Last week, and even before, it was impossible to ignore the hubbub over the iPhone 4′s issues. It would drop calls thanks to a poorly place antenna. When Apple tried to downplay the issue, people seemed offended. This is natural. Apple released a much-hyped product and it featured a pretty major shortcoming. Steve Jobs tried to deflect criticism, as is his wont, by showing that other similar smartphones fall victim to the same issue. That, expectedly, didn’t go over well.
That’s not to say that he’s wrong. Maybe it wasn’t the best approach from a public relations standpoint, but if Jobs’s point is that other handsets can also lose reception when in a death grip, well, he’s at least partly right. The bigger issues, however, is that many smartphones contain flaws that make it all the way to the production models. We want our devices to be perfect, sure, but oftentimes they’re never quite what we envisioned.
Take this story that ran this week on Engadget. Apparently some Droid X users are experiencing “serious graphical or possibly electrical problems with the handset’s giant screen.” That seems like quite a bigger issue than losing reception when gripping the phone a certain way, no? The difference, of course, is that Verizon and Motorola played it straight with consumers. They did downplay how widespread the issue was — one-tenth of one percent of handsets, almost all in the launch-day batch — but they did take immediate action. Their joint statement:
Verizon Wireless and Motorola are aware of a very small number of DROID X units that have experienced a flickering or banding display. Motorola has resolved the issue and is continuing to ship the phones. Any consumer who experiences a flickering or banding display should contact a Motorola customer support center or Verizon Wireless.
Of course, it was easier for Motorola and Verizon to address this issue quickly and directly than it was for Apple. For starters, the Droid X wasn’t expected to sell nearly as well as the iPhone. Second, the problem is far more concrete, and directly affect’s the main functions of the handset. It’s tough to do much without a screen. Still, I’m sure many Droid X users are having other issues with the handset, just like I’m sure are people using all sorts of smartphones.
Hell, I’m having plenty of issues with my Nexus One. Just last week I had to pull the battery four times in about 20 minutes because the screen kept freezing. This happens every once in a while. I know a number of people have had power button issues, but that hasn’t been the case for me. Sometimes I’ll press the power button to light up the screen and it will not respond, but that gets fixed with a battery pull. It’s a pain, but I understand that these devices are not perfect.
Companies, both handset manufacturers and wireless carriers, are under plenty of pressure to roll out new devices and software to sate a hungry market. This means that devices often come out before they’re 100 percent ready for the show. We’re going to have to deal with issues like the iPhone’s antenna and the Droid X’s screen now and in the future. It’s the unintended consequence of expedited releases. The difference, though, will be in how the companies respond. If they handle the issue more like Verizon and Motorola we will be in good shape. If they act like Apple, well, right or wrong they’re not going to be the most popular handsets on the block.
