"The Consumer Report recommendation is a clear line in the sand. Presumably, (Apple was) aware that this was coming out and it would have been better to have done something about it before it did," Glenn Bunting, a managing director at Sitrick and Company, a strategic communications firm, told Xinhua.
The Consumer Reports post did, however, prompt Apple to take action. Following the analysis released by the non-profit organization on Monday, Apple announced that it would be holding a press conference in the company's Cupertino, California headquarters to address questions that had been raised about the iPhone 4 in the past several weeks.
After demonstrating that failed signal strength from touching the antenna was a problem that was pervasive in the cell phone industry, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs emphasized the company's commitment to its customers.
In following with Consumer Reports' recommendation and the demands of numerous individual consumers, including an online petition that technology blog Gizmodo had circulated since late June, Jobs agreed to provide free covers to all users to remedy the situation.
While this solution is expected to solve the phone's reception issues, not everyone sees this as the end of the road in Apple's public relations challenges.
"What you saw in the press conference was not a single second of contrition. In terms of the final result, it certainly is a good start but Apple fundamentally refuses to acknowledge that there's a problem," said J.R. Parker, an attorney at Kershaw Cutter and Ratinoff (KCR), in an interview with Xinhua.
KCR is one of several law firms hoping to bring the technology firm to court on several counts, including intentional misrepresentation. Parker indicated that consumers continue to contact the law firm with complaints, but admits that it is too early to tell how this latest announcement will affect the lawsuits.
