iPhone 4: Form over Function

July 2, 2010 • 11:31 am • POSTED BY anguyen

I’ll admit, I’m an Apple fan. But when the new iPhone 4 was announced I was convinced to wait before purchasing it. I knew from experience that the first batch of any product is bound to have its share of problems.

Seems like I was right. Along with having proximity sensor trouble, signal strength can now be added to the growing list of problems. If you hold the phone like you would any other you run the risk of losing all your bars of reception. Why? Because while being designed at Apple they didn’t realize that by having the antenna on the outside surrounding the phone would mean the user would be touching it.

Don’t worry though, there IS a fix! It’ll just cost you $29.00 at an Apple store to buy an awful looking “bumper” to wrap around your phone. And there you have it, fixed reception issues for yet more money. Or for the “DIY-ers” you can be like this guy and use a $1 bracelet.

I understand even the best companies make mistakes, but this is a great example of what could happen when a company puts form over function. Maybe they’re feeling the pressure from the HTC Touch 2 or the newly announced Droid X and rushed through vital testing. Whatever the cause, the iPhone 4 is beautifully designed but what’s the point in beauty if it doesn’t even serve its purpose?