Apple's image still shines despite iPhone woes

By Jessica Mintz 

updated 5:40 p.m. ET Aug. 28, 2008

First an iPhone price cut left early buyers feeling foolish, and then came reports that some iPods were spitting sparks. Now the new iPhone 3G has been marred by bugs, spotty service, disappearing programs for the device and a veil of secrecy over software developers trying to broaden its appeal.

Such a string of mishaps and missteps might throw another electronics company into crisis. But of course, Apple Inc. isn't just another electronics company. Even as iPhone griping rages online, it looks like Apple's sterling reputation will emerge untarnished.

"The objective reality is that Apple does plenty of wrong," said Peter Fader, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. However, Fader said, the company's loyal fans, and even casual users, have come to identify so strongly with Apple's high-end, individualistic vibe that they're willing to look the other way.

"Very few companies have this kind of iconic status where anything they do, even if it is mediocre, will automatically have a halo around it," he said.

Complaints rolled in
Kern Bruce, a 25-year-old Web designer in Boston, waited in line for 13 hours to buy an original iPhone. He sold it to upgrade to a 3G.

"There was no going back at that point, but after I sold it, I quickly started to regret it," he said. Bruce's complaints echo countless Web forum posts: The device gets uncomfortably warm. Programs crash. And it so seldom connects to AT&T's speedier third-generation, or 3G, data network that Bruce carries the iPhone around with 3G turned off.

Apple, which declined to comment for this story, said little as complaints rolled in, then released a software fix it said would improve the device's ability to connect to 3G networks. Since then, users on various sites have reported no improvement.

Bruce, an Apple aficionado since the very first iPod, also recently returned a MacBook Air because it got too hot, and said his Apple cinema-display monitor sports burned-in images.

"They're skimping on materials, on testing things to gain market share, but they're kind of pushing away people who have been with the brand even when (it was) struggling," he said.

Yet when asked whether he'd abandon Apple, the answer was no.

Macs are "a lot better than the alternative, in terms of stability, viruses, being able to do high-end graphics work," he said. "I wouldn't tell people to stop getting Apple products. They make very good products."

The new iPhone marked an important shift in the company's relationship with software programmers. The first iPhone didn't let outsiders write legitimate software for the device, though hackers did so anyway. Apple reversed course with the 3G and gave outside programmers tools to build iPhone applications and sell them on iTunes.

MORE FROM TECH AND GADGETS

Tech and gadgets Section Front

Digital TV switch may leave millions behind Auto tech takes a big bite from Apple Flirting class offered to German computer geeks Blu-ray discs seen as bright spot in glum season Web startup to offer foreign news At CES, progress comes a step at a time Stevie Wonder: Touch-screens alienate blind   RealNetworks confident of lawsuit win 100 high-def movies on a stamp-sized chip? Dell reveals ultra-thin laptop, but few details Tech and gadgets Section Front   Add Tech and gadgets headlines to your news reader: