Apple Hires Antenna Engineers. Really. 417
kangsterizer writes "Sometimes, news items are just about a good laugh. You may or may not like Apple, but the way it has been handling its antenna issue has been like a small tech soap opera — Steve Jobs, the CEO, saying 'not to hold the phone that way,' rumors of software issues, and the latest but most crunchy part, since the antenna issue has been widely discovered, on 23 June, several 'antenna engineer' positions opened up at Apple. Seems someone got fired:
Antenna engineer job position 1,
Antenna engineer job position 2,
Antenna engineer job position 3."
I just figure they did all their testing in California, where AT&T dropping calls is as common as $4 coffees.
Messed up links (Score:2, Informative)
The second and third links both point to the same URL as the first.
Re:Messed up links (Score:5, Funny)
"If you experience problems with links sending you to the wrong URLs, just don't click on them that way." -Steve Jobs, paraphrased
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Unless they just got fixed... (Score:2)
...they're all different URLs, different job postings, and different requisition numbers.
However, it's probably not likely that these positions are in any way related to the iPhone 4 launch, considering the time that these positions have probably been in the pipeline.
as common as $4 coffees (Score:3, Insightful)
I just figure they did all their testing in california where AT&T dropping calls is as common as $4 coffees.
Shouldn't they cost more than $4 in Cali?
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Believe it or not, some people still drink plain, black 12 oz coffees. The poor ones that can only afford $4!!! HAHAHAhahahahaaha. ha?
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In the greater Cupertino area, my iPhone 2G almost never drops calls unless I'm driving and there's a handoff failure. In San Francisco, by contrast, calls only survive about two minutes between call drops (with five bars of signal). Terrain and density makes a mess of GSM, so it depends highly on where in California you mean.
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$4 coffee is common in California implies AT&T dropping calls is also common implies that Apple testers didn't notice the antenna issue because their calls were getting they were used to getting many dropped calls anyway.
As a Californian who doesn't drink much coffee and gets cell service through Verizon, I can't make any claims on the accuracy of their poorly written comparison..
Secrecy is a double edged sword. (Score:4, Interesting)
That must have been a really, really, really awkward conversation.
Although to be honest, I wonder if this is Apple's secrecy coming to bite them in the ass. If you are uber careful about how many phones you have out in the field, you're a lot less likely to run into scenarios where your product fails in real world situations.
beta testing, google does it for a reason.
Re:Secrecy is a double edged sword. (Score:5, Funny)
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You're being facetious, but you're probably not that far off the mark... not that it's too expensive to actually remove the word, but because it could be too expensive to remove the word if things go pear-shaped and some corporate entity that's using the service loses all their work/documents. By keeping the word Beta there, they discourage people from relying on it for money-making purposes, and that in turn discourages idiots from trying to sue them when it breaks and they lose a day's pay. And even if so
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beta testing, google does it for a reason.
And they'll never stop beta testing anything. Ever. ;D
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Didn't Wave and Voice both just leave beta?
Do they have a major product/service still in beta?
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How true, I demand google give me a refund! Oh wait.......
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They tried that, but they just kept getting lost or stolen.
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Although to be honest, I wonder if this is Apple's secrecy coming to bite them in the ass. If you are uber careful about how many phones you have out in the field, you're a lot less likely to run into scenarios where your product fails in real world situations.
I think you're right that this issue was not discovered because of Apple's secrecy. If you remember, when they gave their staff phones to test they didn't want people to realise there was a new iPhone about - so they disguised them as iPhone 3s. The 3G didn't have the metal band, so the test models either didn't use one or - my guess - had it hidden under a fake iPhone 3 cover, meaning that this issue never came up.
Re:Secrecy is a double edged sword. (Score:5, Funny)
Completely unrelated, but do you realize that even VHS tapes must have gone through beta-testing?
Re:Secrecy is a double edged sword. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, they probably did test, but their testing apparently included a case that looked like the iphone 3gs to hide the fact that someone was out using a new iPhone. I'm wondering if that's why they didn't discover the issue sooner. None of the testers were using bare phones.
Re:Secrecy is a double edged sword. (Score:4, Interesting)
Equal Opportunities? (Score:5, Funny)
Reading into it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone got fired, or they just realised that you can't expect it to work properly if you don't hire experts. Reminds me of all the issues with noise in the G5 towers getting onto the supply rails and then into the audio I/O and Firewire power that lead to them hiring analog electronics experts to fix it. When I first read that the stainless steel surround was an antenna, I predicted these kinds of problems - you can't expect an antenna to maintain tuning while allowing a meatbag to touch it, especially when you need to be able to tune several microwave bands from hundreds of MHz to GHz. The laws of physics are against you, and any engineer should be able to point that out. Other handsets have issues where your hand can obstruct the signal, but the iPhone 4 is unique in allowing you to place things in galvanic contact with the antenna, which has a far bigger effect on its RF performance.
Re:Reading into it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Reading into it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reading into it? (Score:5, Interesting)
You have metal around the case to bring the front and back pieces together. Why not make that piece of metal useful?
Sounds like reasonable engineering to me, except for the fact that it ended up introducing a new problem.
Re:Reading into it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because that piece of metal is only useful as an antenna when someone's not grabbing hold of it. Even close counts when it comes to RF (try walking around an FM radio with marginal reception), but grabbing the thing with your hand is going to *wreck* it. Apparently Steve wanted too much for it to look like a Leica camera (whose stainless steel bodies were, surprisingly, *not* doubling as antennas) and too little for it to work in every possible situation (like being held by a sweaty person.)
This is only reasonable engineering if function follows form. I try not to bash apple, I really do, but in this case it's painfully obvious what they are after when they "engineered" this thing.
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This is only reasonable engineering if function follows form. I try not to bash apple, I really do, but in this case it's painfully obvious what they are after when they "engineered" this thing.
I agree wholeheartedly; design is not engineering. This was a design decision but the RF engineer in charge still didn't shoot down this proposal as soon as it was suggested.
Industrial design is such a hit-and-miss affair simply because it's the intersection between two very disparate disciplines.
Re:Reading into it? (Score:4, Insightful)
You have metal around the case to bring the front and back pieces together. Why not make that piece of metal useful?
Sounds like reasonable engineering to me, except for the fact that it ended up introducing a new problem.
You don't design a billion dollar product based on what "seems reasonable". You design it based on the ideas of the best goddamn engineers you can find, and do exhaustive testing.
The problem at Apple is that the higher-ups get so entranced in design work that they might push too hard to make their engineers "deal with it". If an engineer told steve jobs "no, you can't do that", Jobs would probably fire him and find and engineer that said he could do it, even if that engineer was either just covering his ass, or was too optimistic.
And then they required all the testers to have covers on their phones to make it look like an iphone 3G, which masked the meat-to-antenna issue.
gizmodo posted a good article on the issue yesterday: http://gizmodo.com/5575412/apple-design-vs-apple-engineering [gizmodo.com]
It is systematic, not accidental.
-Taylor
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Wouldn't a thin plastic film prevent the problem without effecting the aesthetic appeal?
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Correct - hence this turkey known as the i "Phone" 4.
Another thing that strikes me - didn't they do all the testing with the engineers using components built into 3GS cases, and only switched to the production ones at the last minute? So basically their testing was all about software, and Apples usual paranoia over security wasn't thought through properly.
Re:Reading into it? (Score:4, Funny)
When I first read that the stainless steel surround was an antenna...The laws of physics are against you, and any engineer should be able to point that out.
Well, now we know the material selection criteria. Laws of physics...or sleek and shiny?
Clearly you're not an expert. (Score:2)
The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is (Part 1) [nytimes.com]
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Brian Klug and Anand Lal Shimpi on iPhone 4 antenna [anandtech.com]
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Probably not antenna designers' fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow I doubt it was the idea of an antenna designer to put it on the outside where one would hold it. Anyone with any antenna theory knowledge at all knows that your gain would then be changed easily based on how it was held by a conductor (eg, you)
The only think you could blame the antenna engineer for is not properly stating what a bad idea it is.
Heck, it's entirely possible they didn't have any antenna engineers and now realize that's probably idea for a product masquerading as a phone.
Re:Probably not antenna designers' fault (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope they at least compensated for the capacitance of the human hand touching the antenna by using a varicap circuit to tune the antenna. (You use a longer-than-ideal antenna, add capacitance to compensate, then back off the capacitance if you determine that it's too high because somebody is touching the antenna.) I'd expect them to have something like that anyway because it's impossible to build an ideal antenna for such a broad range of frequencies.
If they have a *software-controlled* varicap, they might be able to fix the entire problem in software by just pushing the capacitance higher when they determine that a human hand is bridging the antennas. So a software update might be possible if they have a good way to test the capacitance on the antenna with the existing hardware (or I suppose they could just watch for a sudden drop in signal strength and try adjusting up, see if it helps, then try adjusting down if it made things worse).
Re:Probably not antenna designers' fault (Score:5, Informative)
(or I suppose they could just watch for a sudden drop in signal strength and try adjusting up, see if it helps, then try adjusting down if it made things worse).
auto antenna tuners exist. There is no need to guess by trial and error. Simply measuring the antenna current and comparing the phase of the current will tell you the tuning direction needed. When the current is in phase with the voltage, the antenna load is resistive (in tune). When the current leads the voltage, the antenna is capacitive and needs less capacitance (tuned higher in frequency) and vise versa.
Unfortunately, auto tuners for microwave frequencies are difficult to design due to the very short mechanical dimensions of the parts. Voltage tuned capacitors (diodes) are common in VHF and UHF, but not as common in microwave applications for tuning antennas due to their limited tuning range. A hand contacting a microwave antenna can tune it much further than the corrective auto tunning can correct it in most applications. Even if tuned to resonance, the new tuning to correct for the hand contact will still not have the impedance change corrected. Energy absorbed by microwave heating of the hand is energy not received or transmitted by the phone. Tuning is only part of the problem.
Attenuation is a real problem at these frequencies. To demonstrate this, simply tape an orange near the LNB in a satellite antenna in the path of the feedhorn. Without de-tuning the feedhorn cavity, the huge loss in signal strength by absorption can be seen as a total loss of reception. Try placing your hand over the feedhorn while setting up your satellite TV dish. Active retuning of the feedhorn to resonance won't fix the total loss of the signal.
HF for Ham radio and marine shortwave (2-30 MHZ) need larger components to tune mechanically larger antennas so those applications use mechanical relays to switch capacitors and inductors or motor driven capacitors and/or inductors.
Re:Probably not antenna designers' fault (Score:5, Funny)
They did. They were ignored because form is more important then function (this is Apple remember). The product then launched. The engineers were then overheard saying "we told you so" in the halls one day. And now there are 3 positions that recently became available.
That's my bet (Score:4, Interesting)
They probably didn't bother with any engineers for it. I would guess that in their phones they normally use off-the-shelf antenna designs. So I could see that they have no need for an engineering department. Also, when it comes to antennas for cell signals, there are some pretty well established designs/rules to use.
So my bet is that the marketers started going wild. They figured it'd look at really cool if the phone was all glass, thin, with the antenna as a metal band running around it. That layout for antenna was generally ok, so a prototype was built. It was tested sitting on a desk, and worked fine. Things moved forward. However all testing was done in non-real circumstances, either sitting on a bench in a lab or using disguised prototypes, that didn't have the same structure as the final thing. Everything looked good, product launched, shit hit the fan.
At no time was an actual engineer in this area consulted.
I would say this is the most likely scenario. Not that there was some dumbass engineer that didn't know or whatever, but that there was NO engineer, that nobody with antenna design expertise was ever consulted. It was done because it looked cool, without proper thought given to all the functional constraints. A marketing decision, not an engineering one. Now, given the problems, they are hiring engineers to try and keep it from happening again.
Re:That's my bet (Score:4, Informative)
Did you even check the AnandTech article? The antenna still works with the user holding the device. Like many other devices, attenuation occurs when the antenna is covered, especially when in contact with the human body. This attenuation is mitigated by the fact that signal quality is improved even at the lowest signal strengths. However, it is significant enough to cause disruption if the user is in an area with a weak signal already.
As the AnandTech tests show, part of the problem is in the way that the signal strength is reported by the "bars" meter, a weak signal around 40% of the maximum supported still shows up as "5 bars". When attenuated by touching the antenna in the right place this gives the illusion of a drop from full strength (5 bars) to none, which seems more dramatic than it really is.
The attenuation is marked, there is no argument about that. However, even AnandTech suggests that coating the antenna with an insulative should help mitigate it even more. In other words, it seems to be a sound design, based on solid engineering, with perhaps some implementation flaws due to the rush to market.
-dZ.
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". . . based on how it was held by a conductor (eg, you)"
Huh? I don't stand in front of an orchestra waving my arms around...
Better than asking an interview question (Score:5, Funny)
< candidate answers, based on practical experience >
Interviewer writes down answer, says "That's very interesting, next candidate please"
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From the job listing: (Score:5, Funny)
Just give it a different name (Score:5, Funny)
iPhone noTouch
Re:Just give it a different name (Score:5, Funny)
iPhone !Touch
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Brilliant! All we need now is Inkscape or GIMP. And a lot of malevolence :)
Good RF Engineers are expensive and rare (Score:2, Insightful)
Most companies have a hard time recruiting any good RF engineering. It's not a 'digital' domain and the Educational System just plain isn't putting out many (any?) good RF engineers anymore. It isn't even something you can passably fake with 'SPICE' like some of the lower-frequency analog.
I doubt if Apple can afford that kind of engineering. They can't even afford mechanical engineers with the skill-set to design a robust replaceable-battery-compartment into their products. (the most recent attempt I ca
Re:Good RF Engineers are expensive and rare (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt if Apple can afford that kind of engineering.
Tens of billions of dollars of cash-on-hand and they can't afford a few engineers with six-figure salaries. Sure.
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It's still taught in college. I'm almost certain the RF class was required for EE's at Penn State. Probably optional for the CE's though.
And the battery thing is more just a choice Apple made. In fact, even the layout inside the new MacBook Pro looked plenty user-serviceable. I think they just want to make more money by charging users for the servicing.
Prototype fail (Score:2, Insightful)
Did nobody else read that as HiRes? (Score:2)
Sure, you only get 4 colors in hires on an Apple, but what can you draw with a 40x40 grid anyway (except, maybe, a Mark Spitz retrospective).
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I was expecting HiRes pics of the current apple antenna engineers. Or what's left over.
Wrong idea, Jobs. (Score:2)
Bumpers (Score:2)
Or they did all their testing with bumpers on the phones. If you have a piece of rubber between your hand, and the antenna, you don't complete the circuit.
Re:Bumpers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bumpers (Score:4, Insightful)
Jobs said let there be the iPhone 4 and there was the iPhone 4 and Jobs saw the iPhone 4 and said it was good. Then he sent them forth to multiply.
But he never actually held it and made a call with it. That was the problem.
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My guess is they did testing in an RF chamber. They never had anyone hold the phone during testing and then they put test phones in cases as a disguise.
They just never did a valid real world test. More than one company has made that mistake. What is so funny is how everybody now is going duh...
Re:Bumpers (Score:5, Interesting)
A good guess, actually, because when you're doing FCC testing, you pretty much use an instrumented RF chamber to gather field data. You can't have people in it for obvious reasons.
Even in real world testing, you might not find it - after all, once this hit, people have tried to replicate the result, failed, then watched a dozen YouTube videos seeing how to replicate it. After seeing them, they have to purposely set their hands in one position. Other people, trying to see the effect, have dropped their phones. It really depends how you hold the phone - some people like ot hold the bottom and use leverage to hold it to their ear (results in problem - you have to "cup" the bottom), others hold the top and press their hands to their ear. The latter, except for those with the right hand geometry, probably can't figure out how to do it.
Hell, I've seen phones where the radio locks up if you do *just* the right set of motions. One of my coworkers spent a week riding the commuter train with a phone, laptop, and debug hardware because that was the only reliable way to reproduce the issue. And you have 5 minutes because it happens in just one particular part, then you get off and have to ride it the other way to set up for the next round of debugging.
For phone testing, there's tons of issues a limited testing won't find. The only way you'll find them is well, release it to the public
Re:Bumpers (Score:4, Funny)
Less of a guess than from experience doing a little testing myself.
Sometimes people do the unexpected.
A software example happened to my company many years ago.
This was back in the DOS days.
Our software had a file manager. There was a function to copy the file to the floppy and from the floppy.
We where getting complaints that files where "unediting" themselves. This was actually impossible with the file structure we where using. We zeroed out the free sections of the file to help prevent curruption.
Well the keyboard commands where crtl f crtl f to copy from the floppy and ctrl f ctrl t to copy to the foppy.
We finally figured out that some people thought that they had to hit the ctrl f and t all at the same time.
They where holding the f down long enough for the auto repeat to cause them to copy from the floppy and they never noticed the message.
We "fixed" the issue by changing the hot keys in later versions and by adding a lot more warnings if you tried to copy an old file over a new file.
Just figuring out what caused the unediting was a challenge since the support was all phone based.
It is hard to make things easy.
iPhone! The Movie (Score:2)
.
You assume they had an antenna engineer originally (Score:2)
surely, the evidence is against that...
I don't think I'll be applying to work at Apple (Score:2)
The only reason the old antenna engineers did what they did was because they were forced to by Apple marketing and industrial design groups. And the only reason the next ones won't make the same mistake is because of hindsight, not because the new ones will be somehow more competent than the old ones.
Apple sounds like a horrible place to work. Every decision you make has to put aesthetics ahead of every other practical consideration. I bet you'd get fired for complaining too much about a problem early in
Different Job Titles Needed (Score:2, Informative)
Clearly the marketing department is the end-all, be-all decision makers in a product design at Apple. As an RF engineer (I am) I would not be jumping up and down to work for Apple. Antenna designs are always a compromise between aesthetics and performance.
I bet that the Apple phone worked just great in their corporate offices with an AT&T cell site right next door. The signal levels would be very high and you probably could have wrapped the phone in a 10 pound ham and the signal would have looked just g
Hammertime! (Score:5, Funny)
Now all Apple needs to do is make a commercial with MC Hammer.
"Can't touch this!"
Best part is, they could use the same video - it's already people dancing in front of a white background. Just crank up the contrast until the people turn into silhouettes, and add some headphones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c4L4CPfQY8 [youtube.com]
I hope the engineers didn't fall on their sword (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I am an engineer (electrical test, in fact) so I'm a bit biased. But from the brief insights that we can get about the Apple development process, Jobs loves to keep different parts of the organization completely oblivious from each other. My guess is that the actual antenna engineers never had knowledge of the final design of the phone. The process guys designing the machining to make the external antenna probably didn't know they were making antennas. The only people that probably knew the whole picture was Jobs, Ive, and the usual group that is in that iPhone 4 video shown during the keynote.
If statistically it is shown to be a huge problem as such to trigger a recall, the board should do its job and hold one someone in this high level team responsible. Obviously, it is a cultural thing with Jobs. He loves to get feedback of what is possible from the engineering staff and then ignore it. For example, the Mac Mini. He famously asked what was the smallest computer they could build at the time. He got feedback and then said make it 1" smaller in each dimension. Sometimes it works. I have done some of my best work for people who were similar, just unflinching in their demands. It is gratifying to complete such a project. However, this time taking industrial design over engineering backfired, and big time. Apple has been inching towards this day for a long time. For example, why no strain relief on the old Macbook MagSafe connectors? Aluminum backs on the original iPhone? I'm hopeful that this episode shakes up the culture and process a little bit. Enough to be cautious when necessary, but not to stifle their crazy industrial design creativity either.
They're not the only ones (Score:5, Insightful)
BP is now hiring drilling engineers. There's never enough money to do it right the first time but there's always money to try to fix it the second time.
In the interview.... (Score:3, Funny)
INTERVIEWER: "So you want the Antenna Engineer position?"
GUY: "Yes."
INTERVIEWER: "And you've heard what Stave jobs had to day on the subject?"
GUY: "That people with problems shouldn't hold their phone that way?"
INTERVIEWER: [winces] "Yeah, that. He didn't put it exactly that way. What -- what do you think about Mr. Jobs' response?"
GUY: "I don't agree."
INTERVIEWER: "What?"
GUY: "...with the, um, consumers who think that idea isn't correct." [smiles]
INTERVIEWER: "And what do you think would fix the problem?"
GUY: "I would show people the correct way to hold the phone?"
INTERVIEWER: [scribbles note on clipboard] "Thank you. You'll be hearing from us."
GUY LEAVES
INTERVIEWER: [picks up iPhone and dials] "Damn it" [adjusts grip] "This is Steve. We've interviewed one hundred engineers and ninety of them agree with Steve. Print the ad."
AppleCare memo on how to mislead users... (Score:5, Informative)
From a memo to AppleCare reps:
Exact procedures AppleCare reps must follow when dealing with any reception complaints regarding the iPhone 4.:
1. Keep all of the positioning statements in the BN handy – your tone when delivering this information is important.
a. The iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. Our testing shows that iPhone 4’s overall antenna performance is better than iPhone 3GS.
b. Gripping almost any mobile phone in certain places will reduce its reception. This is true of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, and many other phones we have tested. It is a fact of life in the wireless world.
c. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 3GS, avoid covering the bottom-right side with your hand.
d. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 4, avoid covering the black strip in the lower-left corner of the metal band.
e. The use of a case or Bumper that is made out of rubber or plastic may improve wireless performance by keeping your hand from directly covering these areas.
2. Do not perform warranty service. Use the positioning above for any customer questions or concerns.
3. Don’t forget YOU STILL NEED to probe and troubleshoot. If a customer calls about their reception while the phone is sitting on a table (not being held) it is not the metal band.
4. ONLY escalate if the issue exists when the phone is not held AND you cannot resolve it.
5. We ARE NOT appeasing customers with free bumpers – DON’T promise a free bumper to customers.
Re:AppleCare memo on how to mislead users... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the Customer Handbook:
1. So you say there is a problem if I hold the phone the wrong way? (wait for response). Please show me the correct way.
2. That seems very impractical and uncomfortable. I'm liable to get hand cramps. Is it true you have a rubber bumper that will fix the problem?
3. Well since we've established the phone is defective, and this rubber bumper fixes the problem, then it should be free. So I'll give you a choice: Either give me a full refund for my phone, or fix the problem at no charge. Pick one. Or else I and a million other customers will drag you into court, and make your life a living hell.
4. Remember:
There's no excuse for corporations to Steal money from customers with inferior or defective products. The customer is not always right, but in most cases the Consumer Protection Laws are on your side. Previous corporations that challenged the U.S. Government typically lost, and the customers received refunds or free fixes.
Re:AppleCare memo on how to mislead users... (Score:4, Interesting)
P.S. This will probably get me modded down, but I don't care. Robin Hood helped the poor by taking-back what the rich had stolen from them. I consider this to be the same deal. (Especially since Apple received a taxpayer bailout - they stole that money IMHO.)
- Buy rubber bumper.
- Install on iPhone to fix its defect.
- Return empty envelopes with tracking number.
- Wait two months.
- Call credit card company to explain that you returned the rubber bumper, and would like to be refunded the money. Provide tracking number.
Apple owes every customer a free fix for their defective phone.
Re:AppleCare memo on how to mislead users... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, isn't this credit card fraud?
I suppose, if you had to pick *any* industry or group of companies larger than Apple to piss off, that would be a good one. However, I don't think it will end well for you if you give it a try.
Re:AppleCare memo on how to mislead users... (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of these practices are used to make working your employees overtime more expensive than it is to actually hire new employee. This makes a lot of sense when you consider that most of Europe is combating a high unemployment rate, and the best way to get to full employment is to create more jobs. That Germany is still near the top in individual worker productivity speaks volumes about German work ethics. They are able to get as much done in a standard 7 hour day/35 hour week as most Americans do in 8 hour day/40 hour week.
What is also really strange is that the cost to hire a new worker in Germany is not nearly as expensive as it is in the US. For instance, in the US, if you hire on a new full time employee, you have to pay his/her benefits (health, dental), while in Germany, most of these are already covered under the universal health system paid for by the German taxpayers.
As to the original topic, it stands to reason that the best solution for Apple at this point is to offer a free bumper rim to all their affected customers. If they purchase it in volume, the cost is minimal, and they can tell their customers to go to the nearest Apple Store to pick one up for free. It goes a long way to placating customer relations as well as bringing those customers back into the Apple Store, where, more than likely, these people will also probably purchase one or two additional retail items, so Apple wins all the way around. If they offer it in fruity colors, all the better.
Re:AppleCare memo on how to mislead users... (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Your fault for not keeping copies of your timecards.
No not my fault. A woman does not deserve to be raped just because she wore a skimpy black dress, and neither did I deserve to be unpaid just because I didn't print my timecard. Don't blame the victim when it is the criminal/corporation that is at fault.
Besides I couldn't print the cards since no such function existed. (Even the prnt scrn button did nothing.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Corporations are responsible for the actions of their agents while said agents are on the clock. So sorry I'm not buying your "the corporation is innocent" defense.
Re:AppleCare memo on how to mislead users... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because committing fraud is a reasonable response. How about you just return the damn phone.
Re:AppleCare memo on how to mislead users... (Score:4, Informative)
iPhone Return Policy
If you are not satisfied with your iPhone purchase, please visit online Order Status or call 1-800-676-2775 to request a return. The iPhone must be returned to our warehouse within 30 calendar days from shipment to avoid an $175 early termination fee. The iPhone must be returned in the original packaging, including any accessories, manuals, and documentation.
Apple will assess a 10% restocking fee on any opened iPhone. Shipping fees are not refundable.
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Excuse me what? Did you say Apple got a taxpayer bailout? You should probably back that up with some facts or other data first because I've never heard of it. They have so much cash they do not need any kind of bailout.
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cheap buggers (Score:3, Interesting)
Considering with subscription your iPhone costs like 7-800$ and that you can buy a rubber "bumper" case on ebay from china for like 1$ or 2$ bucks, you would think they would be just throwing those things at customers!
Of course they probably would view this as conceding that a problem actually exists...
Re: (Score:2)
Take the case to AT&T then.
I purchased a phone and it drops calls. I purchased the phone through AT&T on the understanding that it takes and places calls.
You can't provide me a working phone, then I demand a release from my contract minus the termination fees. I will raise a stink about it, contact the BBB, and encourage every other iPhone user to do as such as well.
Or you can provide me with the rubber bumper.
I shouldn't have to pay $30 for a small piece of rubber because you are selling a defectiv
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe Apple should learn a thing or two from Samsung. My Omnia has the following on a sticker attached to the bottom of the battery cover:
-----Internal Antenna Area----
For best performance, Do NOT
touch this area when using your phone
Alternative antennas (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Time to enter the market with the Pringles Cantenna for iPhone 4! Only 7.99$ and you get a pile of chips* as a bonus!
* burned electronics flavour available for a limited time only!
Re: (Score:2)
yep, it has the apps and the gbs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg [youtube.com]
Re:The funny part is, it's still better than Andro (Score:5, Interesting)
OP have you ever used an Android phone? The platform is maturing extremely fast. I just switched from an iPhone 3g to an Evo 4g and I don't have regrets. The features of the iPhone 4 just didn't impress me enough. Plus, once I got an android I realized how much the iPhone was stifling my inner geek. I've loaded custom roms, overclocked, rooted, everything...It has been a lot of fun and I recommend android to any geek I know. And if you're not a geek, I still recommend it.
Ok, I do have ONE regret about my switch: a unified mailbox. There's probably one in the android market...hmmm brb!
Re: (Score:2)
OP have you ever used an Android phone? The platform is maturing extremely fast. I just switched from an iPhone 3g to an Evo 4g and I don't have regrets.
Evo 4g? I don't care [youtube.com]. I want the one with the bigger geebees.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus, once I got an android I realized how much the iPhone was stifling my inner geek. I've loaded custom roms, overclocked, rooted, everything..
so you just did not even try this on the iPhone? You have been able to do ALL of these for longer than andriod phones have existed.
Dont make crap up like you cant do this on an Iphone, Jailbrake and root an iphone for some serious fun... Hell one dude has Linux running on the iphone. http://linuxoniphone.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
http://www.appletell.com/apple/comment/overcl [appletell.com]
Re:The funny part is, it's still better than Andro (Score:4, Insightful)
The primary difference is that you don't have to give up your warranty to do it on Android.
We already had this discussion here, folks...don't use "just hack the device" as support for an iPhone when you can do the same thing with an unmodified Android device. I'm all for modifying my gadgets, but not when I can buy a gadget that does what I want right out of the box.
Look, I'm not keen on Apple's policy myself, but (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite clearly, the Android DIDN'T do what the GP want right out of the box, as evidenced by the overclocking, rooting, loading custom roms, etc. This is neither a hit against Android nor iPhone - practically every device needs some de
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, I do have ONE regret about my switch: a unified mailbox. There's probably one in the android market...hmmm brb!
If you find one, let me know. I am a long time BlackBerry user, and would love an Android phone but it's just not as tightly wound as the BB platform is, especially with the messaging boxes as you said. I love the ability to click "messages" and see anything that's gone on from IM to calls to emails, in one list. A phone needs to save me time first, and be a cool gadget second.
Yes... but... (Score:5, Funny)
a fanboi would probably suggest sucking Steve Jobs' dick as a solution.
I tried that when my new phone starting dropping calls, but he kept telling me "not to hold it that way."
...
Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. Tip your waitress, try the veal.
Re:The funny part is, it's still better than Andro (Score:4, Insightful)
Specifics? Last time I checked, there is nothing that the iPhone OS can do that Android can't do (and, aside from Android being "open", the reverse is more or less true as well.)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The iPhone is just smoother. Just last Friday evening I got the chance to compare an iPhone 3GS to my Motorola Milestone (overclocked to 800MHz and tweaked for speed and stability) and an HTC Desire (more or less stock, as far as I could tell)... even with Launcher Pro and Sense UI on the Milestone and Desire, respectively, the iPhone just felt... nicer.
The scrolling, pinching, app-switching animations, hell, even the lockscreens... all smoother and more responsive on the iPhone.
Of course, that's not import
Re:The funny part is, it's still better than Andro (Score:5, Funny)
What do you EXPECT me to do on these phones, anyway?
I expect you to DIE, Mr. Bond.
Re:The funny part is, it's still better than Andro (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Would this be considered... (Score:5, Insightful)
...Putting the horse behind the cart?
It's a perfectly good solution if you're headed downhill.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not if your cart has brakes. I mean, give the poor horse a break!
Re: (Score:2)
Well, pushing *IS* better than pulling....
Re: (Score:2)
I hope you don't have a job that requires an eye for detail.
Unless the links really did go to the same URL at the time of your posting, that is.