After numerous reports on blog sites and forums of the iPhone 4 having poor reception when held in certain ways. Many were wondering if a recall of the newly launched device was on the horizon. Today Steve Jobs stood by his product in a 90-minute press conference and offered a quick fix to the wrap-around antenna issue.

Jobs mentioned that there is no flaw in Apple’s design and continued on to say that this type of problem plagues the entire smartphone industry. Free iPhone 4 cases or full refunds through September 30th were offered as a band aid fix with no recall, for now anyway.

From REUTERS:

“This has been blown so out of proportion, it’s incredible,” Jobs, 55, told reporters and analysts in an auditorium at Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters.

“This is life in the smartphone world. Phones aren’t perfect. Most every smartphone we tested behaved like this, he said, referring to the controversy as “Antennagate.”

While this is the perfect opportunity to bash Steve Jobs and the rest of the iPhone community that holds their prized device in such high regard. I’m not going to. Actually the first time I heard about the antenna as a wrap-around design I wondered this very thing. I thought to myself, “wouldn’t it affect reception?” Apparently it did.

Its true, this is life in the smartphone world. Just look at the blunder that was the much awaited Nokia N97. Sometimes companies make bad choices. In the N97’s case, how are you leaving out hardware acceleration and capacitive touch? These things do happen and if anything, it shows that Apple is as vulnerable as any other manufacturer out there. Everyone makes bone-head mistakes. At least other manufacturers have different devices to fall on. Apple only has a select few. Which is why the company should be worried.

Sure there will be the die hards out there that will accept the phone as is and take the free case as a solution. It remains to be seen how many will right out return the device for a full refund.

« »