The Occasional Blargh

✪ Translation from MacGruber speak to English. . .

★ July 28th

Smartest piece written yet on Antennagate? This one, by Watts Martin.

"This pieces confirms all of my biases and makes me feel smug about Apple. You sure as hell won't see me link to this or this. Leave Apple alone."

The immature consumer electronics company. . .

White models of Apple’s new iPhone® 4 have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year.

— Apple in a July 23rd press release that is remarkably similar to the one released on June 23rd (as noticed by Wired's Charlie Sorrel)

For all of the protestations by Steve Jobs that Apple's been around for 34 years, Apple is a remarkably immature company and not only because the company retreats into a whiny tantrum when the slightest thing goes wrong. Apple was wholly caught off guard by issues with the antenna and the proximity sensor, and the futuristic manufacturing processes for this phone is defeated by the color white! These are the types of issues that are caught and solved or mitigated before release at most other companies. You rarely hear about these manufacturing challenges from other companies, but it is such a common occurrence with Apple "Never buy the first revision" is a common warning to purchasers. Arguably, there are benefits as Apple will try things no one else will dare, but with that Apple will get burned more often by ideas that looked good in abstract but attenuates in the real world.

Maybe they *are* Religious Bigots

Republican Newt Gingrich — former Speaker of the House who is again threatening to run for President — has officially come out in favor of repealing a part of the First Amendment, and is suggesting Saudi Arabia as the example to follow.

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.

So Newt Gingrich's answer is to lower ourselves to another's level, to betray the spirit of the founding of this nation by people who fled from kingdoms where they could practice any religion but the sanctioned state religion. This is not a double standard, because we hold ourselves to the higher standard. Or we used to.

✪ Sarcastic Confession

Remember, kids, it isn't lying if you tell the truth in a sarcastic tone of voice!

—TVTropes.org

My linking to these videos proves that I’m a hack on Apple’s payroll.

—John Gruber

John Gruber thinks he's making a point by posting videos of other phones suffering signal degradation in his attempt to defend the iPhone, when he is really doing freelance PR for Apple, Inc. Unfortunately, none of those other companies made a huge deal of the brilliant engineering of its antenna system, with its remarkable precision and the advanced technology. The best they've ever shipped. As I wrote, no other company has made claims of its every product as revolutionary. "This is going to change everything, all over again." A defense by saying everybody else is just as bad shatters the mystique of Apple as uniquely gifted. That this is the new Apple script is unwise in the long term. Why should I lust after an iPhone if it is just another phone?

Another check from Apple came in, so I’m posting another video of a competing smartphone that loses its signal when “held wrong”.

—John Gruber

Hopefully those checks clear John. And I hope those checks are damn big for you to exchange your critical thinking skills for such a poor defense.

(Also note the misdirection inherent in the videos where everybody is gripping their phones for dear life to get it to attenuate. The issue is that the iPhone can attenuate at a much lighter touch.)

✪ "A different type of signal attenuation". Say what?

★ July 17th

I don’t think there’s even a question that the iPhone 4, because of its external antenna, is susceptible to a different type of signal attenuation than all phones with internal antennas

Wait, what the hell does this even mean? I mean, you could reasonably assume he meant the phone suffers more severe attenuation on that spot, but sentences later -- after describing a way to make the phone suffer worse signal attenuation -- he writes, "That doesn’t mean the iPhone 4 suffers from more or worse attenuation than other phones."
No. There's only one type of attenuation, which in this case means degradation of signal. If you touch or block the antenna, you degrade the radio signal that comes in and goes out of it. There's no difference to discuss.

The PAC [and Party] of Religious Bigots. . .

Jim Newell of Gawker did the dirty work so I don't have to pollute my blargh and video list with this commercial, but it has to be seen to be believed. The National Republican Trust PAC is not run by the Republican Party, but by NewsMax magazine -- one of the most right-wing commentary sites on the Internet.

No matter.

They are trading under their name, and has been with outrageous ads like this since 2008. The Republican Party needs to come out and condemn this group and demand they stop advertising under that name. Otherwise, I can only assume the Republican Party has no problem with religious bigotry in their name, which makes them accessories to it.

✪ It's a shame how Apple mismarketed the iPad Mini. . .

★ July 13th

A bunch of people are giving me shit on Twitter for saying this is “nutty”. What’s the sentiment behind that, though? That the iPhone 4 antenna issue is so profound, that the problems are so severe, that the iPhone 4 is a bad product (or at least a bad phone) and people shouldn’t buy it?

Well, yes John. It is a bad phone if it is worse at making calls. There are many reasons people may love an inferior product. Even to the point of self-deception. But yeah, it's a shame that how Apple mismarketed the iPad Mini by hyping the magical 3G telephone antenna that turns out to have an embarassing Achilles' Heel.

 

✪ Daring Correction, July 12. . .

★ July 2nd

Consumer Reports: ‘iPhone 4’s Supposed Signal Woes Aren’t Unique, and May Not Be Serious’ 

Who am I supposed to believe, the sensationalist hacks at Consumer Reports, or the straight-shooters at Gizmodo?

★ July 10th

Consumer Reports Won’t Recommend the iPhone 4 Over Reception Issue

Mike Gikas:

It’s official. Consumer Reports’ engineers have just completed testing the iPhone 4, and have confirmed that there is a problem with its reception. When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone’s lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4.

Left unmentioned in the post was this accusation by CR:

Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4's signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that "mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength."

The point of this post is less about Consumer Reports, who are the ones who revised their statement, but more on the increasing unthinking fanboyish tendencies of Gruber on his blog. Who are we to believe, the measured investigative reporting of John Gruber, or the corporate cheerleading of Gizmodo and Consumer Reports.

But, I can go overboard on Gruber-bashing. He's nowhere near as bad as Bill Palmer.

Robert Ringer Didn't Think This Idea Out Fully. . .

I may as well throw in one last amendment that I believe would maximize the integrity of our constitutional system of government: Make all government employees – at the local, state and federal levels – ineligible to vote. If we can do it with incarcerated felons, who are locked up and unable to continue committing crimes, why not do it with bureaucrats, who are on the loose and able to vote to assure that their neighbors will be forced to continue paying for their cushy lives?

—Robert Ringer in an article for World Net Daily.(c/o ConWebWatch)

I wonder if he considered the fact that soldiers are technically employees of the federal government. As are all law enforcement officials for your various local, state and government divisions.

✪ Daring Corrections. . .

★ July 7th

A well-placed little birdie told me over the weekend that they sold a grand total of 503 Kins before they pulled the plug. 503.

★ July 8th

Adam Lein points to the Kin Facebook app’s stats page, which indicates there are 8,800 Kin-using Facebook users. If this is accurate, it means my little birdie was wrong about Microsoft only having sold 503 units. I’m not convinced this Facebook stat is meaningful, though.

What you need to understand here is that where a journalist would has a bullshit detector, John Gruber has a Bias Reinforcement Unit. It's generally tuned to the same resonate frequency as the Cupertino Reality Distortion Field. For example. . .

★ July 2nd

Consumer Reports: ‘iPhone 4’s Supposed Signal Woes Aren’t Unique, and May Not Be Serious’ 

Who am I supposed to believe, the sensationalist hacks at Consumer Reports, or the straight-shooters at Gizmodo?

★ July 5th

Consumer Reports Update on iPhone 4 Reception Issue 

Mike Gikas:

While we’ve been unable to date to create the reported conditions in our National Testing Center in Yonkers, New York, I and a colleague did repeatedly experience loss of signal when using an iPhone 4 a few miles north of there today.

While in my home, I held the iPhone in my left hand, gripping it with normal pressure. My palm covered a gap between parts of the metal band that forms the outer ring of the iPhone and serves as its antenna. As I did so, I moved my pinky finger to the corresponding gap on the other side.

Almost immediately, the signal strength began to drop in the meter from the original three or four bars — depending on my location within the house — to zero bars. The drop took about 5 seconds.

So we seem to be nearing consensus. With strong reception, bridging that antenna gap doesn’t matter much. With weak reception, bridging that gap is enough to lose the signal.