How Apple Broke the PR Rules - And Got Away With It

Which is what Apple does best in every category in which they're successful. Is the iPod the most feature-laden PMP? No. It is still the best across the categories that matter for most users. Same with the iPad: I know no 'normal' user with an iPad that doesn't like it. And they almost all have some point of "I wish x was better." It's just that the goods far outweigh the bads.

Oh, and their branding doesn't hurt, either.

You see, the iphone -- or for the matter, any apple product -- can only be fully appreciated within a specific mindset, by adopting a specific reference frame, or point of view. To me, apple had to restore this my-iphone-has-so-many-feature-i-dont-care-about-the-issues POV that enabled them to initially sell a device with a lot less battery longevity than other competitor in the past.

Playing on time and making this a industry wide issue that is not so important, both allowed them to win more customer but also to allow those to adopt/restore this POV. Thus the more they had owners who just signed a X-years contract to get the new iphone the more they had advocates for their case.

The way I see this : its the ultimate win of the fanboy/evangelist strategy agains't the traditional "be-aware/show-you-care/do-your-share" PR moves.

It's like a relationship between spouses. If one cheats it won't necessarily kill the marriage. The marriage will survive based on how good it was in the first place.

It's like a new twist on "the emperor has no clothes" every day. See if you start noticing how many photos you see have giant green color distortions in the middle of the image. Those are iPhone 4 photos, and no one talks about it.

Having said that, she'll likely still get an iPhone. Ultimately, she'll benefit most from what Apple do best - closed garden simplicity. So by that measurement, you could argue they did get away with it.

An external antenna is going to pull in more signal most of the time, and this makes it better. Every device must find compromises to provide the best signal as much of the time as possible, along with convenience. Most android and other smart phones use internal antennas and that is a good design from a usability perspective. Apple did to for the first three iphones. For the iPhone 4 they found a new way to put an antenna on the outside of the phone, without having the silly pull-out antenna that predominated ten years ago.

This gave them better signal pulling capability in almost every situation, with the usability of an internal design. This is a significant innovation.

Which means that the entirety of antenna gate was fueled by anti-apple forces (eg: hack journalists looking for a dramatic story, and general apple haters who posted to blogs and spread the story).

Apple got away with it because there was no real defect in the antenna. The observable effect exists in all modern mobile phones to one degree or another, and this particular design is superior to all past iPhones.

The real lesson here is that a dedicated social media campaign can create massive hassle for a competitor, even when that competitor produces a superior product. I am quite astounded that they were able to make such a big deal out of this. Apple produced an innovative design that was superior in usability and reception, and they managed to turn that into some sort of a liability. They did this even though within days it was revealed publicly that the claims were nonsense by people who understood how radios work. But the few people with technical knowledge cannot beat the masses who don't have it who propagate the FUD. This is the power of FUD, and this is why you see it so often.

Even today there are people who think there is a defect with the iPhone design. For many of them, it is a matter of ideology. They hate apple, and therefore they will continue to believe.