Last month, Richard Gaywood noticed something...

Paul Thurrott, talking before the iPhone 4S announcement:

I have one prediction of my own. And that is that Apple will completely revamp the very much broken external antenna design that it saddled iPhone 4 users with.

John Gruber, commenting on Thurrott’s prediction after the 4S launch:

Good call — the 4S antenna looks totally different.

Jason Snell, reviewing the iPhone 4S for Macworld:

And so, finally, we come to the antennas. Apple says that the antennas on the iPhone 4 have been completely redesigned. The phone constantly assesses the quality of its connection to the cellular network and dynamically switches between two antennas, both embedded in its metallic outer ring.

Later, after recapping the entire “antennagate” (I hate this phrase but that’s what everyone insists on calling it so meh) brouhaha, Snell goes on to say:

Still, you’d figure that the criticism stung Apple enough for the company to make sure it wouldn’t be burned by this particular issue ever again. And you’d be right. The dynamic switching between two different antennas means that there’s no way you will be able to “death grip” the iPhone 4S unless you are trying to literally strangle your phone.

In all my tests, the old iPhone 4 “death grip” had no impact on the speed of cellular downloads on the iPhone 4S, nor did a reverse grip at the top of the phone. Only when I took both hands and performed a “death grip” that covered the entire phone (or at least touched all four corners of the phone simultaneously) did I see any signal attenuation.

Sounds to me like, despite Gruber’s sarcasm, Thurrott was more right that wrong.

— “Antennagate” rumbles ever onwards

I was following the controversy and how Apple and the pundit class (John Gruber mainly) was reacting to it in real time. Remember it was big enough problem that Apple went on a PR offensive, with which John Gruber in particular latched himself on to, where Apple posted numerous videos to argue every phone suffered the same issue, but eliding the complaint that the iPhone suffered it in a greater degree. Remember it was a big enough problem that Steve Jobs actually resorted to special pleading — Apple shouldn't be criticized because it was an old company. And remember Apple conceded that the antenna was flawed and that the signal strength indicator was programmed to give a reading more optimistic than AT&T's guidelines.

Now, I'm interested in how the history of Antennagate is now presented as something sensationalized by a tabloid technology press. Not just by Gruber above, but by the Apple press, generally. See Gene Steinberg argue twice that it was a myth, spread by Consumer Reports. I am debating over whether or not to go back through the real-time reporting on this to see how this story unfolded and evolved to get to the point that today Apple partisans believe that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the iPhone 4.

But here's an interesting aside, Steve Jobs originally thought Antennagate was nothing but a smear campaign launched by competitors. It took Tim Cook explaining to him the nature and magnitude of the problem. This probably explains the tardiness and the tone-deafness of the response by Apple.