Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) said on Friday that the company plans on discontinuing its case program at the end of September, a move which was designed to placate disgruntled iPhone 4 users that had antenna issues, but Consumer Reports saying that those issues still haven’t been resolved and that it won’t recommend the iPhone 4.
Consumer Reports said in a blog post on its website that, “[Putting] the onus on any owners of a product to obtain a remedy to a design flaw is not acceptable to us.”
Apple ended the program after analysts at the company suggested that the reception issues only affected a small number of customers. “We now know that the iPhone 4 antenna attenuation issue is even smaller than we originally thought,” said the company on its website.
The iPhone 4 has been plagued by Antenna issues since the phone’s July launch. Analysts discovered that by touching the metal band on the lower side of the phone, the antenna signal strength would decline, potentially leading to dropped calls.
Despite the antenna issues, Consumer Reports still gave the iPhone 4 the highest smartphone rating it’s tested. The organization argued that it’s not-recommended rating came down to Apple’s failure to properly acknowledge the problem and the company’s failure to supply evidence of a reversal of the procedure.
“Apple provided no data to detail its claim of lower-than-expected incidence of dropped calls,” said Consumer Reports on its website. The firm added that until Apple can “provide a permanent fix for the phone’s reception issues,” the iPhone 4 won’t be getting a recommendation.
Shares of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) traded up 0.41% hitting $268.14 during mid-day trading on Tuesday.
