DISQUS

Webomatica: Apple 3G iPhone Issues: Finger Pointing

  • jcieplinski · 1 year ago
    Yes, and yet Apple just crushed all of its competition in customer satisfaction, despite all the negative press and obvious nightmares some customers are experiencing. Makes you wonder just how bad it must be to be a Dell owner.

    My MobileMe email hasn't gone out for more than a few minutes throughout this whole transition, and I seldom use the web apps, anyway, so all the MobileMe hoopla hasn't aligned with my experience at all. Push email works very well on my 3G. I'm syncing between three different Macs and my iPhone at this point, and it's all going smoothly. Even Back to My Mac has worked flawlessly for me, and has really started to come in handy between work and the office.

    I had some problems with a renewal on my account that took way longer than it should have to resolve, but they stepped up and fixed it before it got out of hand, so I'm not too peeved.

    3G reception? I wouldn't say mine is terrible, but there are definitely some issues there. Even downtown, where I know 3G is everywhere, because some days I'll get it everywhere, I sometimes get bounced back and forth between 3G and EDGE quite a bit. Or I'll lose service altogether. Again, not a pervasive problem, but definitely happens sometimes. So I look forward to that firmware fix.
  • webomatica · 1 year ago
    Don't get me wrong, overall I'm still a big Apple fanboy. This is just a note that I'd appreciate more transparency from Apple. With the Apple TV, I very nearly went out and bought an Apple Airport or Time Machine, thinking there was something wrong with my router. Luckily I kept the faith, waited, and Apple delivered.

    So in the case of the iPhone reception, I'm holding back trying all sorts of silly troubleshooting stuff in hopes of a fix. It would just save many people some time if we got some news that yes, it is an issue that can be fixed with a firmware update, a fix is coming soon. If we got the word directly from Apple then all the rumor mongering on blogs would be immediately discounted - including this one...
  • Anthony Citrano · 1 year ago
    Jason, couldn't have said it better myself. I think Apple is a great company and has a well-deserved market leadership position that will continue to grow. But as I've said elsewhere, this is obviously a major problem, it obviously affects thousands of their customers, and while I think "transparency" is a bit too much to ask for, timely communication about major issues is not. In fact, from a brand like Apple, it should be expected.
  • Matt from MMA Gym · 1 year ago
    I say vote with your money. I wanted an iPod Touch last year, but at the time they had a high proliferation of screen defects. I didn't buy one. Then the Macbook Air came out, and I still haven't bought one because the cooling is worse than an Xbox 360!

    I think the problem is, we want these new Apple products so badly. When I visit the Apple forums they are full of loyalists who have things on order despite knowing that there are flaws in the current production run of whatever they are buying. This gives Apple the leeway to rush products to the market and use its base of early adopters to beta test whatever they are releasing. You can't really blame Apple if their customers are willing to take the hits.

    I know I won't be buying an iPhone 3G, at least in Canada, where there's a mandatory 3-year contract. I mean seriously, do they expect me to be using the same phone in 2011? Will it even hold a charge?
  • Aibal Psychology · 1 year ago
    The whole 3G reception issue really bothers me. Everyone would like to thing that it's the software at fault, but there's at least a couple rumors saying that it's the hardware, which would explain the rather slow and reluctant response by Apple. I remember when the iPod Touch came to market. Many of them had a terrible viewing angle problem. At first, Apple did what all other consumer product companies do: they denied the problem, even suggesting that it was supposed to be that way! Then, they suggested that they could remedy the issue with tweaking the contrast/brightness settings on the device. Finally, an engineer on some forum explained the issue fully and chalked it up to shoddy QC during the screen cover manufacturing. Apple eventually gave in and offered replacement units (most likely refurbs).

    Don't even get me stared about the iPhone 3G's case cracking phenomenon!