Everyone makes mistakes but some mistakes are bigger than others and some are emblematic. On the latter scale, Apple’s problem with the iPhone 4 counts as a big error.
The iPhone 4 flaw, according to Consumer Reports and others, is that phone reception is degraded or lost when a user’s hand covers the bottom left of the antenna that encircles the device.
It is, in other words, a problem of industrial design for which Apple has a justly high reputation.
Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head of industrial design, is one of the most admired figures in the field, as recognised recently by both Fortune and Fast Company magazines. Apple’s ability to combine beauty with function in its hardware and software design is the envy of competitors.
This is what British-born Mr Ive had to say to Core 77 magazine about the iPhone 4 design:
“We experiment with and explore materials, processing them, learning about the inherent properties of the material – and the process of transforming it from raw material to finished product; for example, understanding exactly how the processes of machining it or grinding it affect it. That understanding, that preoccupation with the materials and processes, is [very] essential to the way we work.”
In this case, it seems that Mr Ive and his team did not learn enough about the “inherent properties” of the band antenna, which was intended to ease problems with dropped calls on previous models.
Apple can probably fix the problem in time but its reputation for unquestioned superiority in industrial design has taken a hit.
