Why didn't Apple include...

[burp43]

...the black or white bumpers from the start, and just charge for the colored ones? All of this BS could have been avoided.

 

[LoganT]

It's probably because it actually has nothing to do with the bumpers or putting a case on it. Some people are having the antenna issue even with bumpers on.

 

[lawrence32]

...the black or white bumpers from the start, and just charge for the colored ones? All of this BS could have been avoided.

Not everyone would have used it. You still would have seen people upset.

 

[br0adband]

Because they are obligated to maximize profit on everything they sell, so including the bump case would bring the iPhone 4 profit margin down by a small amount overall, while selling the bump case as an individual optional product as they are doing could be giving them 14,000% interest or more, who knows.

Can't be more than $.15 to $.20 to make one in the mass quantities they're having made, so it's insanely great profit on it which looks damned good on a quarterly report breakdown.

 

[Arran]

Maybe if the phone came with a bumper, Apple couldn't have claimed it was, "The thinnest smartphone on the planet", at WWDC?

And even if it remained the thinnest with the bumper, it doubtless would have dented the impressive 24% number in this slide: