The extent of media frenzy is going crazy at the moment. From Consumer Reports voiced their opinion over the hardware flaw that iPhone 4 certainly has, Apple’s market worth has gone down by several billion dollars, every single media outlet is voicing way louder against Apple and consumers are getting furious at Apple’s stupid explanation or suggestions.
As Apple has just announced an emergency press conference regarding iPhone 4 on Friday with only handful of Media journals on their Invite list, industry pundits are strongly pointing overc
It is obvious that consumers are plain unhappy with Apple at the moment and Apple can’t afford to loose all its priceless credibility earned over decades over this antenna issue so Apple has to address the problem and fix it.
Experts are estimating three possible ‘fixes’ from here…
1. iOS 4.01 Software Update : This is what Apple promised a week back and this software update is most likely to keep everything as it is. Now that iOS 4.01 update has already gone in the hands of developers, it’s more or less confirmed that the software update will prove worthless to the consumers. In our opinion, Apple knows all of this very well and is not holding an emergency conference on Friday for releasing an ineffective software update. They’re onto something serious here !
2. Total Recall: Few media reports are suggesting that total iPhone recall is inevitable and Apple will have to bear billions of dollars of expenses to shield their priceless reputation from getting tarnished anymore. In our opinion, it is the worst that can happen to Apple and Apple is most unlikely to do so as that will call out for primary level manufacturing alternations which is next to impossible. Apple ‘luckily‘ has an alternative solution(look below) to put forward.
3. Free Bumpers: This is by far the most feasible alternative that can save Apple from fast growing consumer & media fury. Bumpers are cheap and they solve the signal attenuation problem. In some vague estimation, Apple will have to bear only $1 per bumper if it decides to give it for free to every iPhone buyer. This would hardly affect Apple as they have tens of billions of cash in the bank already. For Apple, it would be like making $1 lesser profit on every iPhone sale. In our opinion, Apple is lucky enough that consumers are willing to accept this proposed solution of ruining the aesthetics of iPhone 4 by an ugly rubber bumper. And Apple will likely do so to cover their sinful act.
But the most interesting thing on friday announcement is going to be Apple’s admission of the fact that iPhone 4’s antenna design is an engineering defect or just ‘flawed’. Till date, Apple has bluntly refused any allegations or claims that Antenna design is flawed and now Apple will be forced to admit that “they were wrong”.
On the other side, Android’s most successful device till date, touted as “iDon’t Killer” from day one, the ‘Motorola Droid’, is going to drop its bigger(4.3 inch, 8MP) brother, Droid X today itself. And queues in front of Motorola stores have already started to appear.
This would put a huge pressure on Apple as extreme media outrage might convince Apple fanboys to return their iPhone 4 units and future iPhone 4 buyers might actually grab Droid X to play safe than sorry.
We will keep an eye on friday announcement. Stay tuned !