By Jon Hood
ConsumerAffairs.com
July 15, 2010
2010 has not been kind to blue-ribbon companies. Toyota's reputation has been nearly wiped out by the unintended acceleration fiasco; BP, once seen as the oil industry's leading green-energy promoter, is responsible for the largest oil spill in U.S. history; and now Apple, almost universally viewed as the world's premier technology company, finds its iPhone4 riddled with such serious reception problems that consumers are being advised to wrap their phones in duct tape.
Hordes of new iPhone4 owners are reporting that the phone drops calls when they place their hand over its antenna, which is exposed in the lower left hand corner of the device. Apple originally suggested buying a bumper case to shield the antenna, but customers were understandably hesitant to shell out any more money than they already had.
Consumer Reports had a less expensive suggestion: cover the affected area with duct tape. How many tech connoisseurs will take the suggestion remains to be seen.
Rubbing it in
The problem has gotten so bad that Apple is now being mocked by Microsoft, the company consumers love to hate.
"It looks like that iPhone4 might be their Vista, and I'm OK with that," Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner said in a speech at a company conference. "That's another mantle [Apple is] welcome to take. I actually read that headline last week and I just sort of had to smile after I did cartwheels, again."
Turner was referring to Microsoft Vista, the widely-panned successor to Windows XP that has since been replaced with Windows 7, which has received much better reviews.
Opening for Microsoft
Bad news for Apple is definitely good news for Microsoft, which is set to release the iPhone-like Windows Phone 7 by the end of the year. On a more visceral level, the company must take at least some pleasure in Apple's misfortune, given that recent Mac ads have portrayed Microsoft as a dour, slightly overweight paper-pusher to Apple's cool, trendy twenty-something.
Indeed, Turner couldn't resist the opportunity to twist the knife a bit further.
"One of the things that I want to make sure you know today is that you're going to be able to use a Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you're holding it to make a phone call," he told the conference crowd.
Apple also runs the risk of pushing Mac devotees into the arms of HTC and Research in Motion, which manufacture the Droid and BlackBerry, respectively. While both companies already sell plenty of phones, the iPhone has long been regarded as the trendiest, most user-friendly of the three major smartphones. But even the most intuitive phone interface can't make up for the duct tape plastered to the side.
