Saturday, April 30, 2011

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

Future iPhone 5 Already Plagued With “Privacy Fix”

Posted: 30 Apr 2011 05:30 AM PDT


angry steve jobs iphone 5

Steve Jobs and Apple already have to fix two major features of the iPhone 5.

With rumors of a return to a metal back and internal antenna, the iPhone 4′s Antennagate controversy last Summer has already forced Apple to implement a “fix” into the iPhone 5′s design. Now, the privacy issue is forcing Apple and Steve Jobs to do damage control for an iPhone 5 that hasn’t even materialized yet.

In spite of the millions of iPhones and iPads sold,  it has been a rough road for Steve Jobs and Apple recently.

In addition to Jobs’ health issues — which have had its share of business reprocussions on Apple, with shareholders fretting over CEO succession details in the untimely event of his passing — there have been a series of public relations blunders that he and Apple have had to damage control, beginning from as far back as last summer.

First, there was the embarrassment of the iPhone 4 prototype being leaked via Gizmodo. Then, Antennagate marred the release of the iPhone 4. More recently, Apple has been branded by eco-warriors Greenpeace as the “least green” tech company on the planet, and now U.S. lawmakers are aggressively attacking Apple’s flagship device — the iPhone — for logging users’ locations. In almost all of these cases, Steve Jobs has aggressively defended Apple, its products, and its business practices. WSJ.com reports that “Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, who is on medical leave, was unapologetic in his defense of his company’s actions. ‘Your precise location is never transmitted to Apple,’ he said in an interview.”

But there’s no doubt that these ongoing PR foibles are straining Apple’s marketing efforts. This is particularly true for the upcoming iPhone 5.

Amid recent reports that the iPhone 5 could turn out to be a mere refresh of the current iPhone 4, Apple will have to convince iPhone users that the A5 chip and iOS 5 is something to get excited about, should these purported features end up to be the centerpiece of the iPhone 5′s developments.

Even more concerning is that the new iPhone 5 specs may include as many “fixes” as it does new features.

Our favorite tech news source IT Pro Portal recently reported that Apple will indeed fix what they forgivingly call the “iPhone Location Logging Bug.” Writer Radu Tyrsina states that Apple “will be making changes in an iOS software update soon that will ‘fix’ certain bugs relating to the unencrypted file,” according to a Q&A that the company published in light of the controversy. In order to contain the public relations damage of the issue, Apple has taken a careful tack, stipulating that the inclusion of the “secret file” was a “mistake” — albeit an innocent one — and that Apple never downloaded this information nor used the data maliciously.

In any case, fixing the iPhone Location Logging Bug on the iPhone 5 won’t be a feature that Steve Jobs will be able to brag about when he walks out onto the stage to present it — whenever that may be. The same can be said for the antenna “fixes” that will make their way onto the iPhone 5 — namely, the purported return to an internal antenna and/or a metal back.

Is The iPhone 5 Already Dead On Arrival?

Several tech pundits have started to wonder: based on what we know at this point, does the iPhone 5 really have any chance to match or surpass its Android counterparts? The fact that Apple already has to “fix” two major features by essentially retro-engineering the iPhone 5 back to pre-iPhone 4 specs is a palpable black eye that will need to be overcome if the next iPhone is to compete in the smartphone market. But when you add up the two fixes, the later-than-usual release, and now the prospect of lackluster features, the outlook for the iPhone 5 begins to dim.

And considering that the antenna and privacy issues, plus the fact that every new 2011 Android release pushes the iPhone 4 further into obsolescence, an ominous forecast for the iPhone 5 leaves potential iPhone buyers with more and more reasons to go with an Android phone.

There is, however, one reason to hope.

One of the defining characteristics of Apple and Steve Jobs is the ability to blow our minds. Time and time again, Apple has managed to outdo itself and its competitors with new designs and features that revolutionize the consumer electronics industry. For as much as we think we know what is and what isn’t for the iPhone 5, something may indeed be in the works that no one will see coming, and that no competitor will be able to match.