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RCR’s intrepid reporter, Matt Kapko, has made it across the moat into castle Cupertino, and is waiting with baited breath, with the hordes of other assembled press, to see what this morning’s press conference brings. (Twitter updates below!)
Will Steve Jobs announce a recall? Will Apple unveil a magic fix? Will the unhappy hipster masses get an apology? All these questions and more will soon be answered, and we’ll update you with the news as it trickles in.
Stay tuned.
Some Kapko Tweets:
“All the usual suspects are here. @engadget @mobilecrunch@mashable @allthingsd @WSJ“
“Crowd of media is growing at check in. @gigaom @venturebeat@slashgear are here now too.”
“The badge for the main event has been procured. Should be inside pretty soon.”
“The doors are opening and personal space in the crowd is shrinking.”
“Is Apple making all of us sweat in the sun outside on purpose?”
More Tweets:
“Some of Miles Davis’ finest is playing while we wait in the Town Hall.”
“Now there’s a parody music video playing about the “death grip.” Apple is embracing this all right.”
“From the parody video: “If you don’t want an iPhone 4, don’t buy it. If you bought one and you don’t like it, bring it back.”
Steve Jobs: “We’re not perfect. We know that. You know that. And phones aren’t perfect either.”
Jobs’ continues: “But we want to make all of our users happy. Now if you don’t know that about Apple, then you don’t know Apple.”
Jobs says Apple heard about this after iPhone 4 launched. “it’s not like Apple’s had it’s head in the san on this guys. It’s been 22 days.”
“It turns out, it’s certainly not unique to the iPhone 4,” Jobs says. He’s showing videos of BlackBerry and HTC devices with same problem.
“This is life in the smartphone world. Phones aren’t perfect,” Jobs says. “Every phone has weak spots.”
“All smart phones do that. We haven’t found a way around the law of physics … yet,” Jobs says.
Apple has 17 anechoic chambers and has invested $100m in antenna testing facilities so far with a staff of 18 scientists and engineers.
0.55% of all iPhone 4 users have called Apple Care about anything related to antenna or reception. “This doesn’t jive with what you read.”
The iPhone 4 drops less than 1 additional call per hundred than the 3GS.
Availability of cases is Jobs’ “pet theory” on this. 80% of iPhone 3GS bought a case and only 20% of iPhone 4 users are buying cases.
“This has been blown so out of proportion that it’s incredible… it’s fun to have a story, but it’s less fun with you’re on the other end.”
Apple is going to send cases directly to users because it can’t keep up with immediate demand.
Jobs is now highlighting Apple’s customer service strategy. “When we fall short, which we do sometimes, we try harder.”
The heart of the problem is smart phones have weak spots,” Jobs repeats.
Full refund and free cases is “everything we can do… There is no antennagate, there is a challenge for the entire smart phone industry.”
Now it’s Q&A time. First question was about Jobs’ health.
“We’re pretty happy with the antenna design of the iPhone 4. We’re not feeling right now that we have a giant problem that we need to fix.”
Jobs calls the Bloomberg report about pre-launch notice of antenna problems a “crock.” He apologizes to customers that are not happy.
All three Apple executives on stage just showed the audience their iPhone 4s without bumper cases on them.
Jobs says Apple waited 22 days to address these issues because “we didn’t know enough” right away.
“When someone or one organization gets really successful, people just want to tear it down,” Jobs says.
“I’m not saying we’re not at fault,” Jobs says. “We didn’t understand that we were painting a bulls-eye on our phone.”
“Right now, the state of the art in the entire industry is that no one’s solved this problem. Would I love Apple to be the first? Yes.”
Asked about recall consideration, Jobs says: “When you love your customers as much as we do, nothing’s off the table.”
Apple sent engineers to users’ homes with testing equipment to research reception problems around the country.
@forstall says NYT article claiming iPhone 4 suffers from a latent software issue is “just patently false.”
“None of us want cell towers in our backyard, but all of us want coverage,” Jobs says. “That is the single biggest problem AT&T is having.”
Jobs: “The formula we used to calculate bars (for 3G reception) has been off from the beginning.”
“At some point people started posting (my e-mails) on the web, which is pretty rude to be honest,” Jobs said.
Worse yet, “some people are making (e-mail exchanges) up,” Jobs said. “Don’t believe everything you read.”
In conclusion, Jobs says: “I wish we could have done this in the first 48 hours but then you wouldn’t have as much to write about.”
