Hey guys, it’s Greg with Apple Explained.
And today we’re going to explore the history of antennagate.
Which was probably the first big controversy that the iPhone line ever had.
Now this topic was the third place winner of last week’s voting poll, and if you didn’t
get to vote, make sure you’re subscribed.
That way the voting polls will show up right in your mobile activity feed and you can let
me know which video you’d like to see next.
So if you aren’t familiar with the antennagate debacle, let me give you a quick overview
of what happened back in 2010 that caused quite a bit of backlash in the tech community.
The iPhone 4 had just been released and was seeing record sales numbers, but there was
one problem, and it had to do with its antenna system.
Gizmodo claimed that when the iPhone 4 was gripped a certain way, its signal bars would
drop and effect the phone’s reception.
This became known as the ‘death grip.’
And after this behavior was replicated by a few other tech news outlets, news of the
phenomenon began to spread like wildfire.
Even being covered by the national media online and on television.
Some people even went so far as to say Apple should issue a mass recall of the iPhone 4.
But other journalists just wanted answers as to why the iPhone was experiencing what
appeared to be a fatal hardware flaw.
Because how can a user rely on their phone to make calls if there’s a risk of reception
dropping at any time?
This eventually led to Apple holding a press briefing where Steve Jobs acknowledged the
issue, but didn’t handle things the way most people expected.
Now that you have an idea of what we’ll be covering, let’s get into the details
of this story beginning with the launch of the iPhone 4 in 2010.
One thing you have to understand about the iPhone 4 was that, at that time, it was the
most anticipated and hyped iPhone launch ever.
Because if you think about it, Apple had only released three iPhone models up to that point,
the original iPhone in 2007, iPhone 3G in 2008, and iPhone 3GS in 2009, and the new
iPhone 4 was expected to receive a huge design overhaul and feature set that would blow everyone
away.
Now I should mention that part of the reason why we knew the iPhone 4 would have a major
redesign was because an iPhone 4 prototype was accidentally left behind at a bar by an
Apple engineer, and eventually landed in the hands of Gizmodo.
And if you want to hear the story behind that, I’ll leave a link in the description to
the video I made about the leaked iPhone 4 a couple months ago.
Now you might think that because we all knew what the iPhone 4 looked like, there wouldn’t
be many surprising moments during its introduction, but that wasn’t the case at all.
In fact, Steve Jobs actually said [clip] and he was right.
From the retina display to the front facing camera, the iPhone 4 featured the biggest
technological advancements since the original model.
Now one of the big changes that was originally touted as an improvement, was the iPhone 4’s
redesigned antenna system, which was integrated into the device’s stainless steel frame.
There were lines in the frame which divided it into two antenna sections, with the left
side serving as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS antenna, and the right section acting
as the antenna for GSM and UMTS connectivity.
But little did Apple know that this design decision would help contribute to one of the
biggest iPhone controversies in history.
Now when the iPhone 4 was finally released to the public, it was met with some of the
longest lines at Apple Stores across the globe.
And this excitement led to Apple selling 1.7 million units in its first three days of availability.
But that wasn’t the only notable thing that happened, because several videos were posted
just days after the iPhone 4’s release that demonstrated its signal bars dropping while
held a certain way.
And many other iPhone 4 users confirmed this behavior on various internet forums.
One of the first journalists to comment on the issue was Walt Mossberg, who worked for
The Wall Street journal at the time.
And he said, “…in some places where the signal was relatively weak, the iPhone 4 showed
no bars, or fewer bars than its predecessor.
Apple says that this is a bug it plans to fix, and that it has to do with the way the
bars are presented, not the actual ability to make a call…
However, on at least six occasions during my tests, the new iPhone was either reporting
“no service” or searching for a network while the old one, held in my other hand,
was showing at least a couple of bars.
Neither Apple nor AT&T could explain this.”
Mossberg went on to say he couldn’t recommend the iPhone 4 for people who already experience
poor AT&T reception.
So there appeared to be a real hardware problem since the iPhone’s cellular connectivity
was effected when its bars dropped.
Although Apple never publicly verified this at that time, instead claiming that the issue
was with the iPhone’s inaccurate signal bar algorithm and not with the antenna system
itself.
But many felt Apple wasn’t telling the whole truth in order to avoid what they considered
the worst case scenario, a recall of the millions of iPhone 4 devices that had been sold since
launch.
Because that process would cost Apple hundreds of millions of dollars and possibly delay
the release of their future iPhone model the following year.
I should also mention that a journalist from Gizmodo emailed Steve Jobs directly, asking
if Apple had any plans to fix the iPhone 4’s reception issue.
And Jobs response caused quite a bit of controversy, since he simply said, “Just avoid holding
it in that way.”
Essentially implying that it was the user’s fault for their iPhone 4’s reception issue
because they were holding it wrong.
And this only fanned the flame of outrage among users who were demanding Apple take
some sort of action on this issue.
But iPhone 4 users weren’t the only people putting pressure on Apple, because the company’s
competitors were using this misstep as a PR opportunity.
Motorola took out a full-page ad in the New York Times saying that the Droid X’s antenna
is the kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere
to make crystal clear calls.
Now Apple eventually published an open letter on July 2nd, which was just eight days after
the iPhone 4 went on sale.
In the letter, Apple explained that gripping almost any phone in certain ways will lower
reception by one or more bars, although the iPhone 4 did lose more bars than normal.
And that led some to accuse the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.
But Apple had received hundreds of emails from satisfied customers who claimed the reception
on the iPhone 4 was better than their previous 3GS, and those claims matched Apple’s own
experience and testing.
So this left Apple wondering what could explain the steeper drop in bars on the iPhone 4.
And their answer was that the algorithm used to calculate how many bars of signal strength
to display was inaccurate.
Causing the iPhone to display about two more bars than it should in most circumstances.
And when the iPhone 4 is gripped, its bars drop more dramatically since the signal strength
was never actually that high to begin with.
So in order to remedy this problem, Apple said they’d adopt the signal strength formula
that AT&T recommended, rather than their own proprietary algorithm.
Now at this point, many people weren’t sure what to believe.
Was the antenna problem 100% software-based?
Or was something wrong with the iPhone 4’s hardware?
So customers began looking to third parties in order to prove or disprove Apple’s claims.
On one hand, Spencer Webb, the president of AntennaSys, claimed that the iPhone 4 was
not any more sensitive to hand position than was the first-generation iPhone or many other
phones on the market.
But an analysis by Consumer Reports contradicted Webb.
Since they tested three iPhone 4 devices in their radio frequency isolation room and found
significant reception problems when holding the phone over its lower-left corner, especially
when the signal was weak to begin with.
And as a result, Consumer Reports did not recommend buying an iPhone 4, advising instead
to stick with the iPhone 3GS or look to other brands.
Now as you can imagine, Apple didn’t appreciate what Consumer Reports had to say about the
situation, so the company scheduled a last-minute press briefing just two days later on July
16th, 2010.
And immediately after the event was announced, speculation about what Apple might do to solve
the problem began to circulate.
With most of the predictions centering around a recall of the iPhone 4 and perhaps a new
iPhone with a special coating to remedy the death grip.
But what actually happened on July 16th would shock almost everyone in the tech community.
Because when Steve Jobs took the stage at the press briefing, he framed the antennagate
issue in a way no one was expecting.
Now I encourage you to watch the entire video of this presentation if you haven’t already
because I think it’s a masterclass in rhetoric that’ll be studied by politicians and other
executives for decades.
Essentially, Jobs began the briefing by asserting that the death grip was a problem with many
smartphones, not just the iPhone 4.
And this was proven with video demonstrations provided by Apple.
Jobs also claimed that just .55% of total iPhone 4 owners called in to AppleCare complaining
about antenna or reception issues.
Which appeared to be a much smaller percentage than reports suggested.
Return rates of the iPhone 4 were also significantly less than its predecessor, with a 1.7% rate
of return.
A big improvement over the iPhone 3GS’ 6%.
Now Apple did admit that the iPhone 4 had experienced more dropped calls than the iPhone
3GS, but Jobs gave the audience his theory as to why that was.
He said it’s probably because only 20% of iPhone 4 customers left the store with a case,
down from 80% with the iPhone 3GS.
And this was likely due to the iPhone 4 featuring a completely new design, so there weren’t
many cases available for the device at launch.
And in Jobs opinion, if more customers had purchased cases, there would have been less
dropped calls.
And this theory led to Apple’s solution to the antennagate problem.
They would offer iPhone 4 customers free cases until September 30th of that year.
Which would prevent users from gripping the phone’s antenna directly and therefore alleviate
any reception issues.
Now some people felt Apple didn’t go far enough in fixing the problem they created,
while others thought Apple did more than they had to, since the updated signal bar algorithm
already appeared to help substantially.
Now antennagate may have been the iPhone’s first encounter with industry backlash, but
it certainly wasn’t the last.
With bendgate and touch disease following not too long after.
And who knows what other scandals the iPhone might experience going forward, the only thing
we do know, is that at some point another will surely come.
So that is the history of antennagate, and if you want to vote for the next video topic,
don’t forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.