I really do hate to admit it, but if BP <i>had</i> said <i>"All of the easy sources of oil have been found fifty years ago. If the oil industry stops taking risks, many of you would be out of work in less than a decade. We all want a future of clean energy, but no one sees a way to get there as quickly as we need to. We will do everything we can to clean up the spill, and to make things right with the Gulf economy."</i> then I think I would feel better about the company than I do now.
> He spoke indisputable truth<p>Scott Adams' problem seems to be that he is living inside the reality distortion field. Part of the whole problem with Jobs' handling of this is that he has repeatedly failed to tell the truth (at very least not the whole truth, but arguably he has lied in an absolute sense). To be specific: Jobs stated that all phones have this flaw. But <i>all phones do not have this flaw</i>. The flaw is that the phone has an antenna that is shorted by the user holding it a normal way. No other phones have this flaw. It is an outright lie. Jobs himself made a big deal on stage about how no other phones have this kind of antenna when he was selling it as a good thing. Now he says that all phones have the same problems that are caused by this unique antenna design. No they don't. It's a lie.<p>The real tactic here is simply to gloss over the truth and hope you get away with it - at the moment I'm not sure whether Jobs has or not.
<p><pre><code> But the central question that was in everyone's head
before the press conference - "Is the iPhone 4 a dud"
- has, well, evaporated.
</code></pre>
That was never the central question in anybody's head. No one thought the phone was a <i>dud.</i><p>A more common question was, will Apple own up to making an avoidable design flaw? Look around the Web at the responses to the press conference and decide just what questions have evaporated, and what new ones appeared.
Something I think that needs to be mentioned is that what was happening to Apple in the media is similar to what happened to Toyota with their acceleration issue a couple of months back.<p>The number of complaints of "unintended acceleration" shot up after it was initially covered in the media. There was no real focus on investigative journalism, or analysis of the actual statistics by news organizations. There was also the whole rigged ABC News broadcast, which they admitted later to faking. Toyota's Recall became the top most reported story in Jan-Feb 2010. And IIRC, as the media hysteria was winding down, the NHTSA concluded the majority of unintended acceleration was driver error.<p>In Apple's case, they had made a weakspot into a visual accent. And Jobs mentioned their algorithms made things appear more dramatic than they were. Both of these things were probably dumb, but dumb-like-the-recessed-headphone-jack (gaffe), not dumb-like-the-Microsoft-Kin (flawed design). The software fix is already out and the hardware will probably get fixed next iteration (perhaps coated?) and isn't a big deal. Yet the media coverage greatly outpaced the issue, and again no mention of statistics or data.<p>There are a lot of parties interested in seeing these reputable companies take a dive. It's great for competitors; but more cynically - its great for hedge fund managers with certain short positions... Reporting misinformation and sensationalizing news for securities price manipulation isn't new, and it's been done to Apple before.<p>From 2006:<p><i>Aaron Task: Okay. Another stock that a lot of people are focused on right now seems to be Apple.</i><p><i>Jim Cramer: Yeah. Apple’s very important to spread the rumor that both Verizon and ATT have decided they don’t like the phone. It’s a very easy one to do because it’s also you want to spread the rumor that’s it not gonna be ready for MAC World. This is very easy ‘cause the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim that it’s credible because you spoke to someone at Apple, ‘cause Apple doesn’t –</i><p><i>Aaron Task:They’re not gonna comment. They’re not gonna –</i><p><i>Jim Cramer: So it’s really an ideal short. Again, if I were a short Apple, I would be working very hard today to get that. The way you would do that is you pick up the phone and you call six trading desks and say, “Listen, I just got off the phone with my contact at Verizon and he has already said, ‘Listen, we’re a Lucky G house. We’re a Samsung house. We’re a Motorola house. There’s no room for Apple. They want too much. We’re not gonna let them in. We’re not gonna let them do what they did to music.’” I think that’s a very effective way to keep a stock down.</i>
Over analysis. That might be part of authors line of work, but this reminds me of something my humanities professor talked to some of us, engineers about some time back.<p>Three doctors, a general doctor, an orthopedic doctor and a neuro surgeon are casually talking to each other outside a building. They notice a man walking abnormally, slightly
dragging one foot.
The General practitioner says, the guy must be shot on the left foot thus causing the behavior.
The orthopedic doctor predicts, the guy was born with one foot longer than the other thus explaining the behavior.
The neuro surgeon predits, the guy seems to have suffered a stroke in the past and this might be a result of that.<p>Now all of them are curious to know the truth and approach the guy in question.
The guy just had his shoe damaged.
For an example of a backfiring "high ground" maneuver, take a look at Mark Zuckerberg's Hoodie.<p><a href="http://www.switched.com/2010/06/07/mark-zuckerbergs-illuminati-like-hoodie-reveals-facebook-as-the/" rel="nofollow">http://www.switched.com/2010/06/07/mark-zuckerbergs-illumina...</a><p>Really, the message he wanted to convey included goals that sounded as lofty as Google's. In short, he seems to want to organize the world's connections in much the same way Google organized much of its HTML information.<p>Why did it backfire? Well, the intent was obvious to Mark, but not so obvious to the audience.<p><a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/il/hindsight_bias/" rel="nofollow">http://lesswrong.com/lw/il/hindsight_bias/</a><p>Also, a flop sweat during your interview/presentation is a big hurdle to overcome.
In the PR world, there is a saying that "all publicity is good publicity".<p>What about this antenna issue--is all the coverage a net positive for Apple or is this an exception to the "rule"?<p>Just curious to know what others here think.