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“If it bleeds, it leads.”
This is the official/unofficial mantra of the news that we consume in 2010. Mainstream, pundits, bloggers--they all follow it, sometimes unknowingly.
Positive news doesn’t have the same traction as negative news. I get it. A grizzly murder gets, and holds, our attention quicker and for longer than the goings-on at the local community center.
It’s bad enough that this modern-day yellow journalism has infected our political system. But now, tech news, the one place I’ve been able to go for people reporting happily on the things they love, is being destroyed.
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We all know the story of how Gizmodo purchased a potentially-stolen iPhone 4 prototype. They took pictures of it, dissected it, posted about it, got a bunch of page views, got some coverage out of it, got a lawsuit out of it, got shunned, and probably will always be shunned, by Apple, and we all cared for like, two days, that is until another radical conservative got caught on the wrong end of a gloryhole, or that cancer-free guy who rides bikes a lot peed out liquid steroids, or something shinier and brighter came along.
In the words of Shawn Carter:
on to the next one.
Right?
Wrong.
Instead, something strange happened. Gizmodo, quite the influential tech blog, historically a place deemed a safe haven for Apple fanboys (In some ways, most tech blogs have at least some portion of the Apple fanboy gene), became decidedly--anti-Apple. Naturally, they covered the fact that Apple was preparing to sue the pants off of Gawker media, their parent company, with a fair amount of venom.
But then, the iPhone 4 came out. Like, for real.
And AntennaGate happened. (Sorta)
And Gizmodo decided to hit Apple. Hard.
And they kept going and going--anti-Apple posts every day, or what seemed like every day.
It got so bad that during the AntennaGate press conference, when Steve Jobs revealed that, yes, the iPhone 4 was dropping more calls than the 3GS,
Gizmodo tweeted:
Yikes. Data says the iPhone 4 drops more calls than the 3GS.
And that would have been fine, except in the next breath, Jobs pointed out that the “higher” dropped call number was something like 1 in every 100, a microscopic amount.
I tweeted in response:
@Gizmodo Probably should have waited to hear that it's less than 1% worse. You guys are a joke. Seriously.
It was clear that Gizmodo, now frothing at the mouth to make Apple look bad (an interesting stance to take, considering they’re the ones who purchased a potentially stolen prototype and displayed it for the world to see, but maybe I’m the crazy one), had given up sticking to that basic journalistic tenet of waiting for the entire story to play out before reporting on it, and even worse, taking a stance on it, putting them in the precarious spot of becoming the Andrew Breitbarts of tech journalism. And it is only recently that they seem to have eased up on the gas a bit.
Anyway, I’ve gone on for too long to make my point. Besides, Gizmodo isn’t the only tech site guilty of this practice, of letting “if it bleeds, it leads” style journalism become the norm.
So what’s an indie blogger to do?
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I got my iPhone 4 on Wednesday, 7/28. Naturally, after syncing, I tested the death touch and the death grip. Neither really seemed to work, but I have good coverage in my immediate sphere of influence. But on Saturday, 7/31, after having the phone for not even a full three days, right smack in the middle of getting my fiancee to her
surprise wedding shower, I realized I was going to have to take my iPhone 4 back to Apple.
The problem wasn’t antenna-related, though.
The phone--it clicked.
Back up--I like my iPhone clean and as smudge-free as possible. I have those black Apple microfiber cloths everywhere--a couple at home, one at work, one in my messenger bag. Sitting on the couch, trying not to be too openly nervous about the impending party, I went to rub the back glass plate of the phone, as beautiful as it is fragile, I suppose. When I pressed down near the micro SIM tray, it felt, and sounded, like the whole thing--clicked. Since the surface is reflective, you couldn’t see the piece actually depress, but you could hear it, plain as day--a click. Like a muted, but sharper, version of the sound you get after pressing the die-encased-in-a-plastic-bubble in that board game
Trouble.
Not good.
I did it for Danielle a couple of times, just to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. She heard it.
Not good.
I decided that it was possible that the SIM tray wasn’t slotted in just right. When I tried to pop it out, and couldn’t without having to put a
severe amount of force behind the SIM ejector, I realized something was wrong.
A quick search online came back with a couple of hits on the Macrumors forums about people having the same problem. One person said that they’d already brought the phone in to Apple and were given a new one on the spot. Another said they would eventually bring it in, but that the low stock of iPhone 4’s led them to believe that they would be better off waiting.
I, anal technology bitch that I am, knew that I would not be able to live with this clicking phone. I clicked that thing so many times that day--I was clicking it while my wife-to-be opened up the china we’ll someday serve Thanksgiving dinner to our family on.
After a wonderful party, and after unloading a ridiculous amount of gifts, I sat down to make an appointment at the Genius Bar for the next day, Sunday. Danielle saw what I was doing, and, in one of the thousands of instances where she proves just how much she knows me, suggested I make the appointment for that night, if one was available, rather than wait until the next day.
(Understand--we were both exhausted. Dead tired. But she knew I would not be happy about this all night. Hands-off, fellas.)
So I made an appointment for 8pm that night. We went off to the Apple store, got there early (were thanked for this) and within 15 minutes, I was holding a new iPhone 4.
Getting it involved me clicking the back plate twice for the guy who helped me, who after the two clicks said, “Yeah, we’re gonna need to get you a new phone.”
And
this is why I am loyal to Apple products.
Because I can take their products directly to them. And if something is genuinely wrong with it, they fix it. And if it’s something that can’t be fixed, they give me a new one.
That’s what I’m paying the premium for.
And it goes without saying that the guy couldn’t have been nicer. We chatted--he told me that he had heard about this issue, but had only seen it himself once before. We joked about AntennaGate. I asked--just to be sure--that my first iPhone 4 would be wiped. He said he would bring it back out and let me wipe it myself, just so I could rest easy that night
(All of this took
just enough time for Danielle to try out the Magic Trackpad, give me the thumbs-up, have me try it, love it, and purchase one. Literally. Like, she walked back with it in her hands before I could finish signing the work order forms. Damn you, Jobs!)
Good news--my new iPhone 4 doesn’t click.
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Not everything Apple makes is perfect. The mixed reception the iPhone 4 “bumper” case has received highlights an area where 3rd party companies are far ahead of Apple--iPhone cases, a lucrative market, I’m sure. I know my household has spent a decent chunk of change on them, not to mention time seeking out the latest and greatest.
Speck is one of those companies--they create great products. I still think their “Candyshell” iPhone case is one of the few out there that adds to the aesthetic of the phone, while adding a minimal amount of bulk, and still remains a snug fit on the phone while not rendering it impossible to get off. I’ve suggested Speck cases to family and friends, and they’ve all reported good things.
So it came as a surprise when both of the Speck “Candyshells” in my house broke:
To be fair, Danielle broke both of them, and she puts pretty heavy wear on her phone. But still, to break in the same exact way, at about the same time, highlights a design/manufacturing flaw.
Danielle, the queen of returning shit, called up Speck and asked if she could get her money back. If we still had the receipts and original packaging, this would have been possible. Seeing as we bought both of these cases about eight or nine months ago, this wasn’t an option. Speck suggested that they send us two new Candyshells, certainly a fair compromise. But then Danielle, (remember, I told you, she can return anything) told them how we already had one iPhone 4 in the house, and would soon be upgrading the other 3GS, and so would it be possible to exchange the broken Candyshells for iPhone 4 cases?
Just to recap--she asked to exchange two broken, used, iPhone 3GS cases, with no receipt or packaging, for two brand new cases, completely different models, during a time when iPhone 4 cases are at a premium (Speck is one of the companies that Apple is using in their free case program).
Naturally, Speck said, “Sure.”
I couldn’t believe it.
They e-mailed her a list to pick from. We picked. The cases came in a week.
The GeoMetric and the Fitted. Still can’t believe it.
Maybe that’s why I took the pictures that I took.
Well, that and I mean, who doesn’t love iPhone porn? Check out the complete gallery here:
Apple & Speck Demonstrate Great Customer Service (8/6/10)
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At a time when tech news, most news, really, is so negative, so reactionary, I think it’s important to point out that good does exist out there. That customer service, good customer service, can still be found.
It doesn’t mean that companies can ship faulty products, although I don’t see Speck’s cases or the iPhone 4 as faulty, but it is reassuring to know that I’m spending money not just on a piece of plastic or glass or aluminum, but on the unwavering guarantee behind it.
And I hope Gizmodo eventually finds its way back to where it once was, because they’re too good otherwise to ignore.
As for
Artificial Night, well, we're nothing but a mere grain of sand in the desert of blogs, but for today, at least for one day, there’s no blood on my hands, or on your screens.
More soon,
JS
