Doomsought wrote: "Are you Atheist? If so, you still have a religious belief."

This a a tired and specious argument. Not believing in something for which there is no evidence is not a religion.

But, let's put your hypothesis to a test. Do you believe in Santa Claus? No? Ok, you are an asanta-clausist and practice the religion of asanta-clausism. Do you believe in leprechauns? No? OK, you are an aleprechaunsist practicing the religion of aleprechaunsism. Do you believe the souls of the dead hang around and haunt houses? No? You're nothing but a aghostist worshiping at the alter of aghostism. Get it? Atheists simply don't believe in god the same way you don't believe in Santa Claus. That doesn't make it a religion.

Oh and you obviously don't understand science either. The scientific method does not rely on on the "assumption of fallibility". Where the hell did you get that from? Maybe you mean falsifiability? Falsifiability is a very different concept and is key to the scientific method. Humans are fallible. Scientists know this which why experiments must be repeatable and statistical analysis of data is required. But the scientific method doesn't "rely" on the "assumption of fallibility" in any way.

Dude, now your just picking nits and parsing my words to save face.

Good god. Yes, I watched the video. Like I said, interfering with the antenna causes data performance degradation.. It's fucking physics.

Do you own an iPhone? If not, why the fuck do you care?

If you do, return the fucking thing and be done with it.

That was my point. If all the iPhone owners do the same (instead of whining and playing amateur RF engineer) then Apple might change their tune.

Christ, is this shit really so hard to understand?

The video proves the issue is exactly the same as every other phone i.e. if you hold it in a way that interferes with the antenna, data communication performance suffers. But that's beside the point.

If the phone does not perform to your expectations, return it. Apple even went as far as to suggest that course of action in their PR letter. That's how you send a message to a company, not by whining on the internet and linking to someone's useless video. If the phone is a piece of shit, people should and will return it in mass.

To all the folks unhappy with both the performance of the new iPhone and Apple's response, please heed the advise in this portion of the press release:

"As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund."

Seriously. Please.

All this ridiculous, over-the-top, self-righteous indignation and emotional hand-wringing over a gadget not meeting your expectations is just pathetic.

Apple has taken a stand on this issue. They say it works as designed and claim the reception is better than their previous model. You think they're full of shit? Great. Quit posting whiney, indignant messages on the internet and return the goddam thing.

If the problem is half as bad as all the stories make it out to be, Apple will be flooded with returns and that will have a much greater effect that millions of lines of internet bitching.

Disclosure: I'm a satisfied owner of several Apple products. I don't own an iPhone and have no plans to purchase one. My wife and I have free-with-subscription LG phones on Verizon. Oh, and guess what? If I hold the phone by the bottom, signal degrades. If I hold it that way in an area with poor cell coverage, service is lost entirely. You think if I submit my sob story to Slashdot, Gizmodo, CNET, CNN, etc. they will make it front page news?

While I don't have any empirical data or specs to back up this claim, I strongly suspect the greatest contributors to the overall weight of the iPad are the glass screen and the battery. So, the only way to substantially reduce the weight would be to go with a plastic screen and a smaller battery. If they did that everyone would bitch about scratches and poor battery life.

Well, isn't that rich. We are in an economic crisis which was caused, in part, by the SEC being deliberately asleep-at-the-wheel. Now they are going to redeem themselves by appeasing a bunch of whiners who wouldn't be satisfied if Steve Jobs published all of his health records online.

Investors and would-be investors know absolutely everything they need to know. Steve Jobs had cancer and, as such, will likely die at an age lower than the national average. He is sick again. So sick that he's taking six months off work.

That's all you need to know.

If you currently own stock and think that the loss of Steve Jobs as CEO will cause the stock price to drop, you should sell your shares now. If you believe Apple will continue thrive without him, then you should hold your position.

If you are not a current stockholder, you should decide which of the above you believe and invest your money accordingly.

That's it.

If you feel you need to know more about the Steve Jobs' health, you are f*#%ing soulless ghoul.

Lawyers and the SEC? I've heard nothing of lawyers or the SEC demanding information regarding the CEO's health.

The only people speculating and demanding disclosure are blowhard journalists and stock market manipulators. The basis for their "concern" is purely from an ignorant and amateur medical diagnosis based on pictures and video.

Hell, Senator Bill Frist was rightly admonished for performing a video diagnosis of Terri Shiavo and he has a medical school degree.

Why the hell should Apple's board respond to a bunch of chicken-little wankers in the tech and financial press?

Frankly, I admire Apple for not feeding the trolls.

I can't say that I agree with you. The "large part" of the blame lies with sensationalist journalists and stock price manipulators.

Name one other company where people demand they to go on record regarding the health of the CEO when some band of journalists decides to perform an amateur medical diagnosis based on photographs and videos.

Senator Bill Frist was rightly admonished for performing a "video diagnosis" of Terri Schiavo...and he has a medical school degree. Why should Apple respond when a bunch of blowhards with no medical training whatsoever do the same thing with Steve Jobs?

The board is required to divulge information about his health if it affects his ability to do his job. They are under no obligation to respond to nutjobs and market makers.

...and watch the stock crater tomorrow.

Unfortunately, ever since Jobs lost significant weight as a result of his surgery (an obligatory side effect for the type of surgery he had), MacWorld keynotes have become a "Steve Jobs Death Watch" for the press. Before, during and after the keynote, more ink is spent on speculations regarding his health than the product announcements.

I think one side benefit of Apple's abandoning MacWorld is the press can no longer turn it into a morbid event.

With due respect, I think you completely missed the point of my message. That you or any unqualified Joe blow on the street has an opinion regarding the cause of the alleged connection issues with the iPhone is irrelevant.

My point is that musings of a financial analyst with no technical credentials whatsoever was picked up by numerous mainstream media outlets (including Barrons, CNET and Slashdot), yet no one bothered to point out that this man was, for all practical purposes, talking out of his ass.

Your list of possible sources of information misses the most important one: individuals with direct expertise in the area in question. There isn't a statistical crapshoot for accurate information as you have implied. There are experts in the area of cellular RF engineering. Anyone mouthing off on this issue who lacks those credentials should be ignored.

Regarding your opinion, I would say that you have not thought everything through and appear to have jumped to several conclusions yourself. Although it is entirely possible that the iPhone has a problem that causes connection losses in excess of other cellular devices, no scientifically and statistically valid evidence exists to support such a claim.

The fact that many people have complained on internet forums about connection problems does not prove that the iPhone drops more calls or has poorer reception than other devices. Despite this lack of demonstrable scientific evidence, you believe Apple should "fess up" to having a problem with their product. I would argue that they would be foolish to do that.

If it can be demonstrated in a controlled, repeatable experiment that the iPhone's reception is below par relative to competing devices, Apple should take swift action to fix or replace the units. However, until such evidence exists, it would be foolhardy of Apple to make public statements on the matter.