HTC CFO Is a Hypocrite Over HD7 “Antennagate” Issue?
By Gary Ng on December 6th, 2010 10
The iPhone 4 had antenna issues dubbed “antennagate”. Apple’s idea of a fix was to give out free Bumper cases and to extend their return policy to 30 days. Steve Jobs told people to “Just don’t hold it that way”. Covering the antenna on the iPhone 4 led to dropped signals and calls. People were angry. However, not everyone was affected.
While Apple was mitigating a PR disaster, compe ors were quick to pounce on the iPhone 4′s weakness. One of the strongest critics was the CFO of HTC. He had this to say about Apple during the “antennagate” crisis:
“The reception problems are certainly not common among smartphones. [Apple] apparently didn’t give operators enough time to test the phone.”The HTC HD7 is experiencing an issue when its antenna is being covered, similar to the same issue that affected the iPhone 4. Here is how HTC is defending their HD7:
“Quality in industrial design is of key importance to HTC. To ensure the best possible signal strength, antennas are placed in the area least likely to be covered by a person’s face or hands while the phone is in use.”Here’s the line that makes HTC’s CFO sound like a hypocrite:
“However, it is inevitable that a phone’s signal strength will weaken a little when covered in its entirety by a user’s palms or fingers.”How interesting. Looks like HTC’s own criticisms of the iPhone 4 has come back to bite them with the HD7. The reality is antennas are affected when covered. It doesn’t matter what device you own.
people who buy apple products can't handle little flaws like that, everything has to work smoothly with no effort given by the user.
people who buy non-apple products are used to researching their product before they buy, understanding it's deficiencies and what they need to do to make it meet their needs to perfection.
things like that can't happen to apple, because apple's market is people who have cult-of personalitys and don't know how to do for themselves
It never affected me for whatever reason, but I did wind up getting a clear protector that covers the antenna, but I really got it just to keep the sides from getting scratched. If it helps my signal in any way then that's just a plus.
This is funny. The worse reception I ever had was with HTC phones.
Funny, I have had an HTC hero since March and the only place I have ever had a dropped call was walking into the bathroom underneath the library at UTSA. The good thing is that I appreciate it because I don't want to talk on the phone in the bathroom.
Thank you Sprint/HTC for providing me with another service.
However, even though I agree with the poster who wrote that Apple customers need for something to work, etc... I still believe that this is hypocritical from the companies' viewpoints.
Oh, did yall see the article about the way Apple discontinued their server line (their one enterprise level product). Pretty bad.
what a bunch of bull !
i used to build computers all the time before buying a mac and not having to waste my time anymore. aside from that i also run a linux server at home. wtf, not all apple users are complete idiots who can't operate the backend of a computer.
get over yourself!
From those that I have met (and I have met many) you are an outlier of the normal population curve. I am sure you have experiences which are counter to mine, so I will admit that there is a possibility that I may be wrong.
I don't see anything wrong with that image, it works for Apple. It is probably exactly that stereotype (along with the "hipster" stereotype) that sells so many devices for Apple.
i totally understand the stereotype with apple customers though... though a hipster, i am not!
i come from a background of in' around with PC's until i broke them in order for me to fix them. after i learned the ins and outs i started building PC's and only until i couldn't take the many bs problems winOS has and the lack of support for adobe products on linuxOS, i made the switch and have no regrets.
only thing that gets to me is how pricey apple products are. my 24" imac cost $2500 at the time i bought it 2 yrs ago and i'll be damned if i ever s out another $2500 on another computer anytime soon. so far i've had no problems with my mac and i hope i don't for some time.
the stereotyping of apple users is justified though. i know plenty of people that fit the "apple" mold.
Covering an entire phone with your hand is not at all the same thing as covering a tiny area near where your palm will normally be when holding it.
My Evo gets better reception than any cell phone I've ever used. I never have a dropped call unless I go into a subway, even if I cover the entire phone with my hand. Does it lose some strength? Of course. I can touch the gap on my g/fs iPhone 4 and lose the call in about 5 seconds. There's a massive difference there.
there was a 5month old imac 27 c2d 3.06ghz on ebay for 1400 my bro was going to buy, told him give me 1400 i build you a better comp that that crap...
And my friend and his wife have Evos that drop calls a lot in Austin. I drop calls with my iPhone 4 in very specific places (i.e. driving under the Braker lane bridge on Mopac) but I got a case right after I got the phone and the antenna thing has never been a problem for me.
I've used my phone without a case lots of times and have NEVER dropped a call. When I first got my phone, a friend of mine who has an Evo asked me to make it lose signal and I couldn't do it no matter how hard I tried.
The issue was never as big as iPhone haters made it out to be. I think the area has more to do with it than was made out to be because I've never had a problem with my signal, ever.
What's hypocritical is the first response where the guy claims Apple users have to have their stuff work.
Two things. One, if it's the iPhone, something is wrong with the phone. If it's HTC, then it's something that happens, no biggie.
Second, some Apple users like their things to work, because we SHOULD expect things to work.
I don't know about you all, but it doesn't matter what brand of phone of I have (I actually admitted in the Android phone that if I didn't have an iPhone or the option to buy one, I'd go after the Captivate since I have AT&T or if I were free to choose, the Epic), or any brand of any product for that matter, if I buy it, I expect it to work.
Is that a problem that only Apple users have while some HTC users don't mind if their phone has issues? I don't think so. I think Apple, HTC and other brands users would all want their phone to work as advertised.
Hence the hyprocisy of the CFO of HTC. As everyone told Apple, so should we all tell HTC, just fix the damn problem.
still... what OS you gonna run? that's the key to why i made "the switch".
and this antenna has to stop, who cares.
Would you like me to provide you with a video using my g/f's phone where I can make it drop 10 calls in no longer than it takes to dial them?
There is a HUGE, MASSIVE difference between, "We cover the antennae of our phone and lose a bar or two" and "I put my finger here and now I can't talk to the other person I'm calling because the phone drops the call within a few seconds."
“However, it is inevitable that a phone’s signal strength will weaken a little when covered in its entirety by a user’s palms or fingers.”
This is not a design flaw. This has nothing to do with HTC making substandard phones. The methods that current technology uses to transmit signals can be altered and slightly weakened by covering said antennae. It's not new or unique to any manufacturer. What made the situation with Apple such an issue was that you could go from 5 bars to 0 bars in 5 seconds, and you could get a call to drop no matter how strong your reception was. That's something that simply isn't true of other phones, no matter which way you try to slice it. No other US phone to my knowledge has had to issue cases to it's consumers due to the fact that the phone wouldn't maintain call strength when held the normal way.
It's really disturbing how many people try to defend Apple's situation here, equate losing a couple of bars with a 5 bar to zero dropped call. It was a design flaw in the iPhone 4. It happens to every company. Some people's phones had it, other did not. I have personally had experience and directly observed the phone dropping calls, so I can say for a fact that the problem itself was not overstated, although the true amount of users experiencing problems is probably a little overblown.
The situation would have been so much less of an issue if Apple had not bragged so much about how revolutionary it's antennae in the iP4 was, and then held a press conference that was full of arrogance and shirking responsibility for said design flaw.
when you break it down to the essence of the problem; both suck & my whackberry without a camera kicks their minuscule asses any in' day of the mother in' week!
No . Widows is the worse operating system I have ever used.
lol butthurt
Depending on how much time you have, or your level of expertise: Some linux blend, or Win7. Both are outstanding operating systems, (linux however requires a little more knowledge).
As far as this is concerned (and I know you weren't responding to me), I do think it at least sounds a little hypocritical of this HTC guy to make this statement, even with the qualifications which have been stated in this thread. As far as the "just work" comments about apple fans, I think it is less related to the working part and more related to the fact that the more you make it fool proof, the less useful it is to those who are not fools. I want my stuff to work too, but I want the option of breaking it - LOL (not literally, but I hope you know what I mean). I have always been a tinkerer (destroyed several radios when I was young in this process), and if given the time, I love to be able to do this. This is why open source is a little more appealing to me. Hardware at this point is a wash, it is really only about the software and image (on both sides):
Apple: OOOooo this is pretty and trendy and many others have these and we can talk about them.
Android: This is the new way of things and most importantly it isn't that CrApple that all the sheep buy.
This completely ignores the argument though. It's not about the option to break it, but rather, that according to HTC's standards, it's broken, plain and simple.
And we're not talking about an Android phone but a Windows Mobile phone, so bringing up Android in this argument is COMPLETELY irrelevant.
We're not talking software, but hardware. HTC tried to jump on Apple's hardware and now have the same problem.
As for CH, I didn't even have to read your whole post (I got to video of GF's phone and that's it) to know what it said. You have your video and I could make mine showing you that I can't make my phone drop calls if I tried. If I'm not mistaken, you don't live in San Antonio, so maybe it's the network and not the phone so much. In San Antonio, I've never had a problem with an AT&T phone dropping calls, but I've had problems with Sprint phones dropping calls.
Again, as far as hardware is concerned, Apple haters who have this phone should be as mad at HTC as they were with Apple. Just make the damn phone work.
And as I've stated before, I don't care if EVERY iPhone 4 has a signal problem, as long as mine works perfectly fine then that's all that matters. And guess what, mine works PERFECTLY fine.
I will say this though. I've never been a Windows Phone person, but that phone looks pretty sweet. Would like to get my hands on it for about a week just to see what it can do.
Last edited by Nathan Explosion; 12-08-2010 at 08:16 PM.
If you do want to talk software though, I noticed in the HD7 commercials that Windows Mobile phones do have Netflix, and yet, Android phones don't.
Netflix has helped me tremendously when taking my 2 and 4 year olds anywhere that requires us to sit in a waiting room. I'm glad IOS 4 has it, and when on a wireless network, the video looks absolutely fantastic on the highest resolution screen on a phone.
No it doesn't completely ignore the argument since I said that I agree with you on the hypocrisy of the HTC guy. I was referring to your argument with whoever it was that posted about how apple users need something to just works. You countered with, yes you want your purchases to work (we are now broadening the argument about apple v. other consumers), then I countered with the above (paraphrasing) of course we want ours to work too, but at some point the tight controls which make it fool proof make it less that useful to those who aren't fools. I brought up android as an example of both easy and adaptable. I didn't defend WinPho7 because I don't own one and haven't had access to play with it. It may be spectacular like Win7 is, I don't know. As far as netflix, I could care less. I am not going to watch a movie on my phone, and I make sure to tell my kids (13 year old stepdaughter, and 3 year old daughter) to grab some books if we are going to be in the truck for very long.
Your point is ignoring the argument because I said people who buy HTC phones. I NEVER said ANDROID phones. Since we are talking about a Windows Phone, anything else you've said in reference to Android has now become irrelevant, so I didn't read it.
It's a very simple point I've made. We're talking hardware, not software. So it doesn't matter what the OS is, hence why your Android talk is irrelevant. I didn't say anything about IOS 4 being the best, I talked about the hardware of the iPhone 4 and HTC ie the antennas.
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