Apple Needs To Address Consumer Reports‘ Negative iPhone 4 Review

By Joe Ciarallo on July 13, 2010 10:17 AM

It’s been a bit of a tough week for Apple. Consumer Reports loves many aspects of the new iPhone 4, but can’t recommend it to consumers because of a faulty antenna, which leads to bad connections.

Now, there is already talk about a potential recall of the device. To top things off, tech gadget blog Gizmodo says it has evidence of Apple editing discussion forums on their site that mention the issue.

Brooke Hammerling, founder of tech PR firm Brew Media Relations, told PRNewser today that she has an iPhone 4 and that she definitely sees the antenna issues.

“It’s not a myth,” she said.

In terms of what Apple should do next, Hammerling said, “If you have a legitimate news source like Consumer Reports saying this, they’re going to have to respond.”

Various PR experts who spoke with the site Cult of Mac said a hardware recall is “inevitable.”

“Is it recall worthy? I don’t know,” said Mike Farber, general manager of tech PR firm LaunchSquad’s Boston office, in an interview with PRNewser. “Apple’s culture, as I understand it, would never want do do something like that.”

“If this were any other company in America, this would be a recall, no doubt,” he said, and added, “this is core functionality. It’s not like some sub-feature that isn’t working properly.”