View From the Phlipside - iPhone 4

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, Radio, the Movies and more. I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View From the Phlipside.

Have to admit the most recent furor in the electronic communications world took me a little by surprise. Not the positive furor that came when Apple launched the iPad and the iPhone 4. That’s so ordinary that it’s really rather boring. We expect Apple to come with something new and cool and we expect the Apple sycophants to go totally gaga over them. Yawn.


But this, this is rather stunning. Turns out that iPhone 4 may be, well I shudder to even say this, flawed. They may have gotten something, gulp, wrong. In case you haven’t heard there’s some kind of problem with the reception in some areas on the new Apple phone. Critics claim its a defective antenna, Apple responded by saying it was just a long standing glitch in the software. That’s when I started to grow puzzled. You see NEITHER answer is particularly helpful. If it’s a long standing problem and apparently well known, then why didn’t they fix it? Instead the apparent fix is to hand out free cases for the phone that get you around the whole antenna problem. If that is the problem. Which no one is really admitting just yet.


But the problems just keep piling on. Like when Consumer Reports, arguably the most respected consumer products review publication in the world, decided NOT to recommend the new iPhone. They’d given the thumbs up to all previous iterations but not this one. You can count Consumer Reports in the faulty antenna camp as well. They took a pass on both the software answer and the more quietly bandied about “blame it on AT&T” explanation. Nope, this is all Apple’s fault.


But my favorite line in all of this came from someone at Microsoft. Relations between Apple and Microsoft have always been a bit, shall we say, touchy. Had to hit the “Like” button when I saw the comment that said the iPhone 4 is Apple’s version of Windows Vista. Ouch.


While it’s a great line and very funny it’s also probably a pretty good comparison. Vista started with problems which were relatively quickly solved but no one seems to have taken much notice of that. Everyone remembers the problems.


Call that the View From the Phlipside.


"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010