Dear Mr. Jobs,
I write to express concern regarding the reception problem with the Apple iPhone 4. While I commend Apple’s innovative approach to mobile technology and appreciate its service to millions of iPhone users nationwide, I believe it is incumbent upon Apple to address this flaw in a transparent manner. According to Consumer Reports’ review, released Monday on its website, the iPhone 4′s signal-strength problem is a hardwire glitch triggered by gripping the device in a particular manner. This finding, according to Consumer Reports, “call[s] into question” Apple’s recent claim that the problem is “largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software.” Consumer Reports declined to recommend the iPhone 4 because of this hardware design flaw.
osmoothie
You need to know
Sen. Schumer writes letter to Steve Jobs, calls for “transparency”
iPhone 4 antenna issues hit MSM, Apple to hold press conference tomorrow
Apple Inc. said Wednesday that it will hold a news conference Friday concerning its iPhone 4, which is facing mounting criticism over reception problems tied to antenna design.
An Apple spokesman declined to give further details, including whether the conference will address reported reception problems or Apple’s response to those problems. Apple plans to hold the conference at its headquarters, the spokesman said.
Apple watchers speculated that the company will offer a solution. “Given the intense pressure and scrutiny Apple has come under on the problem with the iPhone 4,It’s going to be about some kind of fix or compensation for the owners of the phone,” speculated Ed Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research.
The Cupertino, Calif., company launched the phone last month to great fanfare as it boasted of a design that put the antenna in a stainless steel band around the phone’s frame.
But even as the phone has continued to sell well at stores, it has been plagued with user complaints about dropped calls when the phone is held in a way that covers part of the antenna.
Enter iPad
Bloomberg, “Apple IPad a ‘Winner,’ ‘Game Changer,’ Reviewers Say”
by Kevin Cho
Apple Inc.’s iPad touch-screen tablet is a winning product that threatens to replace laptops as the dominant format for personal computers, reviewers said.
The iPad, which will begin selling this weekend, is “wicked fast” and has a battery life that’s longer than Apple’s claim of 10 hours, Walt Mossberg, technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, wrote in a review yesterday. It can be used as a replacement for a laptop for most data communication and content consumption, he wrote.
“The iPad is an advance in making more-sophisticated computing possible via a simple touch interface on a slender, light device,” Mossberg wrote. The tablet “has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop.”
Bloomberg article continues here.
Steve Jobs to assist with book on his life
The New York Times, “Jobs Is Said to Assist With Book on His Life”
by Brad Stone
A handful of presumptive biographers have, over the years, tried to tell the remarkable story of Steven P. Jobs: the youthful visionary who, after being ousted from Apple, the company he helped to found, triumphantly returned to lead a new era of high-tech innovation.
But those efforts lacked one important ingredient: cooperation from Mr. Jobs himself.
Now Apple’s chief executive is set to collaborate on an authorized biography, to be written by Walter Isaacson, the former managing editor of Time magazine, according to two people briefed on the project.
The book, which is in the early planning stages, would cover the entire life of Mr. Jobs, from his youth in the area now known as Silicon Valley through his years at Apple, these people said.
The New York Times article continues here.
Steve Jobs vents on Google and Adobe
Wired, “Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy: Apple’s Steve Jobs”
by John C. Abell
After a big public announcement of the sort Apple had this week for the iPad CEO Steve Jobs often takes time in the day or two afterwards to have a Town Hall at One Infinite Loop, making himself available for questions from employees bold enough to stand up and take one right between the eyes.
This time, the big topics included Google and Adobe — no surprises there. Google recently unveiled its own Android-powered handset, the Nexus One, whose release Jan. 5 prompted Jobs to perhaps over-react by announcing on the same day that the iTunes store had served up three billion apps and that “… we see no signs of the competition catching up any time soon.” Apple’s billionth iPhone app download was greeted with great fanfare, but the two billionth not so much, so it felt a tad like Jobs was feeling some heat.
And the absence of Adobe Flash support on the iPhone for three years and counting, and now on the iPad, is either celebrated by users as a poke in the eye of one of the web’s most dextrous tools, or the most over-rated and overused crutch for decent design.
Wired article continues here.