Lack of Cases an Issue, Steve Jobs Suggests

About 80 percent of new iPhones go out of the store with a case," says Steve Jobs, Apple CEO. "Just 20 percent of iPhone 4s left the store with a case." That means many more people were using an iPhone 4 without the case that would prevent the antenna signal strength problem.

iPhone 4 Drops 1 More Call Per 100, AT&T Data Shows

"AT&T has given us call drop information and that shows call drop data and that is proprietary, but the delta from the iPhone 3GS to the iPhone 4 shows that, for every 100 calls made, call drops on the iPhone 4 does drop more calls than the 3GS," says Steve Jobs, Apple CEO. But how many more? "Less than one additional call per 100, compared to the iPhone 3GS."

iPhone 4 Return Rates A Third of iPhone 3GS, Jobs Says

The iPhone 3GS is the best-selling smartphone in history, and return rates were six percent, Jobs said. For the iPhone 4, return rates are 1.7 percent.

Apple: "We're Not Perfect;" Neither is Anybody Else

"We're not perfect," Steve Jobs said at the news conference called to talk about the iPhone 4 antenna problem. "We know that; you know that."

"And phones are not perfect either." Jobs said. Apple started getting reports about the iPhone 4 antenna
problem almost as soon as the device went on sale. But Apple says less than half of one percent of iPhone 4
buyers called to complain about the antenna. He also said the iPhone 4 is the best product Apple ever has
made. "People seem to like it; users seem to love it," he said. After three weeks, it has the highest evaluations
ever."

"We have been working our butts off for the last 22 days" to fix it, he said. "We haven't had our heads in the
sand."

"We want to find out what the real problem is before we start to come up with a real solution," he said. The
data shows that the antenna signal drop-off is not unique to the iPhone 4, but most people haven't looked at this before."

The BlackBerry Bold 9700 also has the same problem the iPhone 4 has. It is identical to the iPhone 4 in that
regard, he says. The HTC Droid Eris also loses bars when gripped. The signal goes down right away but the
algorithm might delay the signal strength indicator to show the new signal strength. The Samsung Omnia II
likewise has the problem, Jobs said.

These problems affect most smartphones in areas of weak signal strength, Jobs said. "This is life in the smartphone world; phones aren't perfect."

Rates of return for the iPhone 4 in fact are lower than for the iPhone 3GS, Jobs said.

Apple to Give Free Cases

"We're not perfect," Steve Jobs said at the news conference called to talk about the iPhone 4 antenna problem. "We know that; you know that."

"And phones are not perfect either." Jobs said. Apple started getting reports about the iPhone 4 antenna
problem almost as soon as the device went on sale. But Apple says less than half of one percent of iPhone 4
buyers called to complain about the antenna. He also said the iPhone 4 is the best product Apple ever has
made. "People seem to like it; users seem to love it," he said. After three weeks, it has the highest evaluations
ever."

"We have been working our butts off for the last 22 days" to fix it, he said. "We haven't had our heads in the
sand."

"We want to find out what the real problem is before we start to come up with a real solution," he said. The
data shows that the antenna signal drop-off is not unique to the iPhone 4, but most people haven't looked at this before."

The BlackBerry Bold 9700 also has the same problem the iPhone 4 has. It is identical to the iPhone 4 in that
regard, he says. The HTC Droid Eris also loses bars when gripped. The signal goes down right away but the
algorithm might delay the signal strength indicator to show the new signal strength. The Samsung Omnia II
likewise has the problem, Jobs said.

These problems affect most smartphones in areas of weak signal strength, Jobs said. "This is life in the smartphone world; phones aren't perfect."

Rates of return for the iPhone 4 in fact are lower than for the iPhone 3GS, Jobs said.

Motorola Droid: 8-Month Product Lifecycle

It says something about the blistering pace of innovation in the mobile handset business that the Motorola Droid has reached the end of its product lifecycle after eight months.

With the Motorola Droid X and HTC Incredible slated to top Verizon’s upper-tier smartphone lineup, the eight-month-old Droid will no longer be sold by Verizon, once current supplies are exhausted.

That's one heck of a short product lifecycle.

Motorola Droid and Devour Get Verizon End of Life Notice

Google Revenue Grows 24% Year Over Year

Google reported revenues of $6.82 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2010, an increase of 24 percent compared to the second quarter of 2009. That performance was described as "below analyst expectations."

Only Google can grow revenues 24 percent, year over year, and despite having given no "guidance," be said to have lagged expectations.

Google Announces Second Quarter 2010 Financial Results - Google Investor Relations

AdMob Chief Talks about Mobile Advertising

Google's AdMob division head talks about mobile advertising.

Why Consumer VoIP Quality, Despite Quality Components, Is Not So Good

Suppliers of IP telephony and consumer VoIP services often go to great lengths to ensure that the user experience is equivalent to the old "public switched telephone network," and yet users almost uniformly have encountered some instances where that level of quality is not experienced.

There are good reasons why, despite the best efforts made by developers of software, hardware and providers of network services often are part of a service chain that frankly does not work as well as the old PSTN. At a practical level, the quality of bandwidth over an unmanaged connection can be an issue, says Phone.com.

Enterprise and business connections are powerfully affected by the quality of the local area network. Consumer experience can be affected by physical placement of routers and analog telephone adapters, just like mobile connections. Simply, the ATA and the home router needs a bit of spatial distance or interference can result.

Also, VoIP still uses the same transmission networks, and those networks are affected by weather. When there are thunderstorms, heavy rain, or wind gusts, static can be generated. This “dirty-weed” static doesn't cause problems for Web surfing, but will affect VoIP.

As with many other problems, a hard reboot (unplug the hardware, wait a minute and plug it in again) will fix the problem.

VoIP, especially consumer versions, often fail to deliver the same quality as the old voice network, though not because of network, hardware or software carelessness. A VoIP connection is unmanaged, where the old voice network is highly managed.

When everything on an unmanaged network is aligned, experience will be great. When there are issues, even good quality component parts, and the best efforts of each supplier within the value chain, will fail to deliver a high-quality experience.

The phrase "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link" conveys the idea. With VoIP, even a chain with individually strong links can occasionally experience issues that degrade quality, though.

Managed connections would alleviate most of the expected issues, but consumers cannot today buy such managed data connections (a broadband connection with service level guarantees). Nor is it clear such a service, end-to-end, is feasible for consumer connections.

Even a managed network connection would not make the end-to-end experience completely managed in every, or even most cases, as no transport or access services provider can always control every single part of the network. And use of third-party applications would obviously be outside the transmission provider's control.

But a small number of things are controllable at the end user level. Sooner or later, just about every consumer VoIP user will find the need to do so.

3 Things You Need to Know Now About Enhancing the Voice Quality of VoIP | Phone.com

Apple Won't Issue a Recall of iPhone 4

Nobody outside the top ranks of Apple knows precisely what the company plans to do July 16 when it addresses the iPhone 4 signal reception issue. The Wall Street Journal reports that a product recall, however, will not be among the options.


Despite the embarassement, the company doesn't need to do that. There is no safety or product defect here, and Apple engineers knew of the potential issues "as early as a year ago," the Wall Street Journal reports.

Perhaps Apple will offer free "bumpers" to buyers, which aside from protecting the phone will fix the signal fade problem. It just isn't the "crisis" that crisis management professionals insist it is.

Apple's brand will survive intact, and people will not stop buying iPhones, period.

Do not Neutralize Search Innovation, Google Argues

Google has responded to growing European Community scrutiny of Google's search algorithms in a Financial Times opinion piece. Google is right, as far as the opinion piece goes.

Algorithms embody rules that decide which information is “best”, and how to measure it, and search competitors ought to be free to sort in different ways.

Clearly defining which of any product or service is best is subjective. "Yet in our view, the notion of 'search neutrality' threatens innovation, competition and, fundamentally, your ability as a user to improve how you find information," Google VP Marissa Meyer says.

Ironically, Google does not take the same view where it comes to other partners in the Internet ecosystem, though. Fighting to retain or gain as much advantage as possible within the ecosystem is normal. The irony is that the "freedom for me, regulation for thee" stance can backfire. EC regulators might decide it is Google that requires regulation, not other participants in the value chain.

In all likelihood, the whole ecosystem would be better off with a "lighter touch" that lets clever developers and entrepreneurs, and the consumer response to new products, sort most of these issues out, most of the time.

FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Do not neutralise the web’s endless search

Stimulus? Really?

Stringing along workers with temporary federal freebies isn’t a sustainable enterprise, and Department of Education adviser Maura Policelli admits as much when she says taking the cash “does involve the possible risk of investing in staff that you may not be able to retain in the 2011-12 school year."

Temporary spending that allows state government to avoid inevitable hard choices a year later is not investment or stimulus, despite the nonsense we keep hearing in certain quarters.

Is it ‘stimulus’ if you hire, then fire a year later? | Face the State

Google Faces More Regulatory Pressure

Google might need regulation, the New York Times seems to suggest.

Google argues that its behavior is kept in check by competitors like Yahoo or Bing. But "a case is building for some sort of oversight of the gatekeeper of the Internet," the Times writes.

In the past few months, Google has come under investigation by antitrust regulators in Europe, for example.

In the United States, Google said it expects antitrust regulators to scrutinize its $700 million purchase of the flight information software firm ITA, with which it plans to enter the online travel search market occupied by Expedia, Orbitz, Bing and others.

Not all software companies are used to such scrutiny by regulators. But Microsoft is. Apple also has come into the spotlight as well, of late. "Freedom for me, regulation for thee" doesn't always work.

Editorial - The Google Algorithm - NYTimes.com

HTC Seems to Be Taking Motorola Android Share

The latest survey of smartphone demand by Changewave Research suggests HTC is taking Android device share from Motorola.

The change seems to have occurred about March 2010.

BlackBerry Satisfaction Plummets, Changewave Finds

Though end user satisfaction with the iPhone has remained fairly constant over the last year, Research in Motion BlackBerry devices seem to have suffered a dramatic decline in satisfaction, dropping from a high of about 55 percent in January 2008 to June 2010, Changewave Research reports.

A reasonable observer would suggest this portends some trouble for RIM, the reception issues with the new iPhone 4 notwithstanding.