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How could Apple pull of a recall of 2 million phones?

X

XciteMe

macrumors 6502
Original poster
That's 2 million specially-packaged return boxes they'll need to ship out to customers (they don't expect for us to pay S&H or boxing materials, do they?)

That's 2 million iPhones that they cannot do anything to...

How could they realistically do this?
 
powerhouse7 said:
with difficulty.
I believe it would cost them 2 billion.
Click to expand...

I think your number is a bit high... Assuming that the reports that the cost to produce an iphone 4 are correct at $188, you're talking. 2 million * 188 = 376 million. Figure at most 500 million with shipping and overhead to send everyone a new iPhone 4. Also, the old ones wouldn't be completely useless, they would become refurbished phones assuming there is an easy fix that they could apply to them (antenna coating?), resurface the glass on the front and back and the metal band.

Even if your number is correct at 2 billion, its well within apples capability to do, look how much microsoft spent repairing defective xboxs.

I think the thread starter is underestimating apple, they've become one of the worlds largest companies, reports late last year showed that they had 34 billion in (free, spendable) cash alone. Apple could easily recall 2 million phones if they needed to.

Will they though? I highly doubt it.
 
How many of those little white wall adapters did they replace?

I think it would be a voluntary recall. They ask if you want a new one, you say yes, they send it to you and you send yours back.

Or, you do it in the store.
 
Slip Jigs said:
How many of those little white wall adapters did they replace?

I think it would be a voluntary recall. They ask if you want a new one, you say yes, they send it to you and you send yours back.

Or, you do it in the store.
Click to expand...

yep. who says everyone is?
 
You take it to an Apple store and get a replacement after the employee confirms you have the broken model. They send the old ones to a factory, fix 'em, and sell it as refurbished.
 
XciteMe said:
That's 2 million specially-packaged return boxes they'll need to ship out to customers (they don't expect for us to pay S&H or boxing materials, do they?)

That's 2 million iPhones that they cannot do anything to...

How could they realistically do this?
Click to expand...

With ease.
 
I honestly would not be returning mine if there was a recall. I honestly don't have the problem and am perfectly happy with my iPhone 4.
 
Billy Mays said:
...They send the old ones to a factory, fix 'em, and sell it as refurbished.
Click to expand...

Or if they can get them turned around quick enough, use these to replace other recalled iphones. After all, when you get a replacement at an Apple store, all you are really getting is a refurbished iphone.
 
They won't. Plain and simple. The conference on Friday is to launch the white iPhone and to address the antenna issue. Apple will explain how a bunch of morons listen to sensationalist journalists (are there any good journalists left?!) and a huge spectacle over nothing blows up.
 
The biggest problem is what would they replace the current iPhone 4 with? This is not the kind of situation where a small part needs to be replaced. The phone most likely would need a major redesign. I don't believe a coating over the steel would work. People using tape have had mixed results, and a coating would wear off eventually anyway. I've though about if there's a way to change where the seems are located so that the hand is less likely to bridge the antennas, but it's difficult. I don't really see a software update fixing this, but I'm far from an expert.
 
jackblack73 said:
The biggest problem is what would they replace the current iPhone 4 with? This is not the kind of situation where a small part needs to be replaced. The phone most likely would need a major redesign. I don't believe a coating over the steel would work. People using tape have had mixed results, and a coating would wear off eventually anyway. I've though about if there's a way to change where the seems are located so that the hand is less likely to bridge the antennas, but it's difficult. I don't really see a software update fixing this, but I'm far from an expert.
Click to expand...

The actual cause of the issue is yet to be determined. For those who do believe that it's a hard ward design issue, the bridging theory is a popular one. I lean towards the theory that it's a proximity issue - where your hand is right next to the antenna because of its placement. The bumper works because it provides a gap there, not because it's an insulator.
 
I guess I'll repeat this once again.

If Toyota can recall upwards of 10 million cars worldwide, Apple can recall 2 million phones.
 
CocoaPuffs said:
I guess I'll repeat this once again.

If Toyota can recall upwards of 10 million cars worldwide, Apple can recall 2 million phones.
Click to expand...

How many people got a new Toyota during that recall?

The fix was either a shorter gas pedal, new floor mats, and/or a computer update...basically a bumper and firmware update. Not a new car.
 
I wouldnt return mine because it has never caused me a problem. Id just be without my main phone for a week. It would be no benefit to me.
 
This would be easy to do. First it would be called a voluntary recall. Don't forget that Apple had a recall of the power supplies to the iPhone, so there is a precedent....if you didn't have the green dot on the power supply you just signed up online and they sent you a new one. If you did not return the non green dot power supply your account got charged.

Assuming they have a fix, The fixed ones will start coming off the line....call them iPhone 4B and the flawed iPhones iPhone 4A. You would need to have enough ip4bs to sattisfy current demand, which would be step one. Step two would be to figure out the number of refurbished phones that could be sold before ip5 comes out. Let's call that number 500k. So you then make 500k ip4bs to fill the hopper. You then query your existing ip4As....let's say customers A-G is roughly 500k. You then tell them to apply for the voluntary recall. You send them all ip4Bs and then either gut the old ones or refurbish them to get your hopper filled back up with an additional 500k iP4Bs and repeat the process with customers H-P and so on. You could do the whole recall in 3 months, problem solved. In the end you would have 500k refurbished iPhones sitting around that hopefully can be sold. All it cost Apple was , labor to fix, shipping, and some administrative costs. These costs are a drop in the bucket to keep there rep untarnished.
 
With the complexity of products we have these days, Apple and every major company probably has backup plans for emergency recalls. They probably knew what to do before the first person started to complain.
 
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