Edible Apple

Throughout the iPhone 4 press conference and the subsequent Q&A session, Steve Jobs made it abundantly clear that, in his eyes, media reports of iPhone 4 reception issues were completely overblown. During one particular exchange, Jobs was clearly irritated at the way tech websites, in his opinion, make no bones about sensationalizing stories in order to generate more page views. Making matters worse, Jobs intimated that Apple’s long history of top notch customer service , world-class engineering, and highly rated customer satisfaction should warrant Apple a little bit of understanding in the press.

In search of eyeballs for websites, people don’t care what they leave in their wake. So I look at this whole thing and say, wow. Apple’s been around for 34 years. Haven’t we earned the credibility and trust from some of the press to give us a little bit of the benefit of the doubt, of our motivations, the fact that we’re confident and will solve these problems. I think we have that trust from our users, but I didn’t see that in the press. This thing was blown so far out of proportion. But I’m not going to say we’re not at fault. We didn’t educate enough.

And it’s a valid point. Not that the iPhone 4 antenna issue should be swept under the rug – far from it. But even a quick perusal of any number of tech websites and accompanying comments on Apple related articles would have you believe that Apple is an evil conglomerate always looking for new and innovative ways to screw over and brainwash consumers into purchasing second rate products.

You could tell during Jobs’ speech that there was a big of aggravation in his voice, seemingly annoyed that he even had to take the stage to address the problem in the first place. There’s no doubt that Apple devotes an inordinate amount of resources and man hours towards product development. Say what you will about Jobs, but he’s clearly motivated to help develop the best products Apple can possibly come up with. So given that Apple’s products are geared towards “changing the world”, it’s seemingly hard for Jobs to reconcile negative coverage of Apple in the press with what he feels are Apple’s noble intentions.