As Apple prepared to address the iPhone 4 antenna issues today, one thing appeared clear: the company does not plan to recall the popular device, says the NY Times.
One person with direct knowledge of the phone’s design said Thursday that the iPhone 4 exposed a longstanding weakness in the basic communications software inside Apple’s phones and that the reception problems were not caused by an isolated hardware flaw.
Instead, the problems emerged in the complex interaction between specialized communications software and the antenna, said the person, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
Apple is scheduled to announce an iPhone 4 “fix” at 10am Pacific Time today.
“We’re going to send you a free case, said Steve Jobs today. “We can’t make enough bumpers. No way we can make enough in the quarter. So we’re going to source some cases and give you a choice.”
“And if you’re not happy, you can bring the phone back. We’ll give you a full refund within 30 days. No restocking fee. We want to make everyone happy, and if we can’t make you happy we’ll give you a full refund.”
Nokia, Research in Motion, HTC, Samsung and Motorola have all issued statements taking issue with Apple’s claims that all phone manufacturers have antenna problems.
Meanwhile, the Motorola Droid X launched Thursday is already sold out, exceeding Verizon’s demand expectations. The carrier had said that there would be no Droid X shortage, but the initial online stock of the hot Android smartphone is now exhausted, with the next shipping date pushed back to July 23. It features Wi-Fi, HDMI output, 8-megapixel camera with 720p video recording, 1.0 Ghz processor, 8 GB of of internal flash memory and a 16GB on a MicroSD card, and a 4.3″ FWVGA LCD display.
The Samsung Vibrant (right), will launch on July 21st for $199. It’s T-Mobile’s flavor of the Galaxy S, and features Android 2.1, a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, WiFi, and a 4-inch Super AMOLED display.
T-Mobile USA will launch the first HSPA+ smartphone in September, reports Light Reading. The device will be manufactured by HTC and will run on Google’s Android operating system, according to a spokesman at Deutsche Telekom AG, T-Mobile’s parent.
The handset will likely be the world’s first HSPA+ smartphone, and the first smartphone able to handle T-Mobile’s upgraded 3G network with peak downlink network speeds up to 21 Mbit/s.
