Distortions Aplenty
Chapter: Random
I’ve been taking in all the brouhaha over the latest iPhone. It’s been a very interesting story to follow, to say the least. Many people have reported the antenna attenuation issue, and Apple’s response has been that other companies, like RIM and Nokia, also suffer the same type of problem. (RIM and Nokia have since responded to Job’s comments.)
I don’t have an iPhone 4 (or any iPhone for that matter), so I can’t comment first hand on the issue. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have some fun with it. I’ll leave the debate up to you, dear reader, if you wish to share your thoughts on the latest iPhone news story. Is Apple right? Or is it a “smoke-and-mirrors” move by the Cupertino company? Sound off in the comments below!
-Krishna
These beautiful and intelligent people wrote
Tell me what you think!
Rene
July 18, 2010 at 5:21 amThey should just use tin cans and strings. Proven technology!
Keith C. Smith
July 18, 2010 at 7:24 amI’ve been following this story for awhile, and while I do think it’s a tad overblown I think it’s good for Apple to learn that it’s lonely at the top. Everyone attacks you for the slightest perceived misstep, or miscalculated algorithm. Perhaps they just need to suck it up and realize this might just be a form of Karma biting them in the ass for all those slams against Microsoft.
Jose Gonzalez
July 18, 2010 at 8:28 amHa! Nevermind the iPhone. I’m just loving that fact that you’ve put yourself in a strip with Bob! LOL
Theala Sildorian
July 18, 2010 at 10:22 amI use a lot of Apple products, and I’ve always been happy with them, but I have learned from personal experience Apple prefers to sweep known problems under the rug and hope they go away. It’s worked in the past, which is probably why they thought they could blow off the iPhone 4 problems. Problem is, the iPhone is too publicly well known a device.
I’m using a 3G, which I love, but I’m wishing I hadn’t upgraded to the 4.0 OS. It seems to run very slowly. I’m thinking I’ll reset the OS to the default and stick with the 3.x OS.
Now that I know about the antenna issue, I’ll wait for the hardware fix. I’ve never been an early adopter; I wait for them to fix the bugs first :D
Adam
July 18, 2010 at 11:30 amThe iPhone 4 is not the most successful of launches, but I’m more concerned with the new OS. I upgraded to iOS4 and have had nothing but trouble ever since. It runs slowly and frequently freezes and crashes. The other day I changed a track on the iPod and the whole thing shut down as if I had just turned it off and on. Apple OSs have a reputation for stability. I’d rather have Vista running than iOS4.
Oh and loosing all my music and videos just as I go on holiday for a week? That 5 hour train ride alone was just barrels of fun with absolutely nothing to do.
Majere
July 18, 2010 at 8:14 pmAll I know is, I’ve tried holding my little non-smart INQ-1 phone in every conceivable way, shaken it about, breathed on it and cupped my hands around it so every inch of the device that wasn’t screen was touching flesh, and I wasn’t able to make it lose so much as a bar in signal strength. I suppose such a versatile device as the iPhone can’t be expected to excel at everything, but making calls is a pretty fundamental thing to be bad at :)
Aaron
July 19, 2010 at 11:55 amcell phones dont use p2p.
Krishna
July 19, 2010 at 12:06 pmTrue, but there was no reference to that in the strip. (Or maybe I’m missing something?)
roger
July 19, 2010 at 11:31 pmThe surprise of the last frame is that the characters are right next to each other in 3-space. One interpretation is that the signal is bad, ironically when the phones are so close together. That would be funny if phones did p2p, but in reality they are more likely to reduce the signal because of rf interference.
Jim
July 19, 2010 at 6:12 pmI have very much experienced the signal fall off. I was at an event near the Space Needle — in the heart of Seattle, a pretty well wired city. And over the course of an hour I had several text messages fail to send while I was holding the phone. If I started the send and set the phone down, it would succeed, but fail when I held it. (This was 3 days after the phone came out.)
I don’t use the phone part of the iPhone enough to have encountered an dropped calls, and all reports I’ve read indicate that call retention is actually better. My suspicion is that call retention is *not* badly affected by the problem, but all the stories claim that it is, and that’s part of what has Apple’s knickers twisted, because there maybe really isn’t much of a problem there, where the stories target. My experience says that web browsing and other data behaviors are where the problem actually is.
Gil
July 21, 2010 at 9:46 amHoly guacamole, Bob and Krishna together in one strip!