Will iPhone 4 antennagate change Apple?

Apple let outsiders control its reputation during the iPhone 4 antennagate controversy. Will the experience make Apple a more communicative and open company?

In a rare press conference, Steve Jobs took the stage Friday and offered to give customers free "Bumper" cases to mitigate problems with iPhone reception.

Apple executives only do press conferences a couple of times a year, and all of the ones I remember have been to announce new products. So this event, where Apple took the stage to respond to accusations against it, was huge.

Jobs said the iPhone 4 problem isn't a big deal, and trotted out statistics to back his assertion: Apple sold 3 million iPhone 3s in the first three weeks the phone was on sale, only 0.5% of iPhone 4 owners have called Apple tech support to complain about the antenna problem, and the percentage of owners who returned their phones was less than for the iPhone 3GS, released in 2009. The iPhone 3 does drop calls at a higher rate than the 3GS, but the difference is just one additional call per 100, Jobs said. 

If Apple is being honest about the situation -- and there's no reason to believe it's being dishonest -- then this problem should go away quickly. It'll be a forgotten story in a year, and the iPhone 4 will be another smash hit product for Apple.

But Apple has itself to blame for how badly its reputation has suffered in the past few weeks. Not because it came out with a flawed product. Every company does that now and then. Apple's problem was that it said almost nothing, while news articles and rumors swirled.

And when Apple did speak up prior to today, it just made the situation worse, with e-mail attributed to Steve Jobs blaming users for holding the phone wrong, and a later statement that the problem was entirely cosmetic, and a software fix would solve it.

Other companies, when faced with a problem that could cause significant damage to the brand, spring into action, sending out battalions of PR people, social media managers, and customer service representatives to talk to every single person who has a complaint. Good companies try to fix the problem, evil companies try to paper the problem over, but they all act.

Apple remained silent for a long time. That's its corporate culture. Apple is an uncommunicative company. Most of the time, that strategy works for them. This time, it came back to bite them.

Or did it?

By waiting so long to respond, Apple was able to marshal a powerful set of statistics and come up with a unified plan of response before saying anything. To use a military metaphor, it's like Apple massed a stupendous attack on the beaches at Normandy, bringing overwhelming force to bear to attack the problem at a single blow.

Will Apple change? Will it become a more open company? A lot will depend on whether the current strategy for dealing with the problem works.

If Apple does change, and it starts responding to my queries, I'll probably pass out. 

Mitch Wagner is a freelance technology journalist and social media strategist.