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pcsalex
Well, I am may be outdated, but I am used to culture, where something was sold ...
pcsalex
at least now Apple has the opportunity to learn that is not enough if the ...
Hubris, lessons from Apple antenna debacle
Bolaji Ojo
7/16/2010 10:02 AM EDT
Apple Inc. should have listened to its experts. It didn’t.
Now, the company is experiencing the limits of goodwill and the corrosive effects of public dissembling.
News reports indicate an Apple engineer and others at an unidentified service provider in 2009 warned the company of reception problems with the iPhone 4’s design.
I don’t know exactly what Apple did when the engineers voiced their concerns but obviously the company went ahead to build the iPhone 4 with the antenna embedded in the housing.
Now, Apple is facing complaints about dropped calls from customers and got a black eye from Consumer Reports magazine, which after conducting some controlled tests declined to endorse the Apple smartphone. In fact, Consumer Reports cautioned against buying the phone and suggested Apple pay for the fix, a rubber “bumper” that effectively shields the waning signals from degradation.
Apple didn’t handle the entire event right from the beginning. After making the first blunder of not listening to its engineers, the company muddled up the situation by offering explanations that even many of its most ardent fans could not believe.
One of Apple’s the-goat-ate-my-homework explanations included the befuddling “simple and surprising” fact that: “the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong,” the company said in a statement.
Apple added: “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.”
Many frustrated iPhone buyers and AT&T customers thought that explanation was a load of hogwash. The real culprit, according to the Consumer Reports investigation was the iPhone 4’s antenna design. On Friday, July 16, Apple will presumably offer additional explanations.
What has this debacle cost the company? A bundle in market value and even more in lost goodwill. Apple formally released the iPhone 4 on June 24 and since then the company’s market capitalization has fallen more than $10 billion.
The shares rose to a record high in June ahead of the iPhone 4 release, propelling the company past Microsoft Corp., as the world’s most valuable technology company, but began declining after Apple customers reported problems with the antenna.
As at Thursday, July 15, Apple’s market value was $228.8 billion, down $17 billion from $244.8 billion on June 24 and well below the all time high of $253.88 billion from June 21.
What may prove even more costly to Apple is the goodwill it is losing and may further lose if it continues to ignore customer concerns or talk to its varied audiences in idiotic techno-jargons. At this point, a recall or an offer to give each iPhone 4 buyer the “bumper” could save the company a lot of unnecessary headache.
Apple has built a large following of fans that swear by the company and buy not only its products but also its publicly traded shares. On the other hand, the company also has a legion of consumers that abhors its business policies—such as the exclusive contract with AT&T as the sole seller of iPhones in the United States—and would like nothing but to see it fall flat on its face.
Apple can easily shake off the iPhone 4 problem. However, the controversy has already smeared the company’s carefully cultivated image as the world’s most innovative consumer electronic company. That’s an opening rivals will be keen to exploit.
All these could have been averted, simply by listening to an engineer already on Apple’s payroll.
Now, the company is experiencing the limits of goodwill and the corrosive effects of public dissembling.
News reports indicate an Apple engineer and others at an unidentified service provider in 2009 warned the company of reception problems with the iPhone 4’s design.
I don’t know exactly what Apple did when the engineers voiced their concerns but obviously the company went ahead to build the iPhone 4 with the antenna embedded in the housing.
Now, Apple is facing complaints about dropped calls from customers and got a black eye from Consumer Reports magazine, which after conducting some controlled tests declined to endorse the Apple smartphone. In fact, Consumer Reports cautioned against buying the phone and suggested Apple pay for the fix, a rubber “bumper” that effectively shields the waning signals from degradation.
Apple didn’t handle the entire event right from the beginning. After making the first blunder of not listening to its engineers, the company muddled up the situation by offering explanations that even many of its most ardent fans could not believe.
One of Apple’s the-goat-ate-my-homework explanations included the befuddling “simple and surprising” fact that: “the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong,” the company said in a statement.
Apple added: “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.”
Many frustrated iPhone buyers and AT&T customers thought that explanation was a load of hogwash. The real culprit, according to the Consumer Reports investigation was the iPhone 4’s antenna design. On Friday, July 16, Apple will presumably offer additional explanations.
What has this debacle cost the company? A bundle in market value and even more in lost goodwill. Apple formally released the iPhone 4 on June 24 and since then the company’s market capitalization has fallen more than $10 billion.
The shares rose to a record high in June ahead of the iPhone 4 release, propelling the company past Microsoft Corp., as the world’s most valuable technology company, but began declining after Apple customers reported problems with the antenna.
As at Thursday, July 15, Apple’s market value was $228.8 billion, down $17 billion from $244.8 billion on June 24 and well below the all time high of $253.88 billion from June 21.
What may prove even more costly to Apple is the goodwill it is losing and may further lose if it continues to ignore customer concerns or talk to its varied audiences in idiotic techno-jargons. At this point, a recall or an offer to give each iPhone 4 buyer the “bumper” could save the company a lot of unnecessary headache.
Apple has built a large following of fans that swear by the company and buy not only its products but also its publicly traded shares. On the other hand, the company also has a legion of consumers that abhors its business policies—such as the exclusive contract with AT&T as the sole seller of iPhones in the United States—and would like nothing but to see it fall flat on its face.
Apple can easily shake off the iPhone 4 problem. However, the controversy has already smeared the company’s carefully cultivated image as the world’s most innovative consumer electronic company. That’s an opening rivals will be keen to exploit.
All these could have been averted, simply by listening to an engineer already on Apple’s payroll.
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daleste
7/16/2010 11:14 AM EDT
A good engineer will keep working on a new product until it is perfect. A great engineer knows when it is good enough to release to the market. It takes even more fortitude to tell your bosses that the product is not good enough to release and needs more work. New products are the life blood of companies and it is very painfull to delay a release, but to release a bad product hurts even more.
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KB3001
7/17/2010 5:31 PM EDT
Correct. I would add that: the risk of getting some aspects of a new product into the market wrong is part of the cost that has to be rigorously estimated. As long as this cost is less than the cost of not putting a new product into the market, companies will more often go ahead with the new product launch than not.
PS. Companies should be very careful with possible faults that might endanger lives.
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pcsalex
7/21/2010 9:38 AM EDT
Well, I am may be outdated, but I am used to culture, where something was sold if it was ready and companies did not waist
time to calculate when is time to release the product, they used the time to develop it,and as we know here in America is no time enough to make ready something the first time.
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betajet
7/16/2010 11:33 AM EDT
"Working on a product until it is perfect" reminds me of the story of the artisan who made beaten copper doors for the Czar of Russia. He would pound away on thick sheets of copper with a hammer, creating beautiful swirling patterns. Someone asked him "how do you know when you're finished?" He answered: "It's never finished. I keep pounding until they take it away from me."
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Relentlessfocus
7/16/2010 4:11 PM EDT
So now that we've heard Apple's point of view:
1) That Steve Jobs didn't get told by an engineer that there was a problem and the engineer in question denies that he ever said such a thing to Steve Jobs (the Bloomberg story was fabricated!)
2) That ALL smartphones have a similar spot where the bars drop dramatically although Apple is the only company which marks that spot with a black line
3) That fewer people have complained about the iPhone 4 than any other iPhone yet released
4) That AT&T only record one more dropped call per hundred calls with the iPhone (which may be down to the limited availability of cases available at this point for the new phone design)
5) That the complaints level to AppleCare is significantly lower than the iPhone 3Gs
Don't you find it a bit embarrassing to have an article which is based on inaccurate information attacking a company for something that didn't happen? Will E.E. Times now apologise for getting this wrong?
I turn to E.E. Times for information because I expect it to take a more responsible view than the gadget and tech blogs. Don't you think you could have waited until after the press conference to hear Apple's side of the story before publishing something based on a report that sites "a person familiar with the situation". I'm disappointed in your editorial judgement on this and perhaps you should explain yourselves?
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bolaji.ojo
7/16/2010 6:44 PM EDT
Look at Apple's track record and you can understand why many people do not want to accept its version of anything as the gospel truth.
Initially, Apple blamed customers for not holding the phones properly. Then it declared the problem was that of perception: the signal bars were not being measured properly, according to the company.
Today, Apple without really admitting much said we are "not perfect." It then proceeded to claim all smartphones, including phones from all its rivals, have signal integrity problems.
Our job as journalists is to explore all available facts and try to get answers to questions from all available sources, including Apple in this case.
Apple hardly ever responds to media inquiries. If we wait until Apple responds, iPhone 8 would be in the shop and the company would most likely still say "no comments."
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kdboyce
7/16/2010 4:25 PM EDT
Any design involving a low power RF signal that allows the antenna to be directly touched by the body will reduce the performance of that antenna. Elementary, Mr. Watson. Now the solution is to provide a rubber bumper around it, or get a refund. Those iPhone 4's in a case are less susceptible but in my opinion the antenna is still too close to the hand.
It reminds of a cell phone design where the audio amplifier was placed right next to the antenna and the maker was complaining that the 217Hz GSM power modulation frequency could be heard. And it must be the fault of the audio amplifier! Did someone fail to mention 217Hz is in the audio band? And pumping RF down the input of a sensitive audio amplifier won't cause a problem? Stop doing stuff that is known to cause problems.
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Etmax
7/21/2010 4:30 AM EDT
I worked for a tech company that planned something and I went on record as saying what they were doing was a mistake. They did it anyway with the end result I'm out of a job and they have gone from 50 people to 5. Don't under estimate the ability of upper level management to ignore the best advice from their lowly staff. Priority level: 1=Marketing, 2=Sales, 3=Management, 4=Engineering
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Rick Merritt
7/16/2010 4:53 PM EDT
Dear Relentless,
We never reported anything but the facts.
Some users were complaining about dropped calls when the phone was held in certain ways. Teardown experts saw a novel antenna design.
Had there not been a flood of reports, Apple never would have had a press conference. As it was I could not even get into it because I was not on a pre-approved list of reporters.
The long and short of it is all across our industry there is a shortage of frank information. We do the best we can in this difficult environment. As Steve Jobs said, "We are not perfect."
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Bob Virkus
7/17/2010 4:46 PM EDT
A flood of reports or just media hype grabbing a chance to score points. It was interesting to hear Jobs attempting to put some quantitative measurement concerning the flood. Reporters should check numbers and ask the basic question "Compared to what?"
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MAR
7/17/2010 2:57 AM EDT
Please Mr. Ojo, we need you. We need you and you've let us down. You are an influential person in a position of responsibility. We need you to report on the news that matters, not to follow the herd of helpless hacks with their breathless headlines repeating unsubstantiated rumors and second hand stories as if they were facts. You have let us down.
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bolaji.ojo
7/17/2010 8:30 AM EDT
Hi Mar, Thanks for the note. I take my job seriously and consider each story carefully before writing. Apple is a major company and the coverage it gets is well deserved but you should also know that EE Times reports on other companies and issues with the same intensity. I look forward to future comments from you.
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goafrit
7/19/2010 6:15 AM EDT
@Mar, I think your comment about this article is not fair. Apple is a company that takes top segments in all the major TV networks when they debut a product. Cable news relentlessly cover them free. It remains the most innovative company on earth from many angles. I think Mr Ojo's article is timely and needful. This is news because I am yet to see a firm that has the followership as Apple. Like it or hate it, it is the leading TECH firm on earth and it makes products that are light years ahead of the competitors.
My concern is that Mr Ojo and others should be investigating the Apple design way. What makes them great. Like the old TQM, Toyota Kaizen, what is Apple? Is it Jobs Perfection? what and tell us?
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bolaji.ojo
7/19/2010 9:13 AM EDT
Goafrit, Your point is well noted. I think it's time we looked at Apple's design process rather than just focus on the outcome. What is Apple really? It's a hard nut to crack but we'll start digging.
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Etmax
7/21/2010 4:18 AM EDT
I have had problems with an 80G iPod too where they have made a fundamental mistake in an audio algorithm, and even after advising them what the problem was they haven't addressed it. They don't really deserve their current reputation and standing in the tech community.
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pcsalex
7/21/2010 9:29 AM EDT
at least now Apple has the opportunity to learn that is not enough if the product looks good, but it shall work good to.
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