Did Apple’s Response to Antennagate Work?
The short answer: Yes.
The evidence:
This is a chart of 4 popular tech blogs, and their daily coverage of the iPhone 4 antenna issue by number of articles in the days leading up to and following Apple’s press conference on Friday.
I wish I had a few more days of data, but I didn’t start tracking the content with my feed reader until the Tuesday prior to the event.
Gizmodo and Engadget post more content overall (on all topics) than Ars and BGR. Gizmodo posts more than Engadget. The average number of articles posted on the days I tracked:
Ars Technica: 11 articles
Boy Genius Report: 11 articles
Engadget: 30 articles
Gizmodo: 44 articles
My chart represents articles that specifically address the antenna issue and the iPhone 4. (Articles about Apple on other topics weren’t included.) The totals over ten days:
Ars Technica: 5 articles
Boy Genius Report: 14 articles
Engadget: 20 articles
Gizmodo: 37 articles
The spike on the Friday is obviously based on the fact that Apple gave their press conference in the middle of that day. Leading up to the event, a total of 6 articles are posted on Tuesday, 13 on Wednesday, 18 on Thursday and finally, 26 on the day of the event. (Half of which belong to Gizmodo.)
The first full business day after the event, the total falls to 3. (All Gizmodo.)
Notably, most of the weekend activity (and several of the articles which have popped up this week) discuss the responses and press releases of competing companies which were called out during Apple’s press release. Not only are there less articles, there’s a distinct shift in focus.
I don’t have the numbers, but my reasonably informed guess (I follow these sites) is that the days prior to the first Tuesday I collected figures for would show each blog averaging somewhere between the Tuesday and Wednesday numbers, with Gizmodo continuing to lead the pack.
I expect the numbers to flatline starting tomorrow. If blogs stop writing about the issue, mainstream outlets aren’t going to bother and if mainstream outlets don’t bother, the “issue” goes away for most people.
I think it’s clear that we won’t know for sure how well Apple’s “solution” went over until we see the the current quarter’s numbers, three months from now. Still, given that analysts, pundits, and “experts” were demanding that Apple issue a total recall of a flagship device–reporting that it would cost over a billion dollars to do so–and that blogs were posting multiple stories merely to mock the iPhone’s attenuation issue, it’s hard to argue that Apple hasn’t at least successfully (and finally) managed the message.
My bet: That’s all that matters.
