Apple’s last-minute press conference drew scores of journalists Friday to hear the iPhone maker’s fix for what could go down in company history as “Antennagate.” A rumored recall won’t happen, but the always-confident Apple CEO Steve Jobs did offer a solution to the much-hyped antenna issue: Free bumper cases for every iPhone 4 and a refund on cases already purchased. Consumers who purchase the iPhone 4 through Sept. 30 are eligible for the fix.
Apple is also offering to give consumers a full refund for undamaged iPhone 4s returned — with no restocking fee. Finally, the company issued a software update that fixes the way the signal-meter bars appear and other bugs.
“Apple did what they needed to do. They put one of their best corporate assets on the job — Steve Jobs. He was on vacation in Hawaii earlier this week and he came back for this,” said Michael Gartenberg, a partner at Altimeter Group. “This was a problem that Apple had to deal with way beyond just an open letter from Steve on the web site.”
Jobs Talks Numbers
Jobs opened the press conference with a presentation that highlighted similar reception problems with competing smartphones. He denied a Bloomberg report alleging that Apple knew about the antenna issue before rolling out the iPhone 4 to market, calling the article “a crock.” Jobs also gave journalists an up-close look at Apple’s $100 million test facility complete with 17 anechoic chambers.
According to Apple’s data, people are reporting better reception with the iPhone 4 antenna than ever before. Jobs noted that only one-half of one percent of iPhone 4 users have called AppleCare to complain about the antenna or reception. And iPhone 4 return rates are a mere 1.7 percent — less than a third of iPhone 3GS returns. Finally, the iPhone 4…