Edible Apple

During Apple’s iPhone 4 press conference this past Friday, one of the points Steve Jobs drove home again and again was the fact that Apple subjects each successive iPhone to an extensive and lengthy testing process in state of the art testing facilities.

There have been many pundits quick to point out that the iPhone 4 is poorly designed, and that Apple essentially released a flawed product. To help combat that sentiment, and to prove just how seriously Apple takes reception on the iPhone, Apple yesterday put up a page on its website showcasing Apple’s efforts to create the best iPhone calling experience as possible.

Apple notes that it has invested over $100 million dollars to build advanced design and test labs, along with 17 anechoic chambers which are essentially rooms where no waves can reflect off of anything, thereby ensuring an interference free testing environment to “accurately measure antenna and wireless performance.”

Apple describes these chambers thusly:

Our anechoic chambers are connected to sophisticated equipment that simulates cellular base stations, Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices — even GPS satellites. These chambers measure performance in free space, in the presence of materials simulating human tissue (“phantom” heads and hands, for example), and in use by human subjects. Over a one- to two-year development cycle, Apple engineers spend thousands of hours performing antenna and wireless testing in the lab.

They also produced the following video which explains Apple’s testing procedures.