There was so much spin being created by Steve Jobs at Apple’s emergency press conference in California that we almost felt the wind from here.
At the conference, the Apple head honcho started off by telling everyone how wonderful the iPhone 4 is and how everyone loves it/it’s been the most successful launch etc etc before going on to show that phones made by lesser mortals apparently suffered the same problem too,
He then illustrated the point with bar-dropping examples from Samsung Omnia, HTC Droid Eris and Blackberry Bold.
Next up, attendees were treated to Apple’s appliance of science in the shape of their 17, state of the art anechoic chambers, which set them back $100m.
Jobs then wanted to tell everyone that barely a soul on the planet has been returning their iPhones, saying that their latest smartphone only had a 1.7% return rate – less than a third of the 3GS returns.
Admitting that the iPhone 4 drops less than one additional call per 100 than the 3GS, Jobs continued:
Now when we look at this data, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that there is a problem, but that problem is affecting a very small number of users. I get emails saying the phone works perfectly, and they can’t understand what this is all about. So we think it’s affecting a small batch, but it has to do with inherent problems in smartphones. But we want all of our users to be happy
Free cases for all
To reach that state of universal happiness, Jobs has promised a free case for every iPhone 4 buyer, with refunds for anyone who’s already bought one.
Finishing off, he ‘fessed up to ongoing problems with the proximity sensor (“we’re working on it” and continued:
“And if you’re not happy, you can bring the phone back. We’ll give you a full refund within 30 days. No restocking fee. We want to make everyone happy, and if we can’t make you happy we’ll give you a full refund.”
One thing: did he actually say “sorry” at any point?
And finally…
Sickbag please!
[Engadget]
