Summary
For years, Apple has smartly positioned itself as the "smarter and more reliable" platform manufacturer for PC and consumer electronics. We have all come to understand that by giving up certain freedoms and options, dealing with an operating system from Apple meant a more reliable, and more secure endgame. Now with the buggy release of the new 3.1 IPhone upgrade, Apple is showing us it is even less responsive than their competitor when it comes to admitting a mistake and delivering a fix.
Analysis
I bought my IPhone the first year they came out... gotta love that interface, right? And by teaming with AT&T I was sure that both support and bandwidth would not be a problem, because Apple won't tolerate anything mediocre associated with their products - right?
. For the past two years I was right - but now there is a problem, and it isn't AT&T delivering it to us... it is uber-reliable Apple. To make matters far worse, I have found that Apple seems quite unconcerned about my phone's new found need to freeze up one or twice a day, making a hard reboot the only solution. In all fairness, my phone still delivers clear voice quality, and a freeze has never happened during a call, but after a call is completed and I return to my beloved "slide and glide" interface for a quick game of "four in a row", or to add a new contact to my database, the buttons neither slide, nor glide. They just stare back at me. Shaking the orientation doesn't help - cleaning the screen doesn't help, and even waiting a few moments or moving to a better reception area doesn't help... nor does a call to Apple.
When I recently went into a local Apple Store, I was told by the front line geek that greeted me "it is because your phone is older - you should upgrade to a new 3G"... but to her chagrin, right behind me was a 3G customer saying he had the same problem. So we were escorted over to the "genius bar" and after a brief looks of disdain from the fella behind the counter, he rolled his eyes, leaned forward towards us and said "the official line is 'it is an un-repeatable error that can't be replicated on demand' so therefore, we don't acknowledge it as something to fix'.... but guys, I think your best bet is to roll your O/S back to the previous version if that worked better for you." He showed us both how to do it, and yes - no more coma mode... although when I doc my phone to my PC I now have to constantly deny the automatic request to upgrade back to the hell of 3.1.
More troubling to me however is that it does make me wonder about the strange bedside manner of the "genius" and why he is being told to say one thing, while he encourages us to do something else. What is Apple trying to hide here? O/S 3.1 is BUGGY, plain and simple. Why is Apple trying to maintain their image of "rock solid reliable" when the trade off is in turn promoting the new reputation for now being "dead set hardheaded"? We all make mistakes - but the answer to resolve a known error is to fix the error, not deny it ever occurred... and as the numbers show, the low approval rating of 3.1 is a failure. Apple needs to make sure they correct their problem, not accuse their customers of suddenly becoming problem children.
And Apple, if you are reading in, let me ask one more thing... when the heck will I be able to download my voicemail to my PC, or even forward a voicemail message to another user? "There sure ain't no app for that"... i've looked!
This author consults with leading institutions through GLG
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
