Rich Fiscus
16 Jul 2010 13:41
After yesterday's report from Bloomberg saying Apple was aware of the iPhone 4's antenna issues last year, Apple has denied the claim.
A company spokesman told the Wall Street Journal, "We challenge Bloomberg BusinessWeek to produce anything beyond rumors to back this up. It's simply not true."
As with many Apple statements, this one doesn't necessarily mean what it appears to on the surface.
For starters, Apple doesn't allow employees to disclose what goes on inside the company. In particular, they declined any comment on the story when approached by Bloomberg & denied their request for an interview with the antenna engineer who supposedly reported the issue to Apple management.
Apple's claim is disingenuous at best, & perhaps downright dishonest. It would be impossible for Bloomberg, or anyone else for that matter, to prove much of anything that goes on behind the scenes at Apple thanks to their nigh impenetrable wall of non disclosure agreements.
On the other hand, if you believe their denial it really just makes Apple engineers look like a bunch of amateurs. In fact the problem has been reproduced, documented and detailed repeatedly by actual amateurs, so perhaps even that's too generous a description.
Apple's insistence on secrecy from employees, business partners & suppliers practically guarantees nothing they are involved with can be proven conclusively. Contrary to what they seem to be implying though, absence of proof isn't proof of absence.
We've seen in the past how Apple's secrecy can generate excitement for products no one has seen which may not even exist yet - or ever.
But as the continuing saga of the iPhone 4 antenna shows, the philosophy which keeps their perceived successes on the front pages of tech publications and blogs around the world can do the same for their perceived failures.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.