Steve Jobs held a press conference to discuss the issues with dropped calls on the iPhone and to announce that every customer will get a free bumper case for their iPhone 4 (which should solve the dropped calls issue).
While I think the actions Apple took in this situation were appropriate - if the free case doesn't fix the problem they will also offer a full refund to any iPhone 4 users who want one - I wasn't impressed with how Jobs delivered the news.
You get the feeling that he's really annoyed with the media for (according to him) blowing this antenna issue out of proportion.
I'm not really sure why he called this press conference other to send the message to the media that they are over reacting. Which is a fairly pointless thing to do as the media aren't going to stop covering this issue just because Jobs tells them they should.
The only reason to hold a press conference on this issue is to 1) apologize for any inconvenience Apple users have had as a result of this issue and 2) identify steps being taken to fix the issue and 3) suggest a possible timeline associated with the fix.
Jobs did none of these things. He didn't apologize - in fact he did the opposite, arguing that all smartphones have this issue (which lead to Motorola and RIM each coming out with a public statement arguing that is not true). He didn't articulate that they knew what was causing the problem and he didn't suggest when a fix would be produced (perhaps the bumper case is the fix).
Instead he spent his time positioning how great Apple is, how hard Apple works and how great Apple treats its customers. And while all these things may be true, they are things that we already know - they simply aren't relevant. What was relevant was the tone with which Apple approached a media and consumer issue. And what we saw in Jobs were slight tones of hubris - we're the best so get off our backs when we mess up once in a while.
And you know, he's 100 percent right. No company is perfect. But that's not the point.
How would Jobs react if he was on an important call with say Verizon's CEO and his call got dropped? My money says he'd be furious. I doubt his attitude would be 'Oh well, nothing is perfect."
This is part of the problem with being the best in the world, it's hard to be humble and yet, that is exactly what Apple needed to do here. And in their actions - free bumper case and full refund if you want - they were. But in Jobs delivery, they weren't.
For a casual observer watching this on the evening news, the view that Apple is a fun, exciting, energetic tech company focused 100 percent on making their customers happy was probably tarnished a bit. Jobs sounded like just another tech CEO defending flaws in his product, which is not in synch with Apple's brand to date - their entire brand has been based on 'Microsoft gives you products with bugs in them, use Apple instead."
If I were RIM or Google or Motorola I would quickly come up with commercials doing exactly what Apple did to Microsoft, but this time do it against Apple. I could easily see a RIM commercial with two comedians standing there - one a BlackBerry and one an iPhone - with the iPhone guy dropping calls and asking the blackberry guy how he manages to stay connected all the time.
This is a giant opportunity for RIM to re-establish its products as top-tier and position Apple's as second-tier - to position RIM as the expert in voice and Apple as the expert in Applications (but not voice).
While I think the actions Apple took in this situation were appropriate - if the free case doesn't fix the problem they will also offer a full refund to any iPhone 4 users who want one - I wasn't impressed with how Jobs delivered the news.
You get the feeling that he's really annoyed with the media for (according to him) blowing this antenna issue out of proportion.
I'm not really sure why he called this press conference other to send the message to the media that they are over reacting. Which is a fairly pointless thing to do as the media aren't going to stop covering this issue just because Jobs tells them they should.
The only reason to hold a press conference on this issue is to 1) apologize for any inconvenience Apple users have had as a result of this issue and 2) identify steps being taken to fix the issue and 3) suggest a possible timeline associated with the fix.
Jobs did none of these things. He didn't apologize - in fact he did the opposite, arguing that all smartphones have this issue (which lead to Motorola and RIM each coming out with a public statement arguing that is not true). He didn't articulate that they knew what was causing the problem and he didn't suggest when a fix would be produced (perhaps the bumper case is the fix).
Instead he spent his time positioning how great Apple is, how hard Apple works and how great Apple treats its customers. And while all these things may be true, they are things that we already know - they simply aren't relevant. What was relevant was the tone with which Apple approached a media and consumer issue. And what we saw in Jobs were slight tones of hubris - we're the best so get off our backs when we mess up once in a while.
And you know, he's 100 percent right. No company is perfect. But that's not the point.
How would Jobs react if he was on an important call with say Verizon's CEO and his call got dropped? My money says he'd be furious. I doubt his attitude would be 'Oh well, nothing is perfect."
This is part of the problem with being the best in the world, it's hard to be humble and yet, that is exactly what Apple needed to do here. And in their actions - free bumper case and full refund if you want - they were. But in Jobs delivery, they weren't.
For a casual observer watching this on the evening news, the view that Apple is a fun, exciting, energetic tech company focused 100 percent on making their customers happy was probably tarnished a bit. Jobs sounded like just another tech CEO defending flaws in his product, which is not in synch with Apple's brand to date - their entire brand has been based on 'Microsoft gives you products with bugs in them, use Apple instead."
If I were RIM or Google or Motorola I would quickly come up with commercials doing exactly what Apple did to Microsoft, but this time do it against Apple. I could easily see a RIM commercial with two comedians standing there - one a BlackBerry and one an iPhone - with the iPhone guy dropping calls and asking the blackberry guy how he manages to stay connected all the time.
This is a giant opportunity for RIM to re-establish its products as top-tier and position Apple's as second-tier - to position RIM as the expert in voice and Apple as the expert in Applications (but not voice).
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