Consumer Reports Sales Verizon iPhone Has Reception Problems

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Consumer Reports issued a note about the reception problems of the AT&T (NYSE: T) iPhone 4 last July. Apple all but denied the trouble and offered free covers for the handsets that supposedly solved the problem.

Consumer Reports now says the Verizon Wireless iPhone 4 has the same problem. Fortunately for Verizon Wireless, the AT&T analysis did not appear to hurt its iPhone sales at all.

The CR website reports that:

The Verizon iPhone 4 closely resembles the original AT&T iPhone 4 in many positive respects, including offering great multimedia functionality, a sharp screen, and the best MP3 player we’ve seen on a phone. Unfortunately, it also shares with its sibling the possibility of compromised performance in low-signal conditions when used without a bumper or case.

Verizon or Apple may be forced to give out more rubber bumpers like those distributed after the AT&T problem. Verizon is fortunate because it did not get the raft of complaints that AT&T did last July. Now that Consumer Reports has issued it findings, it is almost certain that the owners of the Verizon Wireless iPhone 4 will suddenly “find” the problem. The herd mentality extends to smartphones.

Apple’s brand was not harmed by the AT&T reception problem. The AT&T 3G network is so poor that some members of the media and customers blamed the carrier for the problem. Now that Verizon’s version of the handset has similar characteristics the onus is back on Apple

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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