Horror Vacui

Spin Cycle

Apple’s Friday iPhone 4 press conference has come and gone and I was not impressed. As a corporate exercise in damage control and spin, I think it was a good show. As an owner of many Apple products and a prospective iPhone 4 buyer, I got the feeling that Apple would rather do anything except admit that their design has a flaw. As annoyed as I was at the idea of buying a $30 bumper to have a fully functioning phone, the notion that I can get one free in exchange for buying into the idea that there’s nothing wrong with the iPhone 4 antenna design is no less insulting.

Apple has presumably spent a bunch of money to put up pages on their website that attempt to get out in front of the iPhone 4’s antenna controversy. They do this in a series of videos juxtaposing the signal attenuation of the iPhone 4 held in the “death grip” pose with other smart phones held in ways that also wrap their enclosed antennas. This whole comparison is a red herring. I don’t think that anyone disputes that phones can be held in such a way as to render their antennas less effective. However, until I see a video of another smartphone that has its entire data stream dropped by the application of a single finger to the side of the phone, there is no comparison.

No number of pictures of their awesome looking secret testing lairs will convince me that this design wasn’t a cool idea with a serious, unforeseen issue.

No Reservations

Despite my successful advance reservation, after two trips to the mall and four hours spent in line, I did not come home with a new iPhone yesterday. For now, I think this is for the best.

When I woke up on Thursday morning, I was excited to head over to the Cambridgeside Galleria to line up for my phone. I arrived just before 7, popped two hours worth of quarters in a parking meter, and expected to be done in time for work. Boy, was that näive. Naturally, the line was enormous and there was no way I could get my phone in time. Still, I waited a while, chatting with folks in line just in case Apple was remarkably efficient.

One topic of conversation was the news from early delivery recipeints about 3G signal problems for the new device when held firmly in the palm. At that time, many videos had already been published, documenting the phenomenon. We laughed and joked about conspiracy theories - how it could be seen as a way to sell lots more protective “bumpers”, or perhaps the bumpers themselves were a last ditch idea to “solve” the design problem. (Maybe it’s a software problem, but it doesn’t feel that way to me.)

By 9:05 I was within sight of the Apple store, but had already refilled the parking meter once, and now was in danger of being late for a meeting at work. I reluctantly left my place in line for the first time that day, and drove through Cambridge to work.

By the end of the day, my primary motivation was still to get back to the store and make good on my reservation. After driving back across Cambridge, parking in the garage this time, (it wasn’t yet open at 7am) I re-entered the main concourse to find (surprise!) another large line. It was smaller this time, but still probably 70 or more people deep. Like before, the problem for me wasn’t the total number of people, but the slow speed with which they were being handled. It afforded me plenty of time to stand around and think.

Mostly I thought about the antenna issue and how it was clear by the number of reports that it was not an isolated problem. I thought about the likelihood of Apple acknowledging and fixing the issue. I thought about why I am willing to pay top dollar for Apple products. I thought that paying $300 for a device with a known problem with its primary function is not rational. And I left the line again.

I very much want an iPhone 4, but I am not willing to rush into the purchase knowing that I can expect problems from the start. The official explanation from Apple is:

Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.

This explanation doesn’t sit well with me at all. In fact, if I had just bought the phone, found the problem and then read this, I would have been very angry indeed. For Apple to boil this down to PICNIC is unacceptable. Furthermore, for Apple to suggest that the consumer should investigate buying some accessories to solve the problem inherent in their product is as obnoxious as the idea that I should pay AT&T money for the privilege of improving their cellular signal in my house. (For what it’s worth, my signal at home is just fine!)

To wrap up, I suppose I am mostly just disappointed. If this was only a software product, I might have gone through with the purchase on the faith that the issues would be worked out in patches going forward. When it comes to consumer tech devices, however, I’ve been burned enough to have some patience punished into me. (I’m looking at you, 3 consecutive red-ringed Xbox 360’s!). I hope Apple will take a good look at the iPhone 4 and produce a fix (in hardware or software) that will let me buy their otherwise amazing device with no reservations.

“FaceTime devices”, you say?

I found Apple’s wording on this slide to be quite interesting.

Does anyone know if the “alphabet soup” of protocols that make up FaceTime specifically require a cell voice line to do their thing? Stated differently, is FaceTime completely (Vo)IP based? If so, is there anything that would prevent the next iPod Touch, or the next iPad from being a “FaceTime device”?

Update: “FaceTime devices”, indeed!

No Other Distribution Authorized Under this Agreement

Wolf Rentzsch also had some thoughts about the recently “revealed” iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. I can’t say I disagree.

rentzsch:

Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement:

7.3 No Other Distribution Authorized Under this Agreement
Except for the distribution of freely available Licensed Applications and the distribution of Applications for use on Registered Devices as set forth in Sections 7.1 and 7.2 above, no other distribution of programs or applications developed using the Apple Software is authorized or permitted hereunder. In the absence of a separate agreement with Apple, You agree not to distribute Your Application to third parties via other distribution methods or to enable or permit others to do so.

Diabolical.

Apple’s developer tools license mandates use of their distribution channel.

Because, you know, Cydia is such a threat to Apple’s business model.

Imagine if gcc’s license required your resulting executables run solely on Linux.

Imagine if Google required hosting your web apps on solely App Engine if you used Closure.

I hope section 7.3 comes back to bite Apple during their Department of Justice investigation.