Apple Playing With Fire

On October 30, 2009, I wrote a post about the unreliability of the iPhone....

Someone left me a voice mail at 3:30 yesterday afternoon. It didn't arrive at my iPhone until 7:55 this morning. That's 16 hours and 25 minutes later. I'm really getting tired of this shit....Here's the thing, Steve. I don't need an app that tells me what my fucking sperm count is, or when Jupiter crosses the plane of the ecliptic. I need to get my phone calls and my emails, okay?

Last week, Apple issued an "open letter" to their customers about the problems with the new iPhone. Apparently there are two different problems which seem unrelated to me, but which they have tried to spin as related.

One is that the new antenna on the phone loses effectiveness when the phone is held in a certain way. Second is that the bar indicators are wrong and frequently show too much power. They plan to remedy this with a software patch.

I don't know the first thing about any of this technology, but I do know something about consumer psychology. They better get their story straight and the problems fixed. Here's why:

• There are already too many business people who think of the iPhone as a cute but unreliable toy. 
• There are too many skeptical tech nerds who will poke holes in any Apple PR spin that isn't accurate. 
• There are too many media outlets who have built Apple up and are drooling over the opportunity to tear them down.

My personal experience with the new iPhone has been very positive. It is much faster and seems more reliable than its predecessor.

But one guy's experience is irrelevant compared with the mountain of bad press they're starting to get. And barring a more credible reaction, it will only get worse.

Because of their amazing success, Apple may think they are invincible, but they are not. 

The iPhone is now Apple's most important product.

They better get this problem fixed.