Stop the presses!

Apple Acknowledges Flaw in iPhone Signal Meter

As Saturday’s New York Times reported, Apple – after several days of calling its customers idiots –  is finally owning up to screwing up the iPhone 4.

Well, sort of owning up.

The problem arises when the iPhone 4 is held in the infamous “death grip” (see photo above), which results in calls being dropped.

From the Times piece:

Apple said on Friday that for years its phones had been exaggerating signal strength by displaying too many bars — indicating stronger reception than there ever was. The problem, Apple said, is a bug in the software, which it promised to fix soon.

That’s a smokescreen of Philip Morrisesque proportions. But that’s Apple story and it’s sticking with it.

Last week Apple said that people who saw their reception bars drop when they held the phone a certain way should simply hold it differently. That comment was greeted with derision by some users, and with barbs by rivals. It prompted scores of Web videos on how to avoid the so-called death grip on the iPhone 4. Motorola ran ads for its new Droid Xsaying that one of its great features was that users could hold it any way they wanted.

In the letter on Friday, Apple said, “Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong.” The company said the formula “in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength.”

Now the issue turns to Apple’s market strength. Verdict in the Times report:

Like Apple’s previous response, its admission of a software bug — after suggesting last week that the problem had to do with hardware — is unlikely to diminish either scorn from critics or sales of the iPhone 4.

Time, as the feller says, will tell.