Techno Musings

If you have not watched the press conference hosted by Apple then I suggest that you take a gander.  (You can also see several videos on other smart phones including Apple’s 3GS.  Finally there is a video on Apple’s antenna testing facilities.) In my opinion Steve comes off as honest and credible.  His presentation, demeanor and tone also show that Apple is indeed listening and trying to do the right thing by their users.  Within the discussion Steve many times cites data as the key driver for the conclusions that Apple has arrived at.  This is a very powerful statement and the presentation, I’m sure, is a summary of a lot of information and data that Apple has amassed to make the product and the experience better.  Until there are real product improvements (iPhone 4.5 anyone) Apple will provide several ways to make users satisfied including:

• Returning the phone for a full refund without re-stocking fees or generally without question within a 30 day window
• Free bumpers and for those who have already purchased them a refund.  There are a couple of additional statements that I would like to reference:
  • Production cannot ramp overnight so Apple is also selecting cases which it will give away for free from 3rd parties
  • The time limit on the current program is the end of September of this year, at which time Apple may extend the program, deploy a new one, or think of something else

I want to provide my perspective about the press conference addressing some of the would be and continued critics. Firstly, Steve’s approach to being data driven is key. For reporters, reviewers, or bloggers I believe that all should now understand that the bars have been raised — pun intended — with more rigor required to pass muster.  However, what it does not mean is that as a bonafide user you should not call Apple or AT&T if you are having real problems.  Both companies are sensitive to this and other issues and will try to do the right thing by you.  (I have personal experiences with Apple where they have done the right thing, time and again.) What I’m trying to say is that throwing something on a web page to generate a sensational response has now, well just gotten harder to do without published facts and data that support a proposed hypothesis, at least around antenna-gate.  (This is one of the reasons why I’m not talking about the iPhone4 issues directly.  Further since I don’t yet have one I cannot even represent a user’s perspective.)

During one portion of the presentation Steve pointed to the smart phone industry at large having a problem with antennas. He used videos to illustrate his point, and these videos, I imagine, summarize and are illustrative of Apple’s detailed competitive research and analysis. Steve also stated that Apple is up to the task to make things better, and I can guess that if they figure out a solution they may share the results — FaceTime and Webkit are strong examples of Apple’s intent to share.  Further these videos seem to show that the problem is present on a variety of manufacturers, on a variety of phones, on a variety of OSes. Basically that this means is that it is industry wide and not localized to Apple.  Almost immediately after the Apple press announcement there were responses from both Nokia and RIM.  I will not comment on the validity or certainty of their responses, but I will say that their responses are not as extensive as Apple’s is.  Apple’s response lets the lay person understand that Apple does test, does care, does well engineer their products, etc.  (Just for grins I went onto both RIM’s and Nokia’s web sites to see if there was a single location to track issues surrounding their antennas.  Well I could not easily find anything like what Apple has presented.  However, if a reader can supply me a URL I’m happy to update the post accordingly.)

In closing I want to talk about the cultural response to Apple’s news conference.  Being in Japan I noticed from watching the news that many people here still may not be satisfied with Apple’s response.  They viewed Steve as not really apologizing for the apparent mistake that Apple has made.  Further I think that there could even be some negative feelings about his statement regarding the iPhone and Apple not being perfect.  While I cannot divine the response that the Japanese consumer will take, I will make yet another observation, but for those who are Japanese and read my blog.  More specifically, earlier this year there was a similar scale problem that faced Toyota.  I think that at that time the impression from many Japanese people of the American consumers and government was that they were attacking Toyota and therefore Japan.  I blogged in this post it was not true.  However, I will ask a few questions to close the post out, and my intention is for everyone to think about these questions and come up with your own answers.

• Now that Apple has done what they have done, what would have happened if the president of Toyota had come out earlier and held a press conference, similar to Apple’s?  Would the Toyota issue have ended up having been brought before the US congress?
• If Apple had made more of a focus on culturally specific responses how might they have been perceived in Japan differently?
• With globalization increasingly being a larger focus of every company in the world what is the right way to respond on issues like this?