't think it is going to "shatter" anything. Letting the problem continue, that would "shatter" the reputation.

Well, naturally. Otherwise it will get a poor reception.

Well, if it does fail, they'll need more than Steve to run interference, or else they'll really drop off.

I know I'm not supposed to say this because my account is less than a year old but this thread is definitely like being on Reddit. I actually like Reddit, I'm just not used to seeing these types of comments being upvoted so high on Hacker News.

Sorry, but the use of the verb "to hold" in connection to the iPhone4 made it too difficult to resist. I know snarky comments are not always well received here and generally agree they should never be the core of a discussion, but not many of us watch soap operas and companies like Apple and Microsoft, along with their Steves and Bills provides us with the missing drama.

A world without Apple would be a lot less interesting. In fact, I am convinced one of us would have no alternative but to invent it.

I was not disappointed at the quality of your post; In fact it made me chuckle. My comment was really on the chain that followed it. I replied to you only because you we're the leader of what resulted in a Redditesque joke thread. I think it's important that we can not come off as completely uptight around here and can enjoy the occasional quip but I definitely wouldn't enjoy long thread's where people are trying to be more clever than the next all for "the lulz."

If they succeed in being more clever than the previous, I can live with that. It's the failed attempts that kill the fun ;-)

Another interesting theory from Dan Rubin:

$10 says Friday's Apple press conference is the announcement about Verizon, to — in the words of Don Draper — change the conversation.

http://twitter.com/danrubin/status/18565906020

While probably not too likely, it would be an interesting move on Apple's part none the less.

I think that would be bad timing for a Verizon announcement. Wouldn't that just piss off anyone who signed with AT&T for the iPhone 4 just because they couldn't get it on Verizon?

Besides, if they're going to announce a Verizon phone then they're effectively announcing a new model; the GSM iPhone 4 obviously isn't compatible with Verizon's network. In my opinion this is the kind of thing you'd do at the launch of a new iPhone generation, not just a few weeks afterward.

In my opinion this is the kind of thing you'd do at the launch of a new iPhone generation, not just a few weeks afterward.

Absolutely not. If a deal with Verizon were announced at the launch, it would have completely overshadowed all of the engineering effort put into the phone. It would be known as the "Verizon iPhone". This way, out of the spotlight, it leaves the iPhone brand unharmed.

Apple will wait until Verizon goes LTE. The lost market is not a large enough incentive to make a phone that will only work on a few carriers. My guess is June 2011 or maybe June 2012.

I think you may be correct. The reason I say this is that Bell Canada and Telus upgraded their entire network across the country this past year just to be compatible with the iPhone and other GSM phones (but primarily they were motivated by the iPhone). I can't help but think they would be privy to information on any sort of CDMA compatible iPhone before they made this decision. Certainly I don't think their upgrade would have been worth it just to get the iPhone a year ahead of time.

What did Steve Jobs know, and when did he know it?

And how many reception bars could he chuck, if he could chuck bars?

Free bumpers seems unlikely to me: wouldn't it make iPhone 4 owners a laughing stock? Here you are with a super-sleek 800$ device, and then you are forced to deface it with an ugly rubber case. I think that solution would contradict Apple's supposed dedication to perfection.

It'll be a free strip of non-conductive yellow packing tape to put on the phone.

Placing my bet: Free bumpers

I have to agree... I hate to cross post, but I posted this in the other Apple thread:

I equate Apple's problems to the Nintendo lawsuit over their wrist straps. Not everyone was throwing their controllers through their TV screens, but the select few who did caused an uproar. It also didn't stop Wii consoles from selling like hotcakes either. It took a class-action lawsuit to get Nintendo to take action. The solution was very simple -- give everyone free wrist straps for each of their controllers.

I think Apple needs to take a similar step to alleviate the problem.

... and free bumpers would be it!

Clear high-tech custom insulating stickers might do as well.

And not spoilt the look of the phone, which is one of the reasons people buy it.

If you're right, they better give me a refund, and what a band aid fix that would be.

Yeah... don't let te $30 price tag fool you. Those things are all of about ¢5 cents worth of plastic polymer.

Really? And what about the years of experimenting with different variations of plastic polymers?

That probably cost some unfortunate soul at least two to five years in his mother's basement.

Are you serious? Do you really think a new plastic polymer was invented for your smart phone bumper?

Are you serious? Do you really think there is no IP protecting makeup and production of every single kind of rubber, plastic, metal, and glass used in the iPhone? That IP doesn't come out of nowhere: they either develops it in-house, license it, or acquire it.

So you're saying that when my fabricator in China mass produces these plastic keychains I sell, that a % of the $0.05 they charge per unit they are actually paying out as licensing overhead?

I don't know about plastic keychains, but with materials like the rubber or glass in the iPhone, absolutely. I mean, just as there are movies which use public domain music in the score, there might be some materials that aren't licensed or protected by IP laws, but I imagine that the vast majority of the materials are.

Ok. I don't know what you are talking about. But everyone on the internet right now is talking about generic plastic bumpers (like a glorified condom) for your phone. Not plastic materials found within the iPhone or developed by Apple. If you've never seen one before, it looks like this:

http://www.gadgetgreats.com/images/products/detail/SoftPlast...

I bought one for an iPod. It was $30. My impression was, this might be the most over-priced, marked-up product I ever purchased. Ever. It was clearly < $1 worth of generic keychain plastic. Clearly you believe there are $29 worth of IP and licensing costs to justify the price.

Clearly you believe there are $29 worth of IP and licensing costs to justify the price.

No, if there were $29 of licensing costs, then they'd be selling at a loss, since bringing such a product to market involves a lot of other costs, as well.

I misread the title as "Apple to hold how to hold the iPhone 4 press conference...". Telling.

In all honesty, this has been blown out of proportion; though hell if it's a great problem to have.

Wow. This is unprecedented. What are they going to do? 60 day return period with no restocking fee? Free bumpers for everyone?

Change the subject by revealing some minor new thing the Apple and tech blogs can spew out piles of articles and summaries about.

Yeah they are going to announce the new Apple TV with iTunes, Hulu, NetFlix, Justin.tv and ESPN360 integration; all in 1080i HD and for only $99.

Except for the fact that Apple already said the press conference was for the iPhone 4.

My guess is they're going to announce they started putting a coating on new phones to fix the issue, and will offer free exchanges or cases to existing iPhone 4 customers.

*Either that, or Jobs is going to come out on stage and give a demonstration of how to hold the phone the right way.

They'll announce the iGlove, which will fix your faulty left hand.

I love the iGlove. It's so bad.

Haven't watched that movie in awhile!

Well, truth is stranger than fiction:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/02/apple_glove_patent/

Edit: And it looks like someone's beaten me to the joke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bL8PB_w0-8

My wild guess: $50 gift certificate until the manufactured units have a mitigating change. At that point, a limited period of swap-ups if requested.

Since I've yet to encounter the problem, that would make me pretty happy. But for the same reason, I struggle to believe they'd be that generous.

Just to flesh out your data point, then:

Where do you live?

Have you had any other network issues -- dropped calls or an inability to dial out -- either with iPhone4 or a previous iPhone model?

Is there no effect on your call or data quality (either as reported by 'bars' or subjectively experienced) when touching 'the gap'?

I live in central London, UK (you can assume signal strength is pretty high here). Obviously I've also used my phone plenty of other places. In daily use I've not noticed any call or data issues with either the 3G or 4. Not that I've been looking for any, especially

Having just checked, seems I can drop my bars down from 4 to 3 by putting my thumb across the famous gap.

After they first tried to downplay it, then claimed it was a display issue, I honestly can't see them admitting it's a design issue. They've dug themselves into a hole.

I think it'll be an all out pro PR offensive.

They will announce/reveal 4.01 with the "improved signal display", and reiterate that the antenna on the iPhone is actually better (probably true), and that all phones are susceptible to signal loss if held a certain way (true, but massively disingenuous). They'll also talk about how few people have returned them for a refund due to this issue, but they will extend that offer anyway.

There may be some announcement of cheap/free bumpers, but if so it will be presented as something that helps ALL phones avoid interference, not just the iPhone 4, and they're doing it because they want their customers to have the best experience. These bumpers will be either black, or a different "I have the free signal panic bumper" color to keep enticing people to pay $30 for a $3 piece of plastic.

I suspect they hope that this message and the subsequent articles by the carefully picked pro-Apple press will be enough to make the signal issue go away, or at least become something people have no interest in talking about any more.

You might be onto part of that, since 4.1 went into beta this afternoon.

The question is: in case the stock price drops because of the announcement, would it be a a good occasion to buy?

Yes.

Isn't AAPL a bit overvalued in comparison to other tech stocks at the moment?

Probably. Still, the question was whether it would be worth to buy in case it crashes after the press conference.

I think this thing is ridiculous. My iPhone 4 so far has better reception of all the previous models for me (I owned all of them)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

maybe it seems like that because they're faking the bars that display the reception? http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/07/02appleletter.html

My prediction:

- free bumpers or exchange for today's customers

- Minor redesign within a few months (ie, by the holidays) - something like a thin insulating coating over the steel antenna, such that it solves the issue, but doesn't change the appearance.

I expect they'll get major kudos from fans and critics alike.

I predict they'll provide an even cheaper solution. A small transparent electrostatic piece of plastic to cover the antenna (i.e., scotch tape without the glue).

I don't expect them to issue much of a mea culpa over this though.

* A small transparent electrostatic piece of plastic to cover the antenna (i.e., scotch tape without the glue).*

Would this even work? Capacitive coupling?

On second thought, let's add the glue back to the piece of plastic. ;)

My prediction for the record:

* No free bumpers.

* Thirty day, no questions asked, money back guarantee.

I have an iPhone 4, and I've had a bumper on it since I bought it. I also put an invisishield on the front and back (basically, my whole phone is protected). I have not had any reception issues, and my phone has worked perfectly. Surely there are others out there in similar situations. I wonder why the negativity clouds the internet sometimes.

It's common knowledge that Apple's rubber bumpers are a workaround for the antenna problem. But you shouldn't have to buy a $30 case for your $200 phone just for the privilege of making calls reliably.

You don't. On day one, my wife spent a couple minutes covering the gap with a piece of scotch tape. It's almost impossible to see and it worked flawlessly. Anyone who drops $30 just to solve the antenna issue is either lazy or a fool or a foolish lazy person or a loolish fazy person.

Or someone who doesn't like mucky Scotch tape on their brand-new high-tech device? I don't care, but I know plenty of people who buy the iPhone as a design statement & I can see how that tiny imperfection could infuriate these types of people.

Did Apple ever give something for free to fix a problem? What did they do?

Well, two years too late but they're finally replacing all of those defective Time Capsules...

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3351

When they dropped the price of the original iphone from $599 to $399 (WITH 2 year contract) just two months after it was introduced they gave everyone who bought at the higher price a $100 gift certificate

A gift certificate isn't the same as giving something away for free. The latter devaluates the product in the eye of the consumer.

I'm guessing admit full fault and a return/exchange of iPhone4.

Oh, and one more thing -- new MacPro and iMacs!

Making the iPhone recall a non-event, in terms of news and stock price :-)

why was this downvoted? this is a relevant and productive comment

An iPhone recall would never be a non-event, especially in stock price.

Just hold it differently this time.

Thanks for the inspiration: http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/blog_en/hold-different/

Product exchange program. First 1,000 people to return their iPhone 4 get a free BlackBerry and $1,000 but can never use an iPhone again.

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