Anyone else consider his response to be pretty much exactly the expected level of arrogance and disregard for customers from Steve Jobs?
Double of very little is, usually, still very little.
I say so because, from my perspective (as a barely interested outside observer), the iPhone 4 has nearly doubled the dropped call rate over a phone that already had a really bad reputation for dropped calls. I've heard the argument that that reputation is at least partly due to AT&Ts network, and that may be an entirely valid argument, though not a useful one since AT&T is the only option in the US, so iPhone+AT&T is the user experience you're going to get, and that seemingly includes a lot of dropped calls.
So, in short, from my limited view of the situation it looks like a reasonably serious problem that is going to go uncorrected. And, it looks like an arrogant response from a man who is making tons of money selling what seems to me to be a flawed product. If it actually isn't a serious problem, then I've gotten an unfairly negative view of things from the tech media...which is extremely rare for an Apple product. And kinda funny.
Instead it sounds to me like he was really saying, "Other people make mistakes, and oh, I guess we're kinda like other people, so it's kinda like we might have made a mistake of some sort at some time, too, but not really. Those other phone makers make mistakes, though, you better believe it. Unlike us. We try to never make mistakes. Except maybe this one, whatever puny complaint you were talking about."
Seriously, you don't see this as an arrogant response to a legitimate complaint about a very expensive product that is marketed as a superior product? We're talking about a several hundred dollar device, that Apple makes a tremendous profit on throughout the product's life. A good company would take actual responsibility for a flawed design. Apple somehow manages to be treated like a good company, while consistently treating its customers poorly. It's an amazing trick. Maybe it really is hypnosis.
You see someone using an iPhone, you like it, you get one. Now everyone asks me, "Do you have an antenna problem?" I say, "No, it's been working much better for me." Then they go get one. Similarly, when I was considering an EVO someone came up to me and said, "Don't get an EVO, look at this terrible battery life." I backed off.
Because phones play such a huge role in our daily lives, word-of-mouth and personal testimonial become very important. If Apple can preserve positive sentiment in its users, they will keep selling phones. Judging from their absurdly high sales numbers thus far, they're managing to keep the majority happy.
The fact that many customers seem to drool over Apple products simply because of the Apple label is regrettable (for some reasons, not all), but not that surprising.
(Hell, I love my MacBook Pro, even though I only run Linux on it. At present it'd take a lot to convince me to buy a non-Apple laptop. I won't go near the iPhone for software reasons, but that's another matter.)
But yes, I would trust a bunch of blogs on the internet (at least, the ones that have proven themselves over time to be reputable) over a random anecdote from a HN poster.
This is sensible if we define "flaw" to include only issues that cause serious harm in using the product: those that make it lose a large portion of its value. For the vast majority of people, this isn't a "flaw" by that definition: it's instead a weakness caused by a specifically chosen engineering tradeoff that, all things considered, appears to have been a good one — the phone is thin, beautiful, strong, and has great battery and reception in almost all cases. To satisfy those for whom the issue's severity does rise to the level of legitimately being called a flaw, Apple announced that they're giving everyone a free case, which remedies this condition. And reminded customers that they're perfectly willing to give a complete refund.
So what would have been better for them to do? Recall all iPhone 4s and replace them with a 3GS-style case that does better in that one situation but worse in essentially every other way? Most customers would pick the 4 any day of the week over the 3GS, "flawed" in one specific way or not.
If iPhone 4 doesn't drop calls more than other comparable smart phones, then I find it interesting that the tech media has suddenly gone rabid on Apple...it's rare for folks to criticize the quality of Apple products, even when there are valid criticisms to be made.
I find it interesting that my comments have gone from several upvotes to several downvotes. I suspect it is because yours and a couple of other comments have reinterpreted my intent in ways that kinda resemble Jobs' own response to the problem. Diverting from the point.
If there is an issue with dropped calls on the iPhone 4, the right thing to do would be own up to the problem. If there is no issue with dropped calls on the iPhone 4, the right thing to do would be to prove it, or at least give us a reason to believe that the people making the claims aren't credible.
"So what would have been better for them to do? Recall all iPhone 4s and replace them with a 3GS-style case that does better in that one situation but worse in essentially every other way?"
That's an interesting false dichotomy. The 3GS case is the only alternative case design possible for a phone? Was the 3GS particularly reliable with regard to dropped calls? (It's my understanding that iPhone has always had problems with dropped calls...but I don't follow this stuff very closely.)