Apple Offers iPhone 4 Apology, Will Customers Accept?

For a company that prides itself on its carefully-honed attention to detail and aesthetic, Apple's apology for a faulty signal display on the iPhone was a rare admission that it got things wrong. But will that be enough to put a growing controversy behind it?

For more than a week, iPhone customers have complained that gripping the metal antennas surrounding the phone's body resulted in loss of signal strength. In a release put out early Friday, Apple acknowledged that something was amiss with the smartphone's design. The company reported being "stunned" to learn that the formula used to determine the number of signal strength bars to display had turned out to be "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."

It also turns out that the "mistake" has existed since the original iPhone, though it hasn't been noticed until now. Apple said it plans to issue a free software update for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G, as well as its newer iPhone 4.

  "The iPhone 4's wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologize for any anxiety we may have caused."

In other words, this was a relatively easy-to-remedy algorithm issue, not a more significant structural design weakness with the antenna. If that isn't enough to satisfy customers, Apple will offer full refunds for users returning undamaged units within 30 days of purchase.

Shades of Intel 1994?

How technology companies deal with perceived product glitches is often as important as the severity of the problem. One of the most famous events in the tech annals occurred in 1994 when a Lynchburg College professor detected a bug in Intel's P5 Pentium chip. The problem didn't affect the vast majority of computer users. Still, for certain high-end applications, the flaw could have proved disastrous.

At first, Intel refused to act. That was a mistake and the company suffered a public relations black eye, accused by the public and press of not owning up to the problem. Ultimately, Intel agreed to replace the chip if customers wanted to swap them out.

But Intel was an engineering company through and through. It was caught off guard because it was slow to realize the value of consumer-oriented public relations. The same can't be said of Apple, perhaps the most consumer-savvy technology company of all time. But like Intel, the company has been behind the marketing curve from the outset. Will issuing an apology to "those who have had concerns" suffice to put the final coda on of the most extended PR crises in its long history? The answer should become clear in coming days.