Time for PR to earn their salaries
Apple generally has a pretty passive approach to PR, which is understandable given the amount of coverage it gets without having to do anything. But its PR department is having to move up around ten gears as the media furore over the iPhone 4 antenna issues continues to gather momentum.
The latest knife in the back comes from financial news site Bloomberg, which has spoken to a couple of un-named sources. The first claimed Apple's senior antenna engineer voiced concerns about reception problems early in the design cycle. The second reckons a carrier partner voiced similar concerns before the launch last month.
This Bloomberg story came out after Apple began contacting select US media to invite them to a press event this Friday. It's apparently unprecedented for Apple to call such an impromptu press conference and give so little notice, to it's surely impossible that the topic will be anything other than ‘antennagate'.
We have to assume that Jobs himself will be in attendance, and that he's going to come out with something a bit more substantial than "don't hold it that way". The most cost-effective resolution would appear to be to give free ‘bumpers' - which go over the steel band around the phone and apparently prevent the reception issues - to all iPhone 4 owners.
Not only would this be far cheaper than a recall, but it would mean users could keep hold of their phones. But who knows - maybe there are other issues. Either way, this had better be a stellar performance by Apple if it hopes to reverse the PR damage this furore has caused.
UPDATE - 18:00, 15 July 2010 - It looks like even US senators are getting involved.
