iPhone 4 Antenna Issues and Ping Rank Among Top 'Tech Fails' for 2010

[djgamble]

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Google (besides adsense/adwords) = big fail.
M$ (besides Windows/office) = big fail
Apple's failures have been:
- Ping
- The Cube
- Apple TV
- Lots of earlier Macs
- Pippin
... that's about it?

 

[roratus]

How can they not even mention the issue with the white iphone?

 

[roratus]

why is ping a fail? I enjoy seeing music recommendations from artists who's music I'm listening to..

oooooooohhhhhh.... you're the one.....

 

[atsang]

Top 10 news media fails 2010:

1. US news media

The list ends here.

What about Gizmodo/Jason Chen's stolen iPhone4 fail. Maybe they don't count as real media though.

 

[fabian9]

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I guess it's a good thing Apple had that oversized iPod touch to keep them afloat this year. Oh, yeah, and the TV. That seems to be doing okay, too.

"Keep them afloat"? Have you seen Apple's profits? That's the biggest understatement I've ever read on the Internet.

Pretty sure reubs was being sarcastic....

 

[BriChi]

I personally do not think the antenna issue was over hyped, it's the reason I and a friend of mine returned the phone, I rest the iphone in my left hand, not even gripping tightly, the spot where the 2 antennas meet rested on my hand and cause the call to drop every time. Sucks because I really love the iphones but cannot deal with that and I HATE having cases on my phones, I never put cases on them because I like the natural feel of the phone, if I am going to make it bulky and cover it all up, then why buy it for the look and feel of it like many people do... Ohhhhhhhh look at how nice my phone looks and feels, now heres a case to cover it all up. when they 'officially" fix the antenna issue that they KNOW they have, then I will re-buy

 

[DTphonehome]

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Apple's response to antennagate clearly shows they were in "deny everything" mode:

1. There's no problem.
2. Don't hold it like that.
3. There's a software problem.
4. Free bumpers (to fix a software problem?).

Sorry but it was the biggest tech fail of the year. Hype works both ways you know.

 

[rmwebs]

Apple's failure rate does seem to be on the rise this year. I'm talking on an overall broad perspective - not a 'fan love' perspective:

- iPhone 4 Antena
- iPad Case/Sleeve (Generally viewed as a poor product for its price)
- Mac Releases (as a whole the new Macs for the year were pretty poor updates, especially on the higher end models such as the pro & 27".)
- AppleTV (Currently only worth buying if you live in the US due to it costing around 2 times the price elsewhere for the hardware & rentals, plus no netflix support)
- Ping...need I say more
- iTunes 10 Logo (looks like it was slapped together in a few seconds)

Obviously some of these are bigger than others, however these are all shortcomings, failures, hiccups or poor performance on Apple's part. I'm sure there are more - these are just the ones that I've personally been affected by.

Dont bother replying to me bitching about how X wasn't a failure just because you PERSONALLY loved it. These are generic failures (I.E as a WHOLE, not for an individual).

 

[farmboy]

Take it you hold your phone different? Coz that's what Jobs ordered you to do, right?

I take it you're not out of high school yet. The actual data gathered by Apple said the incidence occurred in less than 1%. The cases probably fixed that 1%. That's why there is no one whining about it.

 

[Westside guy]

Can't comment on the iPhone 4 antenna as I don't own one

That hasn't stopped most people here...

 

[BriChi]

I take it you're not out of high school yet. The actual data gathered by Apple said the incidence occurred in less than 1%. The cases probably fixed that 1%. That's why there is no one whining about it.

thats pretty funny because the bunch f people I know and/or run into from time to time, I have taken their case off and tried it, and the signal drops to zero every time. The reason they probably think it's only 1% is because people probably are holding it righty and in a way where they are not covering the gap, for me, I hold the phone lefty comfortably resting in my hand and the signal drops every time, had to return the phone because of it which sucks. the other percent of people just dont complain because they are fanboys and do whatever Steve tells them, like holding it a different way which eventually will hurt most likely so that way Apple can come out with wrist guards to help ease the pain of holding your phone the "steve way"

 

[ski1ski1]

The actual data gathered by Apple said the incidence occurred in less than 1%.

The 1% was NOT the incidence rate. It was the percentage of people that actually called Apple on the issue in the first 3 weeks since launch. Not everyone that had/has the issue called Apple for various reasons. Btw, holding the issue spot affects data (especially upload speed) more then voice. Verified by the speedtest app.

 

[DaReal_Dionysus]

This is such a load of trash! The iPhone 4 is the best selling phone in the world! I have never experienced any of the issues that were labeled such a big deal!!! I put an otterbox case on mine and have never had an issue!

 

[Digitalclips]

As far as I am aware Apple changed nothing and the problem seems to have gone away. So how is a psychological issue a fail?

 

[SockRolid]

CNN missed one: Google TV

TV is turning out to be Google's "bag of hurt." There are rumors that Google told their HDTV hardware partners to not show prototypes of TV sets with Google TV embedded. We'll see if those rumors are true in just a few days...

 

[cmChimera]

Take it you hold your phone different? Coz that's what Jobs ordered you to do, right?

No I hold my phone normally. Are you having problems with your iPhone 4? Or are you just someone who complains about a product they don't own?

 

[BriChi]

As far as I am aware Apple changed nothing and the problem seems to have gone away. So how is a psychological issue a fail?

gone away as in no one is complaining? I know someone who just bought the phone from Apple like 3 weeks ago and I was easily able to replicate the antenna issue. I do this on purpose because "if" they ever fix it, I will re-buy

 

[cocky jeremy]

What about Gizmodo/Jason Chen's stolen iPhone4 fail. Maybe they don't count as real media though.

How was that a fail? They got a ton of traffic from that. I guarantee it helped more than it hurt.. and consumers got to see the iPhone 4 early, so we won as well. The only thing it hurt was Apple, and i think that was minimal. They said people stopped buying the 3GS because they already knew the iPhone 4 was coming. Most logical people knew that already anyway, so i don't think it hurt Apple that badly.

 

[ouimetnick]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Google (besides adsense/adwords) = big fail.
M$ (besides Windows/office) = big fail
Apple's failures have been:
- Ping
- The Cube
- Apple TV
- Lots of earlier Macs
- Pippin
... that's about it?

Google has a great search engine. I love and use their products such as Gmail, blogger, and enjoy being able to get push contacts, calendar, and mail to my iOS devices. Apple charges $99 for a service that doesn't work half of the time.

And add the handling of Antennagate to the list. The iPhone 4 is a nice gadget, but how Apple reacted and how they handled the problem was terrible. If it was a non issue, and just a software bug, then why a big press conference? Why FREE cases to fix a problem that Steve claimed never existed? Apple was in denial that the screwed up.

 

[Ubuntu]

How can you call the fastest-selling smartphone ever a fail?

GoogleTV is a much bigger bust. 3D TV is going nowhere.

Ping is a fail, though. What were they thinking?

They didn't. They said the antenna issue was a fail.

 

[ouimetnick]

This is such a load of trash! The iPhone 4 is the best selling phone in the world! I have never experienced any of the issues that were labeled such a big deal!!! I put an otterbox case on mine and have never had an issue!

First up. Its not a load of trash for those who actually experienced the problem. And people with the issue didn't have a case on their phone, never mind a big bulky (but very protective) Otterbox case on theirs.

Just because you didn't experience the problem, doesn't mean its trash.

 

[DELLsFan]

The antenna issue was over hyped.

Nope, it's a software issue.

Crap, that didn't fix it.

Um, don't grip the phone like that, mkay?

Crap, it really isn't a software issue ... so here are some free cases.

Crap ... we can't keep handing these cases out forever ...

Um ... there is no problem. Here's your money back ... go buy another phone if you want.

Sound about right?

 

[farmboy]

thats pretty funny because the bunch f people I know and/or run into from time to time, I have taken their case off and tried it, and the signal drops to zero every time. The reason they probably think it's only 1% is because people probably are holding it righty and in a way where they are not covering the gap, for me, I hold the phone lefty comfortably resting in my hand and the signal drops every time, had to return the phone because of it which sucks. the other percent of people just dont complain because they are fanboys and do whatever Steve tells them, like holding it a different way which eventually will hurt most likely so that way Apple can come out with wrist guards to help ease the pain of holding your phone the "steve way"

Not funny at all. Apple is an ISO 9002-certified, and publicly-held corporation subject to federal regulations, and as such they are required to document all complaints and implement corrective actions to resolve them and prevent recurrences. The data said 1%, based on all the reported incidents. Nobody has any other data--not headlines, not blogs, not forum posts--that says otherwise. You can be sure people who paid that much for the phone would not take a failure like that silently, so they would have registered a complaint. Your mileage may vary, but the numbers are the numbers. Your / friends' experience is what is considered anecdotal. Did you guys call in to Apple so your experience could be counted in the numbers, or did you fail to do so because Steve told you not to? There's no question Apple handled it poorly, and no question it was the most media-hyped infrequent failure of the year.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

Nope, it's a software issue.

Crap, that didn't fix it.

Um, don't grip the phone like that, mkay?

Crap, it really isn't a software issue ... so here are some free cases.

Crap ... we can't keep handing these cases out forever ...

Um ... there is no problem. Here's your money back ... go buy another phone if you want.

Sound about right?

Apple should have said nothing as the problem amounted to hardly anything.

 

[Noctilux.95]

I still have no clue, nor do I care to know, what the hell ping is.