Hardware

Friday’s press conference on the Apple campus in Cupertino was unprecedented in a number of ways. Apple is used to calling the shots, and talking on its own terms and timing. The iPhone 4 antenna situation has been a complete reversal: external pressure has forced Apple to talk sooner, in more detail, and on more occasions than it had probably ever expected or wished to.

For at least a week, “Antennagate” has transcended the existence or prevalence of an actual technical defect. When my father calls me asking what’s wrong with the new iPhone, or Consumer Reports refuses to recommend an otherwise excellent product, or an incumbent up for reelection piles on, Apple has a serious problem. Right or wrong, public perception of this new flagship product has been damaged. It no longer matters if the defects are real.

Enter the press conference, intending to meet all the chatter head on. Did the information Apple provided convince observers that there’s nothing wrong with iPhone 4? Only sales figures will tell. We will of course never know what sales would have been without this conference.

Leading up to the event, most of the media concluded that cases or bumpers would resolve the “death grip” issue and that Apple should give them away for free. Apple did that, additionally offering refunds to those who have already bought Bumpers (regardless of why they bought one), and even third party cases to account for Bumper shortages. Everyone’s eggs were in this basket, so if this does not materially settle the issue, I’m not sure what will.

That said, I found that the presentation’s tone overshadowed its content. The event opened awkwardly with the iPhone Antenna Song, which includes lyrics like “the media loves a failure,” “the facts won’t ever matter,” and “this whole damn thing is stupid.” Members of “the media” who flew across the country on barely any notice to sit in that room and hear Apple out; who were about to be trusted with relaying a message critical to Apple’s reputation; were greeted with sarcastic hostility. Customers who have seen their dropped calls double and triple—statistical minority or not, they exist—were mocked. This is not how you begin a reconciliatory conversation. Perhaps Apple thought the song was a lighthearted way to clear the air before getting on with it. I think they’d have done better by just getting on with it.

It’s also worth noting that, as far as I can tell, this is the first time Gizmodo’s name has been uttered in an Apple presentation or statement since April’s prototype leak. To do so now, and single them out when plenty of other outlets have been piling on, was bizarre to me.

It didn’t stop there. The free Bumper concession was delivered with what I can only describe as contempt. Farhad Manjoo’s headline at Slate embodies the moment perfectly, but you really have to just watch the video.

“A lot of people have told us, ‘The bumper solves the signal-strength problem… Why don’t you just give everybody a case?’ Okay. Great. Let’s give everybody a case.”

The Q&A offered additional insight. This comment from Steve Jobs, reiterated by John Siracusa at Ars Technica after appearing in most of the liveblogs, was eye-opening:

Apple’s been around for 34 years. Haven’t we earned the credibility and trust from some of the press to give us a little bit of the benefit of the doubt, of our motivations, the fact that we’re confident and will solve these problems?

This is a remarkable depiction of Apple’s strained relationship with the press. From start to finish, Friday’s PR offensive assumed that the answer to this question is “yes.” It is, of course, “no.” Whether you are the CEO of the second largest corporation in the U.S. or a general in the U.S. military, it should be no surprise when the press reports what it sees and hears. If a media outlet reports garbage, then all things being equal, its reputation should pay a price. If it has information that it believes to be both material and credible to a relevant topic, it is not obligated to sugarcoat that information, but to report it.

Antennagate is news exactly because Apple has hit so many home runs—and, by the way, received countless glowing headlines to match. Apple should be nervous when this sort of thing isn’t news: it would mean nobody cares anymore.

John Martellaro at The Mac Observer concludes:

The net result of this is that Apple has learned a lot about being a consumer electronics giant. Their public relations people can’t stonewall. The company can’t both claim that their product is superior to all others, a perfect object that’s droolworthy, and then later admit that it has the same reception problems as all other smartphones.

It’s lonely at the top. Perhaps Apple is taking it on the chin more than usual. Such is the price of success.

I remain very happy with my iPhone 4. I still believe it’s the best iPhone ever, by far. I believe the Bumper offering is an appropriate gesture, and I believe Apple will still sell a ton of phones.

I also believe humility is an essential part of customer service. If Friday’s message was for consumers, a concise open letter like the ones we’ve seen on Flash, DRM, the iPhone price drop (speaking of overblown), and the MobileMe rollout, with links to the new antenna and testing sites, would have been just fine. Instead, it was a drawn out, mixed bag that pointed fingers while neither accepting nor denying fault. It was uncharacteristic of a company that communicates as well as Apple.

If you were wondering why Nokia was missing from the Wild West list, wonder no more. By now everyone has seen the X5, announced this week at Nokia Connection 2010. It appears to not be a joke. Daring Fireball, Boing Boing, even the WSJ have already weighed in.

The problem here goes beyond the product itself. The X5 is clearly a low-to-midrange model that complements the much more interesting N8, and Nokia has always been a volume player. What’s truly remarkable is the communication: why make such a confused, tainted announcement at your own event? Here are a few things everybody should be talking about in the wake of Connection 2010, taken from Nokia’s own N8 site:

• HD video recording
• Symbian^3
• Facebook integration
• Live, customizable home screen features
• HDMI output

Instead, we’re talking about a pink parts bin offering. Keep in mind the N8 is still not in the hands of consumers. It has enjoyed zero real hours of flagship status, and is already losing airtime to a lesser product.

Given the competition of late, it’s hard to believe the X5 is receiving any kind of spotlight. Nokia should be pushing the N8 nonstop — until it ships, and for at least a few months beyond that. Go ahead and release the X5 quietly at any point afterwards. Nokia needs to highlight compelling products, not cheap ones. They’re already on the ropes in terms of mindshare; market share and revenue may not be far behind.

Related: The Ovi Maps service is billed as “For free. Forever,” where “forever” actually means “as long as Ovi and/or Nokia survive.”

The most interesting revelation from Tuesday’s D8 talk with Steve Jobs was that Apple started with the iPad, and shelved it to build the iPhone first. Many people suspected this was the case, but it was surprising to hear Jobs personally confirm it.

It’s tempting to wonder how differently things would have gone if the iPad did in fact come first. Whether by chance or by design, it seems quite clear that the order in which things ended up happening was the right one.

Many already believe that iPad will end up having a greater impact than iPhone has had, as it aims to redefine personal computing for the first time in more than two decades. But without the introduction and success of iPhone to pave the way, iPad may well have been too disruptive on its own to be anything close to a hit.

Apple’s success is largely rooted in the way it embraces familiarity, even with “revolutionary” products like iPad and iPhone. Remember how iPhone was positioned when announced in 2007:

• An iPod
• A phone
• An “internet communicator”

Everyone knew and understood the first two. iPod was already a hit. Many people hated their phones and were waiting for someone like Apple to reinvent the experience. These traits were not only familiar, but anticipated.

The third—internet communicator—was much more foreign, and drew a lukewarm response compared to the other two as they were announced. But we know now that that third, unfamiliar trait is the one that has defined iPhone as a product and a platform. “iPod” and “Phone” are now but two icons among hundreds of thousands.

This is what Apple does so well: it brings you aboard with something familiar or intuitive, and then takes you someplace you wouldn’t have gone otherwise. It is also what Apple’s competitors and detractors never seem to understand. With every product launch, naysayers inevitably turn to a PowerPoint slide and note that company X’s product overview has more bullets. It’s not about the bullets. It’s about people wanting to use the product. Tapping into that is very, very hard—especially when refusing to acknowledge its importance. How they can continue to ignore it as Apple’s sales and market cap soar is a mystery.

iPad is neither an iPod nor a phone. It’s positioned as something entirely new between a laptop and a smartphone. iPhone gave users a much softer transition to this new interaction model, and built a tremendously successful platform off of it. People immediately understood iPad as a result. Without that transition, it risked being completely misunderstood: a new platform, form factor and interface that intentionally does less than a PC and has no third party apps. Not only would this have been a harder sell, but any lackluster reception would have completely tarnished an iPhone introduction later. We could be living in a much different world today.

Decisions like these also explain why Apple doesn’t talk. It not only has the stones to shelve a project like iPad, it has the patience to keep quiet until the goods are real—so that whenever it does come out, it’s special rather than just late. Imagine a company blabbing about a new computing platform and floating contrived After Effects demos to the press, only to cancel it and instead release something entirely different much later. Actually… there’s no need to imagine.

Whatever thinking went into the decision, iPad is unquestionably a stronger product thanks to those few years on the shelf.