Consumer Reports 'Can't Recommend' iPhone 4 Due to Signal Issues

[Anuba]

YOU haven't been paying attention. I want Apple to concentrate on making cutting-edge COMPUTERS again and quit crapping all over its high end high-ticket pro app customer BASE, not iJunk for iKiddies who, when they go elsewhere, will pop the bubble and bankrupt the company.

While I agree that the professionals haven't been Apple's darlings of late, did you ever consider the possibility that Jobs never aimed for that demographic in the first place?

Jobs' motivation, according to himself, is that he wants "to make great products". It may sound vague and generic but there you go. His idea of great products used to result in lots of cost-prohibitive stuff (Lisa, NeXT etc), and as a result, professionals and enthusiasts were the only ones who bought them. So he stuck with that demographic because it was all he could get... but he dreamed of one day conquering the masses, and now, through the iMac, iPod, iPhone and ipad, that dream has come true. And if that makes him much more money that the professional market ever did, his only reason to cater to the professionals would be some sort of token of eternal gratitude for carrying Apple through the dark mid 90's. Businessmen are usually quite cynical so I wouldn't take any future tokens of gratitude for granted....

 

[rhanley]

A fix is a fix as long as they've acknowledged that a fix IS needed. They are not obliged to tell you everything they are doing, they know what's up, trouble is MR thinks that they know more about what's going on with the iPhone better than Apple themselves. Not only are the not obliged to tell the public everything they are doing to rectify the issue, nobody here is entitled to know.

Here is what Apple said:

"Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place."

And no, a fix isn't a fix...

They are telling me that I really didn't have good reception, but the fact of the matter is that I get dropped calls where my Iphone 3G didn't have nearly as many issues.

So, unless you consider a fix that essentially states that the iphone 4 will now show no reception in areas where the previous versions had reception, I guess you can say a fix is a fix.

 

[Misplaced Mage]

LOL, are you serious?

• Xbox 360
• Vista
• Plays For Sure
• Being convicted of Grade A Business Weaselry by pretty much every court of law on the planet

Nope, not bad at all!

Don't forget:

• Microsoft BOB
• Windows ME
• KIN One and Two

 

[Chad H]

Why is it a bad thing Apple has made these products? Your an idiot if you think hasn't made money and these haven't driven technology in the modern world.

 

[DMann]

Don't forget:

• Microsoft BOB
• KIN One and Two

Both the Slate and Courier could have been contenders.

 

[AidenShaw]

So, unless you consider a fix that essentially states that the iphone 4 will now show no reception in areas where the previous versions had reception, I guess you can say a fix is a fix.

Fortunately, the class action lawyers have Jobs' "you're holding it wrong" email as evidence that Apple was aware of a problem.

 

[3282868]

That conjunction should be read as publications and consumers.

In order for you to be right, everyone else has to be wrong... so yeah the simplest answer likely is that your conclusions are wrong.

Sorry, cognitive dissonance sucks.

You have to admit and acknowledge, statistically, that people are far more inclined to post negative rather than positive reviews. Basic psychological principle. An individual who is satisfied is less inclined to express their sentiment than an individual who is less satisfied, which in theory dismisses any attempts at drawing general conclusions on a products quality on individual claims. No general conclusion can be based on internet forums regarding the overall quality of any product. Tests such as the one(s) concluded by "Consumer Reports" hold more merit than the subjective ramblings on a few tech blogs. Lab tests must hold to a standard: Hypothesis, study, an appropriate N, tests and retests to ensure the same outcome can be repeated by others, etc. As a reliable source for consumer product research, I would hope that "Consumer Reports" holds and utilizes these same standards.

 

[danielpi]

No, GENIUS, it apparently didn't prevent you from idiotically throwing away your money on a OVERPRICED machine with 3-5 year old technology, and when it comes to the friggin' "superdrive"? EIGHT YEAR old technology!!!

Not to mention all the usual quality-control issues Apple creates, no matter how expensive the item.

Yeah, you're sure the genius all right.

And why would you want to throw away money on a Pro to video edit when "YOU CAN EDIT VIDEO ON YOUR IPHONE???!!?"

Uh, what? The Mac Pro gets the first chips out of the Intel factory. And if I'm willing to pay for it, then what ****ing difference does it make to you? And video editing on an iPhone might be the right solution for some people. There's a difference between people who edit professional video/film and people who edit home movies. You don't need Avid or FCP to edit a home movie, so what's wrong with giving them an iPhone video editing tool? You are clearly a crazy, angry, and more-than-slightly stupid person, with some very bizarre opinions.

Apple doesn't owe you anything. They make products that people want to buy. If you seriously think Apple is going to go bankrupt because of a handful of tiny glitches in the latest iPhone... just keep that tin foil hat snug against your tiny skull and keep on waiting.

Seriously. Find a bridge. Jump. Do the world a favor.

 

[xbjllb]

As much of a troll as this guy is he brings up a valid point. Apple is starting to neglect its computer products.

Starting to?

Thanks.

They've found a good market and they've owned it for the past 10 years. Whether it is still there 10 years from now is anyone's guess, but with the sales of iPads and iPhones over the past six (6) months it seems like they are still in control.

10 years? Are you kidding? It's going to last as long as it takes some brat to find a cheaper iPad made NOT by Apple that does flash.

About five minutes.

Not to mention the bad PR from this iPhone debacle.

You read it here FIRST:

POP.

 

[spiritlevel]

Okay, since you asked and have no retort.

Perhaps you citrate can't read. No one cares about your opinion. Do you comprehend? LOL

So with all your blustering, Apple has still won, tough cookies. Consumer Reports and PCWorld say there is no problem with the iPhone 4 antenna, in fact it's the best antenna ever.

No one is listening to MacRumors, but thousands are listening to CR and PCW. So keep posting you Apple haters, the good guys have won.

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/el...hes-os-os4-iphone4-reception-problems-in.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2004...iphone_4_signal_woes_overblown.html?tk=hp_blg

Quoted from an earlier thread.

Some words need eating here methinks...would you like ketchup?

 

[valkraider]

And people haven't been buying the desktops BECAUSE THEY'RE 3-5 YEAR OLD TECHNOLOGY. Not because there isn't a need and HUGE market for CUTTING EDGE MACHINES.

They've merely been GOING ELSEWHERE.

Apple's computer sales are doing just fine:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...may_suggest_no_cannibalization_from_ipad.html


Also, all people are slowing down purchasing "desktops". "Desktop" sales are dropping for all manufacturers. Most people are purchasing Laptops.

I am not sure what you are so mad at. A fully loaded Mac Pro desktop is still an insanely powerful and useful machine, although they are due for a model bump...

 

[Anuba]

LOL, are you serious?

• Xbox 360
• Vista
• Plays For Sure
• Being convicted of Grade A Business Weaselry by pretty much every court of law on the planet

Nope, not bad at all!

Not bad for a behemoth of that size, actually. It could have been a lot worse. If you have a 90+% marketshare and get away with only being convicted of Grade A Weaselry once, your company would have to be run by some pretty lame, goofy and benign clowns, because the only way that entities normally acquire such bizarre market shares is armed revolution, coup d'état and mass murder.

 

[sweigner]

this could be a great marketing idea for Apple. The can sell little rainbow or apple printed pieces of tape (name it iTape) and sell them to 30 bucks a pack. they can package them in little dispensers like the post it note flags come in. like the crazy sock cases.....Sadly I admit to having the sock cases.

 

[Apollo33]

Uh, what? The Mac Pro gets the first chips out of the Intel factory.

You might want to check that statement there... The Mac Pro has been without an update for 496 days according to the Buyer's Guide.

Certainly Intel has released new processors over the past year.

 

[xbjllb]

While I agree that the professionals haven't been Apple's darlings of late, did you ever consider the possibility that Jobs never aimed for that demographic in the first place?

Jobs' motivation, according to himself, is that he wants "to make great products". It may sound vague and generic but there you go. His idea of great products used to result in lots of cost-prohibitive stuff (Lisa, NeXT etc), and as a result, professionals and enthusiasts were the only ones who bought them. So he stuck with that demographic because it was all he could get... but he dreamed of one day conquering the masses, and now, through the iMac, iPod, iPhone and ipad, that dream has come true. And if that makes him much more money that the professional market ever did, his only reason to cater to the professionals would be some sort of token of eternal gratitude for carrying Apple through the dark mid 90's. Businessmen are usually quite cynical so I wouldn't take any future tokens of gratitude for granted....

ANYONE can recycle old fads for the lowest common denominator and make a whole crapload of money, IN THE SHORT TERM.

However, by abandoning their traditional base, which favored and marketed to content CREATORS as much as content CONSUMERS, Jobs has put Apple in an unbelievably precarious financial position. Once that iFad bubble pops, and it will, there will be no base left to pick up the slack.

iKiddies, Mac fanbois and Apple paid shillbois aside, are FICKLE. And they want good deals, and aren't going to settle for Job's crusades like destroying flash and Blu-ray. As soon as something comes along that supports those technologies, and is cheaper, cya Apple.

 

[jmpage2]

Thanks.




10 years? Are you kidding? It's going to last as long as it takes some brat to find a cheaper iPad made NOT by Apple that does flash.

About five minutes.

Not to mention the bad PR from this iPhone debacle.

You read it here FIRST:

POP.

So why don't you put your money where your mouth is and get mortgaged to the hilt shorting Apple stock if it's such a sure thing? Introduction of cheap 3rd party Chinese knock off iPods certainly didn't hurt Apple's business any more than cheap Chinese knock off iPads with flash will hurt their business.

Put up or shut up you fool.

 

[HLdan]

Here is what Apple said:

"Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place."

And no, a fix isn't a fix...

They are telling me that I really didn't have good reception, but the fact of the matter is that I get dropped calls where my Iphone 3G didn't have nearly as many issues.

So, unless you consider a fix that essentially states that the iphone 4 will now show no reception in areas where the previous versions had reception, I guess you can say a fix is a fix.

You're not really "reading" what I'm trying to say. I already know there's a problem with the iPhone 4, I posted a video about it YouTube, what I am saying is Apple has to be careful on what they say to the public and most of it due to the stockholders. Apple and Jobs can't just come out and say, "hey look, we love our customers and because there's a forum out there called MacRumors who blasts us everyday they've forced us to tell all our loyal customers that our phone stinks and we really can't "fix" it because none of you would ever believe us if we said we could....dadadada..."
Say crap like that would please the Apple hater mob here but it certainly would screw over a lot of stockholders which happen to be customers to.
They know there's something wrong beyond what the signal bars show but they are not going to tell you or anyone outside of Apple what they are going to do to remedy the issue.
It would do a lot of people justice if they just waited first and see what happens, what else can you do, nobody wants to return their phones and buy the lovely Android that so many people here bragged about before the iPhone 4 came.

I just love how people threaten to leave Apple but never do.

 

[Minimoose 360]

LOL, are you serious?

• Xbox 360

Nope, not bad at all!

lol....are YOU serious with that one?

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.6; en-gb; Dell Streak Build/Donut) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20.1)

Okay, since you asked and have no retort.

Perhaps you citrate can't read. No one cares about your opinion. Do you comprehend? LOL

So with all your blustering, Apple has still won, tough cookies. Consumer Reports and PCWorld say there is no problem with the iPhone 4 antenna, in fact it's the best antenna ever.

No one is listening to MacRumors, but thousands are listening to CR and PCW. So keep posting you Apple haters, the good guys have won.

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/el...hes-os-os4-iphone4-reception-problems-in.html



http://www.pcworld.com/article/2004...iphone_4_signal_woes_overblown.html?tk=hp_blg

Quoted from an earlier thread.

Some words need eating here methinks...would you like ketchup?

You can't really blame people for using that stuff in their favour. Consumer reports are worse for initially getting peoples hopes up if their latest update is the final say on the antenna issues.


I simply think it's a bad call from CR, nothing more.

 

[xbjllb]

Why is it a bad thing Apple has made these products? Your an idiot if you think hasn't made money and these haven't driven technology in the modern world.

Don't get me wrong; NOTHING is wrong with making them. To concentrate on them to the detriment of everything else and abandoning your bread and butter and high end base in favor of a quick buck from fickle lowest common denominators is simply horrific business.

And inevitably suicidal if not stopped in time.

Break up Apple into two parts; the computer division run by anyone but Jobs, and the iToy division run by Jobs. That way when it crashes and burns from cheaper more functional competition, it won't take Apple COMPUTERS with it.

As it is now, Jobs is merely KILLING THE COMPUTER DIVISION by neglect.

 

[jmpage2]

While I agree that the professionals haven't been Apple's darlings of late, did you ever consider the possibility that Jobs never aimed for that demographic in the first place?

Jobs' motivation, according to himself, is that he wants "to make great products". It may sound vague and generic but there you go. His idea of great products used to result in lots of cost-prohibitive stuff (Lisa, NeXT etc), and as a result, professionals and enthusiasts were the only ones who bought them. So he stuck with that demographic because it was all he could get... but he dreamed of one day conquering the masses, and now, through the iMac, iPod, iPhone and ipad, that dream has come true. And if that makes him much more money that the professional market ever did, his only reason to cater to the professionals would be some sort of token of eternal gratitude for carrying Apple through the dark mid 90's. Businessmen are usually quite cynical so I wouldn't take any future tokens of gratitude for granted....

^this^

It's rather frightening to see the sense of entitlement from the Apple diehards of the mid 90's who feel like Apple owes them something for keeping the company floating during the idiotic Pepsi CEO mentality who tried to run it like it was Atari.

Apple is in business to make money. Saying that Apple is 'getting it wrong' and is being unfaithful when the guy at the helm is the guy that started Apple is hilarious in the extreme.

Hilarious and sad anyway.

 

[jlblodgett]

10 years? Are you kidding? It's going to last as long as it takes some brat to find a cheaper iPad made NOT by Apple that does flash.

About five minutes.

Not to mention the bad PR from this iPhone debacle.

You read it here FIRST:

POP.

Let me know when those competitors to the iPad roll out.

Maybe the HP Slate? LOL


You may not have noticed but there have been cheaper "iPods" for a while, and they don't seem to be damaging Apple's "bubble."

 

[LagunaSol]

Don't forget:

• Microsoft BOB
• Windows ME
• KIN One and Two

Both the Slate and Courier could have been contenders.

Microsoft has had tons of crappy products. I was sticking with the obvious ones that blatantly screwed over their customers.

Not bad for a behemoth of that size, actually. It could have been a lot worse. If you have a 90+% marketshare and get away with only being convicted of Grade A Weaselry once, your company would have to be run by some pretty lame, goofy and benign clowns, because the only way that entities normally acquire such bizarre market shares is armed revolution, coup d'état and mass murder.

"Not bad." Sounds like most Windows 7 reviews I've read. "Doesn't completely suck like the last one!" Reassuring. (Yes, I have Windows 7. And it's "not bad.")

And I'm pleased to see that size justifies evildoing in your eyes. Profit erases all sins! Hey, they never killed anyone, so let's give them an award or something!

 

[xbjllb]

Apple has pushed the envelope of technology with these while making a ton of money. I can tell you this much and take it to the bank. If you were in front of me, I would take my Apple iPad 32GB and shove it up your ass and then go buy another one.

THANK YOU FOR ADMITTING WHERE ALL IPADS BELONG.

 

[jmpage2]

Don't get me wrong; NOTHING is wrong with making them. To concentrate on them to the detriment of everything else and abandoning your bread and butter and high end base in favor of a quick buck from fickle lowest common denominators is simply horrific business.

And inevitably suicidal if not stopped in time.

Break up Apple into two parts; the computer division run by anyone but Jobs, and the iToy division run by Jobs. That way when it crashes and burns from cheaper more functional competition, it won't take Apple COMPUTERS with it.

As it is now, Jobs is merely KILLING THE COMPUTER DIVISION by neglect.

You are apparently not aware that iMac market share and unit sales are up quarter over quarter from a year ago.

And unaware of the huge Snow Leopard fest that Jobs held last year.

And patently and blissfully in the dark about the fact that the new iMacs were a complete and total overhaul that Apple obviously spent big bux on.

The fact that you don't have a Mac Pro update right this minute is no indicator as to the health of Mac computer sales.