So after the whole lot of dust surrounding the pre-orders, delivery date changes and the long queues to finally pick up the new iPhone 4 settles, we find many owners losing all their fizz within a day of the launch of the phone. This clear air just does not smell right because before the launch day ended, people were reporting problems with their new iPhone.
Look at this picture on the left. We all know that the strip around the phone is a part of the antenna system. Now, while holding the phone in you left hand, the skin of your palm would obviously cover the small seam in this metallic strip(shown in picture above). What happens next? Your shiny new gadget would either show a drop in signal strength and call quality, or as reported in some cases, drop the call altogether. This basically happens because your skin connects the two antennas that the seam was meant to separate. People in UK were given a complementary rubber bumper accessory by Apple, which covers the outer strip. Now that acts as insulation between your skin and the metallic strip and solves this problem. OK. But, even after you cover your flauntable new iPhone in an ugly piece of rubber (we sympathise, totally!), chances are that you might encounter another problem spotted in some of the new phones.
Another much-hyped feature of the new iPhone, the ‘Retina display’ is another young technology that just might have missed some testing sessions before it was thrown in the spotlight, like the ‘revolutionary’ antennas above. ‘Jaudiced’, they call it, as yellow blobs or yellow bands (image on the left) appeared on the screens of many new iPhone 4 customers. Now, a defect in something like a screen is not tolerated by a new owner, especially when people like us might have buried their faces in the screen, to see if they could see the pixels in the much-hyped ‘game-changing Retina display’. Tried to see the beautiful new screen, but saw an ugly yellow blob instead? Not sweet! But however, there are a few reports about the yellow blobs disappearing after a while. A user posting on the AppleInsider forums had a plausible explanation:
“Apple is using a bonding agent called Organofunctional Silane Z-6011 to bond the layers of glass. Apparently, Apple (or more likely Foxconn) is shipping these products so quickly that the evaporation process is not complete. However, after one or two days of use, especially with the screen on, will complete the evaporation process and the yellow “blotches” will disappear. How do I know? I was involved in pitching Z-6011 to Apple.”
Well, we would have expected a statement from Apple before some random user could issue one. These issues and further delay in the availability of the first white iPhone is not really healthy for a company that relies on just one phone. iPhone is a brand, and once tarnished, Apple does not have another phone to fall back upon.
Looking into these problems, we just wonder if announcement of FroYo, and the ominous warnings of Android eating into iPhone’s share hastened the launch of iPhone 4 a little. So, lost test pieces in bars were not really the only woes of the iPhone, were they?