'Antennagate' Could Cost Apple $900 Million

[depakid]

Source: Information Week

The iPhone 4's wonky antenna could ultimately cost Apple as much as $900 million if the company is forced to declare a full recall of the product, according to one stock watcher. RBC Capital Markets' Mike Abramsky said Apple, at minimum, may face "a broad repair scenario" with the iPhone 4, and possibly a total recall.

The analyst said the latter scenario could shave $900 million off Apple's bottom line. Providing rubber "bumpers" that mitigate iPhone 4's antenna glitch would cost $45 million, while repairing all iPhone 4s in the field would cost Apple $300 million, Abramsky estimated in a research note....

...iPhone 4 went on sale June 29. Shortly thereafter, reports about the faulty antenna began to emerge. Many iPhone 4 buyers said the signal falters if the device's bottom left corner is covered by the palm of the user's hand—a situation common if it's wielded by lefties. Reports suggest the problem arises because grasping the phone in such a manner covers a particularly sensitive part of the antenna.

Apple has claimed the issue has nothing to do with the antenna, and is in fact a malfunction in the way the IPhone 4, as well as the iPhone 3GS and all other iPhones for that matter, displays signal strength. Consumer Reports, for one, isn't buying it. The venerable product testing outfit said Monday its engineers tested three iPhone 4s, and all exhibited the so-called "grip of death" problem.

Read more: http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=225800117

[dipsydoodle]

1. You don't get this problem

with two cans a piece of string.

[Cronus Protagonist]

4. I don't this problem with my Samsung Jack

And it plays flash and sends and retrieves multimedia messages, not to mention the USB data port and stereo bluetooth... lol

[jberryhill]

Who doesn't use a case of some kind?

This thing mystifies me.

I don't know anyone who doesn't have some sort of case or cover for the phone.

The "repair" is simply a piece of insulating material - i.e. tape - over the gap between the two conductors on that side of the phone.

But this problem will not occur for anyone who normally uses a case anyway.

[tridim]

5. It was sold as a "sleek, elegant and beautiful" device, not a hunk of rubber. nt

[dipsydoodle]

13. You make it sound like a

dildo. :rofl:

[tridim]

21. Well, to be accurate it was Steve Jobs who made it (and everything he sells) sound like a

dildo.

[qanda]

6. I, for one, don't use a case for my phone (not an iphone)

I use a holder when I need to carry the phone around but take it out of the holder when I'm talking on it. I would not want to spend that kind of money on a phone that I needed to duct tape-- that makes absolutely NO sense!!! BTW, why should the onus be on the consumer to find a fix for a product that is obviously flawed?

[mopinko]

8. i ordered one anyway. i always use a bumper.

i found out when you take a phone in under warrantee, they inspect your case for skid marks, looking to get off the hook. so, mine is always in a soft rubber case.
the damn things are slippery, imho, without a case. i also fine this dumb design.

so, i bought one anyway, knowing that if it is a problem, they will have to fix it with something this high profile.
not an apple lover, just an apple user.

[pgodbold]

11. I always use rubber gloves when touching any Apple device so as not to get Apple cooties. nt

[Kelvin Mace]

17. So people have paid hundreds (thousands) of dollars

for a phone they now have to either:

1) Spend more money on, to mitigate, not correct the problem

2) Stick a piece of duct tape on their phone to mitigate, not correct the problem

How about Apple not put out a defective product in the first place?

And yes, the product is defective as DESIGNED. I didn't see Steve Jobs using a case. And certainly no one in any Apple ad uses a case.

Why are we excusing multi-billion dollar corporations for incompetence?

[Skink]

2. It's the floor mats.

[SunnySong]

14. LOL love it.

[tridim]

3. The worst part of this whole thing is that Apple released a product that doesn't work.

And yes, they knew it.

THAT will cost them much more than $900 million.

[Cronus Protagonist]

7. This is not the first time for Apple

Standard modus operandus for them. And if you complain? "You don't do it that way", or "Just hold t right" or "It's our software that was *accidentally* coded to make the phones look like they have better reception than they actually have". lol

[Auggie]

9. It has a defect -- not "it doesn't work."

[tridim]

10. Right, that's what Apple will tell you.

Would you buy a car that died every time you touched the radio buttons? I wouldn't.

This "defect" is associated with the PRIMARY FUNCTION of the device, it's not trivial.

[Kelvin Mace]

19. The purpose of a telephone is to make calls

When it drops or fails to place 1 call out of every four or worse, then the phone effectively doesn't work. Can you imagine if this happened to a land line? Everyone would be screaming bloody murder.

Phones are crucial devices in times of emergency and this "well it works most of time, so that's okay" attitude has got to stop.

Imagine a car that wouldn't start consistently. Or the brakes stopped working.... Hey wait a minute....

[onehandle]

15. Ours work fine. Nice try to imply that they don't 'work.' nt

[avaistheone1]

12. No wonder Steve Jobs has been so snarky in his initial response =

this problem is going to cost Apple big bucks $$$ !

[Blandocyte]

16. If you're not cool enough to hold your phone in the prescribed way

you're not cool enough to own an Apple product. :evilgrin:

[onehandle]

18. Ours work great. I was just streaming high-res Internet radio, then talking to my wife...

...who was using her iPhone 4. We highly recommend them.

Meanwhile a number of other phone including some very expensive Android phones have this 'defect' and yet we don't hear about that. Hmm...

I doubt there will be a recall. And if there is, oh what will the most valuable tech company do with the 45 billion dollars in cash on hand that they have left over?

[Egnever]

20. .