Apple to Answer Calls to Explain iPhone Glitches

By: Stephen Smith
Topics: In The News

iPhone 4

(Credit: Cases.com)

Apple announced that on Friday it will address growing criticism over its iPhone 4 reception problems, the Wall Street Journal reports.

In June, the company launched the much-anticipated phone, which features an antenna in a stainless steel band around the phone's frame. But the phone has been slammed with a mountain of complaints of dropped calls when the antenna is partially covered.

On Monday, Consumer Reports came out with a post explaining why it couldn't recommend buying the iPhone 4.

An Apple spokesman declined to provide any details on Friday's news conference or whether a possible recall or other fix was in the works. But speculation is brewing.

"Given the intense pressure and scrutiny Apple has come under on the problem with the iPhone 4, it's going to be about some kind of fix or compensation for the owners of the phone," Ed Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research, told the Wall Street Journal.

According to the newspaper, a recall of the iPhone is unlikely, since the problem doesn't affect safety and is only sporadic. But another fix is possible - some analysts told the Wall Street Journal that the Cupertino, Calif. company could give away its $29 rubber "bumper" case, which would solve the reception problem. That would cost Apple up to $5 a phone, the Journal reports.

Advised against buying the iPhone 4, Consumer Reports concluded from its testing that the iPhone 4's antenna problems are not related to software and more serious than Apple has let on.

10 Photos

Slide Show: iPhone 4

View the Full Gallery »

Stephen Smith
Stephen Smith is a senior editor for CBSNews.com

5 Comments +

Add a Comment


by stupa5 July 15, 2010 9:44 AM EDT: Great Apple Designers & Engineers at work..."We'created a SMART Phone that will work ONLY if you hold it a angled 45 degrees facing the North Pole or Mecca if your a muslim" on the summer solstice at sunrise".. you must have a Civil Engineer relative familiar with the Orion Constellation..
...but first download an GPS app...if you bend over with duct tape on phone... facing south towards a Turnip Truck in Alabama!

give me a F@$&@Xg break Steve!; Reply to this comment


by stupa5 July 15, 2010 9:28 AM EDT: There answer calls...as long as their iphones are working!; Reply to this comment


by pondcaster July 15, 2010 8:51 AM EDT: Early adopters get what they deserve for buying "1st generation" toys? For people that want a mobile device that actually works AND is the best cel phone should get a blackberry! Sorry Apple, I was one of your biggest fans back in the early 80s to the early 90s (regular contributer to Macweek, for those that remember that rag) but have long since given them up for hardware/software that is worth what it costs. Apple hasn't released a properly designed & tested device in a decade. I'm on my 5th iPod and it reboots almost every time I try to play a podcast. When I called Apple customer service to find out what to do with this buggyPod and the 1st thing the clueless gal on the line asked me was "How much illegally downloaded music do you have on it?"! Apple just can't get it right so they are trained to blame the user. What happened to true human factors design? iPhones are for kids in high school or college that don't have to (over)pay since their parents give them $$ and they will buy the next thing so ...? WHAT A JOKE!; Reply to this comment


by Cyber998 July 15, 2010 8:45 AM EDT: Apple are a marketing company, not a technology company. They buy up technology invented by others and then get their multi-billion dollar marketing department on convincing everyone they want it (often using misleading adverts where loading screens are mysteriously absent and painfully slow tasks happen instantly).

Being a marketing company "fixes" don't really happen, like the CD drives which never got fixed. Instead being a marketing company we'll be told this problem "isn't big" and doesn't matter and their customers should just live with the problems.

Meanwhile the problems (as with pesky things loading screens, slow operation and frequent casing scratches) will remain completely absent from adverts promising a "perfect product". It's marketing bordering on fraud but no-one ever seems to care about misleading consumers.; Reply to this comment


by EdwinGene1960 July 15, 2010 8:21 AM EDT: Do you know why this happened to Apple? Because they got too cocky with all of the success they have been having up until now. They didn't want to believe that they could actually have designed something with a flaw in it, so it had to be that it was the customer's fault. Customers were holding the phone incorrectly. Apple forgot the first law of Customer Service: The customer is always right. And now they're paying for it.; Reply to this comment