Apple Live Blog: The iPhone 4 Press Conference

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Well, we know there’s going to be a press conference tomorrow in Cupertino. And we know that PCMag’s news editor Mark Hachman is attending. Beyond that, your guess is as good as ours. But there’s not much doubt that the company will address the “death grip” issue with the iPhone 4. Will they offer rebates? (5 percent of you think so.) Free “bumper” cases? (37 percent of our readers believe that will happen.) Will a recall be announced? (Only 7 percent go for that scenario.) Will Apple explain exactly how iOS 4 resolves the bar issue? (Whoa–37 percent think that will happen.) Will Steve Jobs say, “Ur doin it rong!” and demonstrate the proper way to hold the phone? (OK, we didn’t ask that question in our poll.)

Join us for a live blog and find out what it’s all about when we do, tomorrow at 1 PM Eastern time, 10 AM Pacific.

Update: So now we know. Even though Steve thinks there’s really no problem, Apple’s offering free (Apple-only!) bumpers as well as rebates for those who already bought them and full refunds for the iPhone 4, if you don’t want to keep it. Our news story on PCMag.com has all the details.

Check out our full transcript of the press conference after the jump!

Live from Apple’s iPhone 4 press conference

Digg this! The event is set to start at the times below — so get ready!

07:00AM – Hawaii
10:00AM – Pacific
11:00AM – Mountain
12:00PM – Central
01:00PM – Eastern
06:00PM – London
07:00PM – Paris
09:00PM – Moscow
02:00AM – Tokyo (July 17th)

Continue reading Live from Apple’s iPhone 4 press conference

Live from Apple’s iPhone 4 press conference originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple iPhone 4 Meta Live Coverage: Today 10AM PT, 1PM ET (Plus Lotto!) [Iphone 4]

Apple is announcing something about the iPhone 4 in just a few hours. Maybe it’s about the antenna. Maybe it’s about how many bajillion they’ve sold. Our coverage starts live, right now, right here: [Gizmodo Live] More »

Reminder: we’re live from Apple’s iPhone 4 press conference tomorrow, 10AM PT / 1PM ET!

Apple’s been pretty vague about what’s going to go down tomorrow at the press conference it’s holding in Cupertino, but we’re going to be there live, covering whatever it is they have in store for us. We have a feeling it’ll have at least something to do with that antenna issue you may or may not have heard about, so strap yourself into your seat, grab an orange soda, and keep it parked right at Engadget for the best, up-to-the-minute live coverage on the internet.

Here’s the URL to check in to tomorrow to see the action as it happens, and here’s what time you’ll need to show up:


07:00AM – Hawaii
10:00AM – Pacific
11:00AM – Mountain
12:00PM – Central
01:00PM – Eastern
06:00PM – London
07:00PM – Paris
09:00PM – Moscow
02:00AM – Tokyo (July 17th)

Reminder: we’re live from Apple’s iPhone 4 press conference tomorrow, 10AM PT / 1PM ET! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 18:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone 4 Doomed for Recall, Says PR Experts

Thumbnail image for Apple_iPhone_Pics.jpgAccording to PR experts who broke the news to Cult
of Mac
today, the iPhone 4 is fated to be sent back to the drawing board. The Apple fan site claims that, according to experts, “Apple will be forced to recall the iPhone 4 following Consumer Reports tests proving the ‘Death Grip’ antenna issue is not software related.”

While it appears that Sascha Segan was right on the money in his estimation of the “Death Grip” issue, whether it’s grounds for a recall is ultimately up to Apple. However, some folks seem to be blowing this a wee bit out of proportion.

Expert on crisis communication Chris Lehane claims that Apple must recover from this “Toyota-style PR crisis,” according to Cult of Mac. Now, the iPhone 4 isn’t endangering (hopefully) too many lives with its shoddy reception, but for Apple’s seemingly pristine record, this is an image crisis nonetheless.

While I can’t help but agree with experts like Dr. Larry Barton who said that Apple’s response to the issue hasn’t exactly been stellar, to demand a “military-like response” from a corporation that designs gadgets might be a bit much.

Google’s Larry Page: Steve Jobs is ‘rewriting history’ by saying Android came after the iPhone

Steve Jobs might have thought he was lightly playing down reports that the Apple / Google rivalry had dramatically changed when he said “they decided to compete with us — we didn’t go into the search business” at D8, but it appears that his phrasing didn’t sit so well with Larry Page, who told Reuters yesterday that Jobs was doing a “little bit of rewriting history,” and that the “characterization of us entering [the phone market] after is not really reasonable.” Page, who was being interviewed alongside Eric Schmidt, also said that Google had been working on Android for “a very long time” and that the goal was always to develop phones with solid browsers to fill a market void.

That’s true, of course — Google purchased Andy Rubin’s Android, Inc. in 2005 — but it’s also an equally slight distortion: when Android was officially announced in November of 2007, it looked nothing like the OS we know and love today, and the SDK emulator used an image of an HTC-built prototype that had much more in common with the traditional BlackBerry than the iPhone. (Fun fact: that device eventually became the Palm Treo Pro running Windows Mobile.) It wasn’t until the G1 shipped almost a year later that Android started to look more like what it is today, and we’d even argue that it wasn’t until Android 2.0 hit on the OG Motorola Droid along with Verizon’s Droid Does marketing campaign that the platform grew into its own unique and successful identity — an identity that is now powerfully differentiated against the iPhone and driving accelerating device sales every quarter.

So, does any of this really matter? To the tech historians, perhaps — and Apple and Google clearly see what they’re doing as historically significant. Apart from that, it’s a pretty meaningless distinction; Eric Schmidt followed up Page’s comment by saying that the market was big enough for the iPhone and Android to coexist, and we seriously doubt anyone’s phone purchasing decision will ever turn on what platform was released first. But it’s also clear that the competition between these two companies is at fever pitch, which is great news for the rest of us — let’s just hope everyone involved remembers that Jobs closed his D8 remarks by saying “just because we’re competing with somebody doesn’t mean we have to be rude.”

Google’s Larry Page: Steve Jobs is ‘rewriting history’ by saying Android came after the iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo’s Liu Chuanzhi: ‘we are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn’t care about China’

We’re guessing that Lenovo chairman Liu Chaunzhi didn’t intend spark a slew of sensational headlines when he spoke briefly with the Financial Times this week, but he did make a few statements that are hard to ignore (yet easily misinterpreted). The standout is that he reportedly said Lenovo is “lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn’t care about China,” and that if “Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, we would be in trouble.” Of course, what’s easily lost following the “bad temper” bit is that Chaunzhi is actually sort of praising Apple (albeit in a roundabout way), and he even later goes on to describe Jobs as “a genius,” and the exception to his rule that a manager “needs to be the string on which he puts one pearl after another” — he says Jobs is instead “a big pearl.” For its part, while Apple hasn’t commented on Chaunzhi’s comments directly, it did point out that it’s opening a new store in Shanghai this Saturday, and that it’s on track to have 25 stores in the country by the end of next year.

Lenovo’s Liu Chuanzhi: ‘we are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn’t care about China’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Jobs emails ‘are real’ claims Boy Genius Report, says Apple PR lied to press

Earlier this week we reported on a story that had been doing the rounds — another Steve Jobs email thread with an irate customer. Like many other stories about Jobs’ emails to customers, this yarn centered around a user disappointed with his iPhone 4’s service, and Steve’s flippant responses. The first time we saw the story crop up, we were suspicious of its validity (and frankly, newsworthiness), and we became even more suspicious after AppleInsider ran an article claiming that the source of the supposed emails had been shopping the tale for cash (Engadget was not contacted by the source). We did eventually cover the story, but only after Apple itself responded to the tale, claiming — first to Fortune and then to us — that the emails were false, and the exchange had not happened. That struck us as particularly newsworthy, because in all our years of reporting on Steve Jobs’ wild personal emails (of which there are many, many examples), we’d never heard Apple refute that the emails were coming from him.

Now, Boy Genius Report (where the original story appeared) has fired back, emphatically claiming that the emails are real, and that the proof is in the original message headers which the site has been given access to by the source. BGR goes one step further as well, and essentially accuses Apple PR of spinning this story to news outlets to suit its needs. And let’s not mince words — the claim is that Apple PR is lying to the press. The proof which BGR offers is no more or less convincing to us than the site’s previous post on the subject; email headers and timestamps can be faked. Still, it is notable that Boy Genius is pushing back on this story, and we certainly don’t believe the blog would knowingly publish a false email thread. As TechCrunch points out in its take on the matter, PR reps often give vague, sugarcoated, or misleading information to news sites, but there has never been a time when Apple’s PR has outright lied to major publications (that we know of). That would be a mess of epic proportions, and we can’t really fathom why they would go to the trouble. The company has obviously let stuff like this slide for years — this seems like an odd time (and a relatively minor story) to get up in arms about it. We’ve reached out to Apple for further statement on this, and will report back as soon as we hear something. In the meantime, take a look at the source link and see what BGR has to say on the matter.

Steve Jobs emails ‘are real’ claims Boy Genius Report, says Apple PR lied to press originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple PR Tells Fortune That Jobs Relax E-Mails Are Fake

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E-mails between Steve Jobs and Apple customers are getting a lot of press lately, but did the elusive CEO recently tell an iPhone 4 user to “calm down” and “relax” when that customer sent an angry e-mail about the phone’s reception? According to Apple PR, the answer is no.

Earlier this week, Boy Genius Report (BGR) posted an e-mail exchange that allegedly occured between a man named Tom and Jobs. Tom complained about the iPhone 4 and Jobs reportedly replied “No, you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors. Calm down.”

The exchange continued, ending with an e-mail from Jobs that read, “Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.” That quote made its way around the Internet rather quickly, though BGR later updated its post to say that it was Tom who sent that last e-mail.

Trouble is, Fortune is reporting that the whole thing is a hoax. Apple PR told the publication that Jobs never sent any of the e-mails published by BGR and that “Tom” is really a Virginia man named Jason who has been shopping the e-mails around to various blogs, including AppleInsider.

BGR updated its post to include header information from the e-mails it received.

Apple PR says recent Steve Jobs emails are fake

If you’ve been anywhere near the internet in the past few hours, you’ve undoubtedly heard about a Steve Jobs email conversation in which he told an angry iPhone customer to “calm down” and that the iPhone 4 was “just a phone.” That email chain, which was published on Boy Genius Report earlier, was also reportedly shopped to AppleInsider a few days ago — for a price. Well, now Fortune is reporting that they’ve been told by a “a top Apple spokesman” that the emails are fake, and the exchange never happened. Of course, emails are notoriously easy to fake, and Apple has not been in the habit of commenting on its CEO’s online wanderings, so our ears pricked up when we saw this article. We’ve reached out to Apple and they have independently confirmed to us that the conversation is indeed a hoax. So as usual, take all of these Jobs-uncensored dialogues with a healthy grain of salt.

Apple PR says recent Steve Jobs emails are fake originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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