Apple to give away free cases to iPhone 4 users
By Paul Miller 
posted July 16th 2010 1:29PM
posted July 16th 2010 1:29PM
This solution comes at the end of 22 days of Apple engineers "working their butts off," according to Steve, with "physics" ultimately being pinned as the main culprit. Apple claims you can replicate the left-handed "death grip" bar-dropping problem on the BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris, and Samsung Omnia II, and that "phones aren't perfect." Steve also claims that only 0.55% of people who bought the iPhone 4 have called into AppleCare to complain about the antenna, and the phone has a 1.7% return rate at AT&T, compared to 6% with the 3GS, though he would cop to a slight increase in dropped calls over the iPhone 3GS. For this Steve has what he confesses to be a pet theory: that 3GS users were using the case they had from the 3G, and therefore weren't met with the horrible reality of a naked, call dropping handset. Hence the free case solution, which will probably satisfy some, infuriate others, and never even blip onto the radar of many of the massive horde of consumers that's devoured this product in unprecedented numbers.
Update: Our own Richard Lai just waltzed down to the Regent Street Apple Store in London with his iPhone Bumper receipt in hand. A few minutes later he left with cold, hard cash, and kept the Bumper to boot. Seems as if the refund effort is a go, at least over in the UK.
Update 2: We've heard from several tipsters saying Apple no longer does Bumper refunds at its stores; customers will now have to make an online claim instead. Looks like we got super lucky.
@OCJP NEVER? NEVER EVER EVER? EVER? EVER EVER?
....LOUD NOISES
@TheZaccharaSyndicate
Enjoy using your cell phone condom.
@lnm4444 Now can all the little cry baby's STFU!! Apple just made you all eat a dick!! You never hear this same out cry when its a blackberry, nokia, windows mobile, or android device!! And why because those phones are garbage!! I could sell a gazillion phones too if I made 80 different models!! Apple makes one yearly and destroys the competition!! I'm glad Steve handled it the way he did!! Goes to show though at the end of the day no matter what Apple does a bitch is gonna be a bitch never satisfied and never happy!! MEANWHILE NO OTHER COMPANY TAKES CARE OF ITS CUSTOMERS WITH REFUNDS AND CREDITS THE WAY APPLE DOES!! Seriously folks enough with the HATORADE DRINKING ALREADY!!
@Revolutionary
i am pretty you never had an Iphone ..
@Element115
Yes, you could do this MAYBE, just maybe on another phone, but they are within a case and you'll need to press awfully hard (aka increase pressure resulting in higher skin density on the area) vs having your skin touch the antenna directly like the iphone4. In most cases, their argument is BS.
Sure Apple says no one can escape physics, but Apple can't escape mathematics, where as others can currently (via the inverse square law).
I am amazed at this press conference. It's a freakin phone. Who cares, their argument is like being in a session Congress--it's in the ivory tower.
@techlord
actually...it is something, its a whole boat load of something to be honest. if you're a company that sells accessories to go w/ your hardware, and you have basically 4-5 million people to sell to (i think they'll sell maybe another 1-2 million in the next 1.5 months) and even if only 10% of the people buy them at $30 dollars a pop. Thats A LOT of revenue, and more importantly profits lost when you're talking about a 99% profit margin, if it really does cost 30 cents.
@Arkv2 I don't think they saved their butts. I suspect they'll probably sell fewer iPhone 4's than initially projected. People aren't going to buy a new expensive phone that needs a condom to work. The best thing they could do now is to quickly come out with iPhone 5 that fixes the issue. Just like MS had to bring out Windows 7 to make us all forget Vista.
@OCJP
Learn 2 science. Anecdotes bad. Data good. If you don't believe in the concept of the human body attenuating cell phone signal, you're a moron.
@angryshortguy
"most humble apologies"? I must have missed that part. But I agree with your bottom line: if you're not happy, you can return it for a full refund. And that's actually the most effective way to voice your dissatisfaction.
@Element115
Why would the courts eat this up? What's the basis for a lawsuit?
Also, the stock seems to be unaffected by this announcement.
@angryshortguy
Dude they are saying its the same thing while it isn't.
Yes you can attenuate signal strength by both touching and shielding. But by touching you can only do so with the iPhone 4 all, ALL, the other manufacturers have their devices antenna INSIDE the phone so you CAN NOT TOUCH IT!
It's like a tire manufacturer sells tires with holes in it and calls it a fact for life of tires that they have to be pumped up at some point in time. Other tires do loose air gradually but not as fast as the ones with holes. Get the difference?
So Steve tells people, who don't have an engineering degree, it is not different to other phones. This not being the case makes it a suable situation.
And I'm not suing. I usually wait before I buy a product so it can undergo third party testing but there are class action lawsuits going on as far as I heard.
@GenericMessage I along with most iPhone users DO NOT experience the antenna issue that a few people are reporting, so when you comment about something here, know what you're talking about, don't be a troll.
@Revolutionary If you gave back your iPhone4, and got an EVO that you are happy with, why are you so emotional about this story, and bothering to post here? Some latent desire still to have an iPhone4?
@Badgerman
You know what would be better? Do a recall and fix the damn iPhone like MS did with the 360. It may have cost shareholders $1 billion, but it was the right thing to do and fair. Apple is too greedy to do that.
@aubreyq
Would of been better if a recall was issued, or the cases given out from day one instead of Apple being a bunch of tight bastards. It's intresting what Apple claimed about the BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris, and Samsung Omnia. Does anyone have experience of this.
@techlord 2 cents actually
@CJisohsocool It's more like if BP said, "There was an oil leak, but it wasn't as big as the media made it out to be.", which turned out to be true, then they stopped the leak and cleaned it up at their own expense before it caused any real damage.
Comparing Apple to BP is a little much.
@techlord It costs them $1
@lnm4444 Lies, Steve. LIES. I have the Eris and I cannot for the life of me hold it ANYwhere that effects my signal to any degree.
Finger-pointing is so 3rd grade, Steve. Step it up a little.
@lnm4444
Oh my god
@lnm4444 Steve mentioned in the presentation that Nokia, Rim, and others have this issue but suring the test, he DIDNT use a Nokia phone. I have a Nokia 5800 and E71. I have used them every where, from areas of low reception to areas of high reception. I tried covering ALL sides of the phone.
Result? NO BAR DROPS!
@angryshortguy
very good post , 90% of people posting don't have an Iphone
and hate Apple anyway , whatever SJ would have would have not make a difference anyway . Who care what they say Aplle will sell as many phone as they can make ...
@CJisohsocool Well...It's more like BP saying "Hey, everyone has leaks. See, here's an Exon leak. Here's a Chevron leak. See? But we want to keep our customers happy, so for everyone that lives in a Gulf Coast state, that has a problem with oil when they go swimming, we'll give them one of these colorful wetsuits FREE. Just pick one up at your local BP gas station when you're filling up!"
@Revolutionary so can the other 2,949,000 iphone 4 users. if the return rate was 1.7 hat means only 51,000 people returned their phone. out of 3mil? and half a percent reported problems. thats 165,000 users. a lot, no doubt but compared to how many that are out there it's not a drop in the bucket.
there's still 2.8 million iphone users that havent complained. at least to applecare. which means they're not having a problem or just dont care because the problem isnt that big of a "problem"
if you understood what is said, no one is pointing fingers. they're just COMPARING that the problem is evident with other companies.
the reason why people blow this out of the water is because its Apple, and the public views them as perfect and flawless. and if you're a gadget consumer, and expected that then you're thick and dont know much about anything.
@StatikSelekta
yeah whenever my phone had a HARDWARE issue i got it replaced for free
apple didnt offer that, just a condom
@audrywienerdog Steve mentioned in the presentation that Nokia, Rim, and others have this issue but suring the test, he DIDNT use a Nokia phone. I have a Nokia 5800 and E71. I have used them every where, from areas of low reception to areas of high reception. I tried covering ALL sides of the phone.
Result? NO BAR DROPS!
@techlord how much does it cost them to make the 3rd party cases? just checking.
@Revolutionary The weakspot of your evo is being the Sprint. Good luck with bad accounting errors, poor reception and not being in most of the country.
@osnala Nothing could ever be *that* pointless. :)
@realar Tried it on a BB Bold on ATT and MyTouch3g on T-Mobile...neither lose even a single bar when completely cupping the phone.
@Element115
What they should have done today is, saying:
"There are two kinds of phenomena
1. You can attenuate a signal by shielding the antenna. This can be done like here (sample cell phone of other manufacturers). This is a fact of life for every cell phone. Ours too!
2. You can attenuate a signal by touching (grounding) the antenna. This can only be done with our phone because we put it in a place where it easily can be touched.
Now you are fully informed and everybody can keep it and get a bumper or return it. Now nobody can sue us because every body knows everything."
But they didn't they are delibertly hiding facts and when the return period is over and it gets out that it is two different things u can not return it. ---> See you in court Steve.
@Revolutionary I am unfortunately living in a split household with AT&T and Sprint.
Your weekspot is the EVO. I don't see the attraction to it. It is nearly the size of an iPad. The screen is terrible. The OS is clunky. The camera is painfully slow. Swapping from front facing to back facing camera requires about 3 taps (if you stumble upon it). It's plastic shell feels worse than any case you could buy for any phone.
The marketplace has one or two pro apps followed by rivers of spam. My poor mother in-law is playing some farm animal noises game with my son (on her EVO) and ads for a porn site pop up. The game was designed for toddlers.
When nobody is running the store, be prepared for some strange stuff.
However... Yeah. iPhone 4 gets a case.
@flintstones
Wait, so after 100 Apple products, you finally realized today the iPhone 4 screwed you.
What about the other failed Apple products? Like the Newton.
Sounds like you're just a troll.
@jj1814
Me: So Steve can Ostriches fly?
SteveJ: Only in certain areas.
tehe.
@Revolutionary
Guys, Revolutionary NEVER had an iphone, just look at his previous comments...He's a friggin Liar
@jj1814 Yeah, but it is true. In a well serviced ATT area, I can't get my iPhone 4 to lose a single bar or lower its download speed over 3G no matter how I hold it (completely covering the whole antenna with fingers). Where you are makes a difference in how sensitive your antenna has to be. You can probably duplicate the problem with a Bold in an area with weak reception.
@lnm4444 What about us Window 7 phone fanboys?? No on ever thinks of us...
@iRonin
Agreed.
@lnm4444
hey guys i love Engadget, but next time please have better questions written down in order to ask Mr. Jobs.
@CJisohsocool yes, this is just like the BP oil leak. exactly like it. you you're a great observer. they must pay you well as a security guard at the apple store ;0)
@GenericMessage fandroid
@timbercd
What does you being pretty have to do with the iphone?
@Revolutionary
Ur suck a lair u didn't own a iPhone 4.......
@jj1814 Agreed, that was a major burn for apple, after that it seemed like jobs was pissed the whole time after that statement
It's like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound
@technomom
I'm not talking about consumer satisfaction, but they are less likely to get a (*whistles*) Class Action. I don't think this will stop people from buying the device at all. This is a big issue (even if iRonin says it isn't, Consumer Reports has no authority or credibility, right?) and the phone has just been released; we'll still have to wait and see what other issues the device has. It is natural.
@jj1814
"
10:41AM Q: I can't get my Bold to drop right now, maybe you can show me how to do it?
Steve: You may not see it in certain areas."
And why you may not see it in certain areas? Simply for it has to be a very strange room to reproduce the effect.
The other phones antennasignal is attenuated when it passes through the hand, in iphone it puts the antenna out of whack by detuning the antenna. So in iphone all signals are attenuated, in other phones the signal is attenuated only in certain directions.
So to reproduce the apples test of other phones you must be in a place where only one mast is in range. And there may not be any walls behind you.
btw. notice that they are only showing the bar drops, not dBms. There is no standard on how the bars are presented. It could be only 10dBm drop compared to iphones 21dBm. This only showing the bars is a easy way to spin that other phones have same problem.
@sniperboy3 us incorrectly implies there are more than one of you!
@lnm4444
Pretty as I predicted how Apple would say in the press conference.
"Apple to hold iPhone 4 press conference this Friday
Jul 14th 2010 10:22PM on Engadget
Here's what I predict they'll do:
Steve Jobs will throw at us a bunch of numbers such as: "X million of iPhone 4 sold in Y weeks"; "Of those Z million, 0.AB% were returned, compared to C% industry average."; "And of that 0.AB%, only D% were because of non-satisfaction with reception."; and more numbers...
Then, Jobs will puke a bunch of scientific "facts" (and more numbers) demonstrating why the iPhone 4 has the best antenna yet.
Finally, Jobs will conclude by saying that to demonstrate how Apple care about its customers, Apple will offer a free hardware fix for the minuscule number of people who have problems with the reception. The fix is a transparent elastic band. "
@MicrosoftOwns
So do you consider all things you have to put a piece of rubber on to use w/o undesired consequences defective? How about your penis?