The American Way

[snousle]

Why use a small piece of Scotch Tape to solve a problem, when you can launch a class action lawsuit?

BTW, I touched one on Sunday and couldn't make it happen.

Comments

[qnetter]

Why recall all those Toyotas when you can tell people to remove their floormats and use twist-ties? Simple: because we don't look the other way at incompetence.

Class action suits are a perfectly valid tool for getting corporations to address issues they otherwise attempt to dismiss, and this is one of them. Even if the answer determined by the court is "put a piece of scotch tape on it," Apple should be buying the tape.

I've been insisting for over a week that I couldn't make it happen -- but today I discovered if I clutch the phone tightly in my left hand with my thumb and palm covering the whole left side and all four fingers lined up the right side, I can make the bars drop off within fifteen seconds -- I don't normally use the phone that way, but apparently, some people do.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

A lawsuit may be going too far - but even someone as un-enthralled by the iPhone as I am will admit that it's a stylish gizmo; why on EARTH should something like that need to have an unsightly bit of tape on it in order to work properly?!

Apple should be including those $30 "bumpers" - which apparently resolve the problem completely - for free with the phones.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I am not sure if I have ever owned a high tech object that "works properly". It seems that the smaller the pea, the more princesses you get complaining about it!

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

There's minor glitches, and then there's Design: FAIL!. Having to avoid holding a cell phone in a certain way apparently natural to a sizable minority so its ability to connect with the world doesn't drop to nothing is in the latter category. I can see this being dependent on enough variable factors that some people might not be able to produce it even if they're trying to - but that doesn't make it any less of an error.

Since the problem seems to stem from bridging two portions of the frame that are intended to be independent antennae, to me the logical design would entail putting those gaps at the top and/or bottom of the phone where any reasonably expected grasp of the phone would not be likely to bridge them. If that was not possible for some technical reason - then as I said, the "bumper" that Apple's selling for $30 should have been an included accessory.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

So let me get this straight:

Somewhat theoretical but easily fixed problem, which might cause a dropped call, which I am unable to reproduce, and which I cannot find anyone who has been materially harmed by: "Design Fail"

A malevolent "feature" that is reproducible, causes actual and widespread problems in research valued at hundreds of millions of dollars and could derail the discovery of new drugs: "Don't blame the tool".

Must say, you have a really interesting set of priorities there.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Must say, you have a really interesting way of dropping pertinent context there.

In the first case, the problem occurs while people attempt to use the phone in its intended role as a phone, actually *gasp*shock* holding it up to their ears with their hands. Just because you can't personally reproduce the problem doesn't mean it's not real. Placing that antenna gap where it would be unlikely to be bridged by anyone holding the phone in a remotely normal way would have prevented this problem.

In the second case, you're especially pissed off because it's personally affecting you that people who, frankly, should probably know better given the hundreds of millions of dollars of research funding involved have forced a spreadsheet to stand in for a database - and done a crappy job of it to boot. For people who actually use a spreadsheet for its designed purpose, the "malevolent" feature you find so vexing is often a time-saver. (If you want to blame someone, blame Lotus who actually pushed the idea of using a spreadsheet as a database when they brought out 1-2-3 in the early days of the IBM PC. We don't seem to have been able to get rid of this toxic meme since then.)

I understand the data corruption issue - you're in the position of a mechanic who has to deal with a bolt that some bozo has rounded off trying to remove with a pair of pliers because they couldn't be bothered to go find a proper wrench. But is the problem really the fault of the pliers, or the bozo who used them wrong? It's not like they even really needed any fancy relational features - a cheap (or free!) flat-file database app would have prevented the data corruption. (Or perhaps even learning how to use Excel properly, but that's doubtless too much to ask.)

[snousle.livejournal.com]

The difference, actually, is between the concerns of those who do useful work and solve real problems, and those who strike poses on the Internet.

The former, in particular, focus on finding solutions rather than assigning blame.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Unless, of course, they can assign blame to a piece of application software that's been misused by people who should know better.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

No. The concepts of "blame" and "should" do not have a useful role in technology development. They are political in nature and, in themselves, indicative of a preoccupation with status over problem-solving.

Obviously "evil and must die" is not a serious part of that either.

A person for whom the iPhone matters as a tool, rather than as a status object, will put a piece of tape on it and move on. I can only wish all problems were so easily solved.

[urbear]

Class action suit? Bah.

If the suit succeeds, the lawyers will make several million dollars, the original plaintiff will get fifty bucks, and the rest of us will get a coupon good for 10% off the price of a piece of tape.

[oscarlikesbugsy.livejournal.com]

LOL!

All one has to do is be on the receiving end of one of these lawsuits to get cynical.

I recall one guy waxing loquatious, in pursuit of investment, about all the patents that he was going to get, having just gotten his first.

On the way back to the office, my boss said something like, "Fukcing idiot! Doesn't he know that a patent is just a license to get sued?!"

ROFLMAO.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

When I first fired up my kilowatt AM transmitter, I observed that I could draw an arc from the antenna about an inch away. If I suffered a shock during that arc, does that give me the right to sue the tube manufacturer?

Compare this to…

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

With my Sony-Ericsson W995 "feature phone" I can go from four bars to NO bars just by swiveling around in my chair and not changing my hold on the phone at all.

Chuck, ¡tranquilo!

Re: Compare this to…

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Exactly. With so many reception-related compromises already, I don't get why this one is so special. It may well have nothing to do with the antenna design and have no effect on actual reception beyond simply blocking the signal, like on your phone.

[beastbriskett.livejournal.com]

This article cleared up a lot of the questions. The author actually tested the thing!
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2

[169bvt.livejournal.com]

What I always like about this kind of exchange is that nothing, NOTHING, can bring out the vitriol like a good apple iPhone bashing. What is it about this phone (yes, it's still only a phone) that brings on the kind of heated argument reminiscent of Protestant/Catholic conflict over the role of the Papacy?

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Not to mention all the ironically detached philosophers eager to declare themselves above it all!