The Antenna Hitch of iPhone4

Last week, iPhone 4, another much awaited product launch from Apple, opened up for sale in the United States. It is estimated that over 1.5 Million phones were sold on the very first day, creating a record of sorts in the Cellular industry. No other phone, including earlier incarnations of iPhone itself, had seen such numbers. More interestingly, 70% of these customers are existing iPhone users. This reaffirms the fact that the company has built such a strong, repeatable customer base that is very loyal to its products - a very typical of  Apple.
However, the weekend also saw a bit of jolt to this clean records of Apple, at least as far as iPhone is concerned. A product that created waves in the market with its features like the retina display, 6-axis-Gyroscope, 5 Megapixel camera, multi-tasking, etc, made it the most exciting gadget. It has a little (??) problem though. The Phone inside the iPhone 4 loses its signal if you grip it a certain manner. The sad part is - Apple blames the consumers who hold the gadget in that way.

To me, its a basic design flaw.

The Problem:

The iPhone 4 has two antennas built into the external steel band that runs on the rim of the device. One of the antennas is for cellular reception. This one is located on the left side bottom. If you hold the phone on your left hand firmly, (which most of the right-handed people would do), you will end up gripping this antenna. CNET's tests have consistently revealed that after holding the phone like this for around 5 mins, the phone loses its signal.After you soften your grip, the signal comes back.

Apple's Reaction
Apple has formally acknowledged this issue. It said that it happens because it is held in a certain way - easily passing on the blame to the consumer who just bought the expensive device by shelling out 300 dollars from his/her nose. The solution?? "Avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available rubber cases."

Come on. Not expected at least from Apple. The company that is known for its innovation in user experience cant blame the customer for holding the phone in a certain way and then losing the signal.

The Reality
This is a serious design issue. Using the band as an antenna is a "bold design decision", as I read on many blogs, which might be a polite way of saying "poor design decision". You can't have a critical problem like losing the cellular network just because the phone is help in a certain manner. The reason is simple. iPhone is first a phone. People should be able to make/receive calls using it. Rest is frill.

Apple has been strongly advertising and pushing its rubber cases ($30), which is expected to solve this problem. It appears that this problem might have been known internally before the release of the phone in the market. This also means, Apple is in no mood to fix it soon.

While, Steve Job's company continues to face the heat from media on this issue, the iPhone 4 continues to sell like a hot cake. Its a paradox.

Update
(2nd July 2010, 11:30 AM IST):
Class action suite filed over iPhone antenna issue claiming that Apple and AT&T shipped this phone knowing that an issue existed with its antenna. http://bit.ly/a5rOEL

(5th July 2010, 11:30 AM IST)
In another stunt, Apple says "We are stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong", now pointing fingers to signal strength itself apart from the way consumers hold the phone. Is anybody buying this statement ? http://bit.ly/c4AAF2