Update 2: No Recall. Apple will give free cases to everyone that buys an iPhone through September 30th - if you already purchased a bumper case they will refund the purchase. More about the meeting on ep 138 early next week.
As the title of this post suggests and conventional wisdom is now indicating an iPhone 4 recall announcement is all but a certainty when Apple has its special media even tomorrow at 10:00 AM PT. However when it comes to conventional wisdom and Apple - history is not on the side of conventional wisdom. Remember the iPod Touch 3rd gen with a camera, or the iPad that was not going to be called an iPad or that said iPad would be on Verizon. Those were all conventional wisdom that Apple did not go along with. And what about the time of the event - 10:00 AM PT when the markets are still open in NY. That timing seems odd - especially for a major recall announcement from a company with regards to its biggest individual product. Why not push the event out a couple of hours until after the markets close. That seems even more obvious than the issues from touching an exposed antenna.
If you are not aware iOS 4.0.1 is officially out for the iPhone 4 and its effect on fixing the Antenna bars dropping issue is negligible at best. I can with a tight death grip get the iPhone 4 to drop 3 bars - however now that the first bar is so much bigger I don't seem to feel as bad. It is however now much harder to get 5 bars on the iPhone 4.
There are some very good posts out there on what to expect tomorrow and one in particular from MG Siegler from Techcrunch is very well done.
But what if Apple throws conventional wisdom out the window and Steve gets up there and shows data on the iPhone 4 having 10 to 15 dB better reception performance than the 3GS when not held with the death grip and only 5 to 10 dB worse performance when held tightly with the death grip. Then Steve offers up a free bumper or gift card for all iPhone 4 owners. And then does the completely unexpected and announces the iPhone 4 will be available in XX days on Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. I just heard from a good friend in the electronic components industry that his good friend told him Fox Con is already building the CDMA versions of the iPhone 4. Yeah I know a friend of a friend - almost sounds like something from Digitimes or BGR. Not that I really think this will happen - just throwing it out there as a possible anti-conventional wisdom possibility.
If you have thoughts on what will happen tomorrow or if you have upgraded to iOS 4.0.1 please share your experience / thoughts below.
Update: Some listener email feedback
Hi Rob,
Just thought I'd share an experience I had this morning while eating
breakfast at a McDonald's in my area. I was sitting with my girlfriend
when I pulled out my iPhone 4 to check the weather. A group of elderly
people were sitting at the table next to us. One of them saw my phone
and asked me if it was "that new apple phone that was going to get
recalled". I said "well it the new apple phone but I'm pretty sure it
isn't going to be recalled". This group then began asking about the
antenna issues that had been in the news and were curious if I had any
problems. I told them that yes the signal does appear to drop but that
rarely results in a dropped call. Another group at a table also
nearby, this time with a group of 30-ish age people then joined the
conversation saying that they ha gotten android phones because of the
reported issue with the iPhone 4.
I guess I hadn't realized just how big of a public perception
problem this antenna thing is. Apple is in some serious trouble if a
group of random people of various ages are all aware of the reported
issues. Anyway, I hope apple can do something to alleviate the
problem.
Regards,
Jason