Not to beat a dead horse, but as many of you are aware tomorrow Apple will be holding a press conference about the iPhone 4 at their Cupertino campus. Nobody knows what will be said, but I think it is pretty given that
What I do want to say is that short of a recall or handing out something for free (i.e. gift cards or bumper cases) I doubt that anything that happens will be all that earth shattering. People who are upset by the iPhone antenna are not going to be satisfied by anything that is said, and it is not going that change anything that is going on today. That is unless there is a recall or something along those lines.
In a roundabout way I do expect Jobs to dismiss the Bloomberg report that he was warned of such issues. The problem is that executives are warned about things all the time and 99% of the time these things never happen or are stopped before they do. This is the 1% case scenario and it will be really interesting for every PR person to watch how Apple handles this case.
What I am saying is that short of a product recall anything that happens tomorrow will only be done to redirect / shape / focus the discussion around the iPhone 4. The problem for people wanting a recall is that the phone is still selling (and fast) and returns are presumably really low. Given that why would Apple want to change course? They are only concerned with making sure that it keeps selling without having to recall the product.
We should however all be watching to see if Jobs brings an iPhone on to stage with him and if he does, which had he holds it in.
[Updated: 7/15/10 at 1:18 PM]
This is a really interesting bit posted by John Gruber:
I was thinking the same thing yesterday, but I now have a hunch it’s going to be more — maybe a lot more — than just a defense of the iPhone 4 antenna. Sounds crazy, I know, but I think something big, or at least biggish, is going down tomorrow. This is not one of those “hunches” I get where I actually know something and play coy; I could be wrong and the thing could wind up just being 20 minutes of Steve Jobs telling us “not to hold it that way, or buy a case”. I’m betting on my hunch, though, and flying out late tonight.
The fact that Gruber sees fit to fly across the country on short notice is telling. Yes it is his job to do so, but he certainly could have covered it from Philly – obviously given what he said in the above quote he thinks this is more than what I am thinking the press conference is.