Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) confirmed that it would be ending its free case give away to iPhone users, which the company began in July after complaints surfaced about low signal quality because of the phone’s antenna design.
The Cupertino-based company also said that iPhones purchased after September 30th would be subject to its normal return policy, in which the customer can return a phone within 30 days for a 100% refund.
Apple said in a statement on its website that, “We now know that the iPhone 4 antenna attenuation issue is even smaller than we originally thought.”
The iPhone 4 was launched in Apple in June, but users immediately began to complain about dropped calls when they covered the lower left corner of the device with their hands. At the time, antenna experts blamed the issue on the phone’s antenna design, which a stainless steel band frames a glass case which doubles as an antenna. Experts said that human touch distorted the signal that the iPhone received.
After public outcry, Jobs called a press conference in July in which he apologized for the issue, but did not say that its design choices were to blame. Jobs said that only 1% of iPhone 4 users had suffered from antenna issues.
Some believe that Apple will soon begin offering a modified version of the iPhone 4 which fixes the issue, but Apple has declined to comment whether that’s the case.
Apple Inc. (Apple) designs, manufactures, and markets personal computers, mobile communication devices, and portable digital music and video players, and sells a variety of related software, services, peripherals, and networking solutions. The Company sells its products worldwide through its online stores, its retail stores, its direct sales force, and third-party wholesalers, resellers, and value-added resellers. In addition, the Company sells a variety of third-party Macintosh (Mac), iPhone and iPod compatible products, including application software, printers, storage devices, speakers, headphones, and various other accessories and peripherals through its online and retail stores, and digital content and applications through the iTunes Store. The Company sells to consumer, small and mid-sized business (SMB), education, enterprise, government and creative customers. In December 2009, the Company acquired digital music service Lala.
Apple traded up 0.13% during mid-day trading on Friday, ending the week at $263.41
