Rich Fiscus
15 Jul 2010 15:31
According to an article from Bloomberg, anonymous sources are claiming Apple was aware of the iPhone 4's antenna design problem months before it went on sale.
One source at Apple, reportedly said senior Apple enginner and antenna expert Ruben Caballero brought the issue to the attention of management as early as last year. Another source indicated that one of Apple's carrier partners raised similar concerns prior to last month's launch.
Apple has declined to make Caballero available for comment on the matter. Hardly surprising considering the company's long established policy of secrecy regarding all internal matters.
Since the iPhone 4's debut there have been numerous complaints about reception problems related to its external antennas. To date they've characterized it as nothing more than a typical issue experienced with all mobile phones despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Every iPhone launch has been followed by a certain number of people complaining of reception issues. But in this case those voices are being joined by more influential sources like Consumer Reports.
Although this doesn't seem to have resulted in any significant impact on iPhone sales, Apple's stock price took a hit after Consumer Reports indicated they could not recommend the iPhone 4 to their readers.
Apple has a press conference scheduled for tomorrow where they may be planning to address the issue.
They previously announced an update which will improve the accuracy of signal strength display, but have continued to insist that there is no design problem.