Apple Issues "Challenge" to Industry, Cases to Customers, Apology Nowhere to be Found

That picture says it all to me. I'm sick of this topic. Apple had their emergency iPhone 4 "Antennagate" conference today, where Stevie started, as usual, with talking about their sales figures. 3 million people have bought this broken product. Wait, sorry, it isn't broken, all phones are.

Apple's solution is 2 fold: Free cases for whoever wants one, or a refund if you just don't want the phone. Well the second part isn't actually something they are doing for you. All AT&T (and Sprint and Verizon) phones have a 30 day buyer's remorse clause to refund the phone and get out of the contract without a fee. The first part is not a bad solution, but like one audience member said during the Q&A, it seems like they are making people choose between form and function. The iPhone 4 is truly a beautiful device, the first iPhone design that I personally like. But the iPhone 4 with a bumper is ugly, and people who like Apple design will probably agree. Oh, and you only have until September 30th, after which time they'll "evaluate" whether or not they need to continue with free cases. In other words, if you're dumb enough to buy one from then on, it's your problem.

As for the design flaw, Apple did a "scientific test" and found that 3 other phones lose coverage when held a certain way. Now, I'm not doubting their tests, they have proof. What I do find is misleading is how far you have to go to try to recreate that signal loss. They showed a picture of a Droid Eris almost completely covered by a hand to lose some signal. During the Q & A session, someone even asked to be shown how the BlackBerry Bold 9700 lost so much signal, since he couldn't get them to drop at all. The response he was given was hardly an answer, merely that it can't be replicated everywhere. So it can only be done where Apple finds it convenient I guess.

Now I didn't expect Apple to come out and say "Sorry", so their data to back up why they weren't going to didn't bother me too much. What does piss me off is the absolute arrogance and delusion required to basically say "Well all phones are like this, so we're issuing a challenge to the industry!".

No. Apple, you are full of shit and we all know it. Never before has a BlackBerry, a Palm, an Android, not even the failure that was Kin had such a glaringly obvious defect. Your antenna design sucks, and there is a reason we stopped putting them on the outside of our phones. In fact, those old bricks were better, because the antenna wasn't right where everyone naturally holds it. No matter how many times you say you care about your customers, anyone with half a brain can tell that you don't think too for any one's intelligence. And the better part of 3 million people unfortunately prove your point.