Antennagate Q&A
A 47-minute video of the Q&A session from Apple’s 2010 iPhone 4 “antennagate” press conference has surfaced on YouTube, showing Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and Bob Mansfield answering reporters’ questions.
[…]
Jobs used his prepared presentation to announce free cases for eligible customers and a 30-day return option. Apple later posted video of that presentation, but left out the Q&A, which was documented at the time through written reports and photographs.
The Q&A was on the record (which is the entire point of a Q&A), and was reported widely, but I don’t think there’s ever been video of it. Here’s a report by Jeff Carlson at TidBITS, published the day the event was held, which states, “The video omits a long and interesting Q&A at the end.”
Then, yesterday, video of the Q&A hit YouTube. I don’t know what truck it fell off the back of, why it took 16 years, or how it came into the hands of “Sir Mix-A-Lot Rare Music”, but I’m sure glad it did. There are parts of this Q&A that I remembered, and parts I didn’t. Carlson was exactly right: it was long and it was interesting.
My main takeaway is still that there were two stories here, but most of the media missed one of them, and Apple was happy to focus on the other.
The first story was that holding iPhone 4 in the wrong way would reduce the signal strength. Apple pointed out that other phones had the same problem, to varying degrees, and offered cases as a solution.
The second was that, even with a case, iPhone 4 had worse reception than previous iPhones. I saw this directly myself: testing my iPhone 3GS and my father’s iPhone 4 in some areas that had poor signal, and finding that one worked reliably and the other was completely unusable. Apple examined my father’s iPhone 4 and assured us it wasn’t a lemon, so there was no choice but to return it. AnandTech did some more precise testing and published some graphs that were consistent with what we saw. I think it was the only bad iPhone Apple made.
In the Q&A, the first question was about Jobs’s health. The second was about whether Apple was going to make any changes to the antenna. Jobs responded that the iPhone 4 antenna was better in almost every way than previous designs. But Apple did end up redesigning the antenna with the iPhone 4s, and it worked just fine in my same test areas. It’s possible that the cell towers had changed in the interim, but the 4s worked well for me everywhere that it could be expected to and ended up being one of my favorites.
Sam Henri Gold decided to pick apart the changes between iOS 4.0 and iOS 4.0.1, which changed the number of bars shown in moderate-to-low reception areas[…]
Previously:
- macOS 10.12.2 Removes Battery Time Remaining Estimate
- How to See Your iPhone’s Precise Signal Strength
- Low-Cost iPhone
- AnandTech’s iPhone 4S Review
- Verizon iPhone 4 Antenna
- Apple Removes Antenna Videos
- Tone
- iPhone 4 Antenna Press Conference
- iOS 4.0.1 Signal Bars and Tape Reception Test
- Apple Responds to iPhone 4 Reception Problems
- AnandTech’s iPhone 4 Review
- The iPhone 4 Grip of Death
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"The second was about whether Apple was going to make any changes to the antenna. Jobs responded that the iPhone 4 antenna was better in almost every way than previous designs. But Apple did end up redesigning the antenna with the iPhone 4s, and it worked just fine in my same test areas."
I recall that at the time it was THAT VERY FACT that most infuriated me set opposite to Jobs' indignant attitude in this Q&A. He was VOCIFEROUS that Apple had EARNED THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT from the press… when… come the iPhone 4s it became obvious Apple/Jobs had been lying. If they weren't, there was no reason to have changed the antenna design… but they did. AND the improved design of the 4s was *so* significantly better than what shipped on the 4. (As with Michael, I had an original iPhone, a 3G, a 3GS, a 4, and, eventually, a 4s at my disposal to test with, and it was obvious that the reception of the 4 was provably inferior to the 3GS.) I'm glad Apple didn't do another typical Apple/Jobs thing and double-down on (what should have been) a known inferior design, and keep the 4 antenna with the 4s, but Jobs' cavalier attitude and dismissive behavior towards the (IMO correct) press and disappointed user feedback significantly changed my feelings towards Apple and his personal honesty. I wanted to believe that Jobs had changed, had matured from some of the problematic personality issues that had plagued him in the 1980s (that I had read about). But his seemingly effortless decision to transition from "Reality Distortion Field" to outright 'bullshit', versus just admitting what everyone technically minded knew and had been technically EXHIBITED, was the clincher (to me) that he returned to (or had never actually shed) a ruthlessness and outright dishonesty he'd been known for prior.
I'm convinced the Q&A was part of the livestream as I distinctly remember John Gruber's moment where he asked if the execs had cases on their phones, and they all showed that they didn't. I remember Tim Cook being on stage with Steve too. But I guess this was lost to history until now, with Apple removing it from their archived video that day.
@Tim Yes, the whole Q&A sounded very familiar to me. I’m convinced I must have watched it live even if it wasn’t in the original published video. The detail that I especially remembered was how there was a second journalist who basically repeated an earlier question about what happens after the initial 30(?)-day remedy period.
@Michael Funny thing is that MacRumors article says there was no livestream, so I'm not sure what I'm remembering. Could be a Mandela effect, but I'd guess the Apple archive originally contained the Q&A and removed it within the first day or two. So those of us who were daily consumers of info back then might have seen it, but it was lost after that. I guess it's possible some media outlet(s) streamed it, but that seems less likely.
@Tim Yes, in retrospect it was probably not a livestream. I’d guess we watched on a delay, and they removed it.
