Mine was to arrive September 2nd…but I wasn’t complaining. I was just praying that I never drop my iPhone 4 before then. Today and e-mail changed the bumper arrival date…a month EARLY! I was notified that my bumper was shipped and I can expect it August 2nd.

Did Apple purposely let us down, predicting ship dates so far off in the future…just to make uys jump for joy when they arrive earlier than what was predicted? What do you think?

With the media going on and on about Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna issue, and you went by what they report…you’d think it was so bad, you’d be able to go to and see the lines of unhappy iPhone customers. Trouble is, there are no lines of unhappy people. From the TODAY show to TUWA, millions of iPhone owners are unhappy. That desertion is not based on fact.

What’s a fact is that this issue doesn’t affect a large percentage of iPhone owners. If everybody had the problem, then Apple would have the black eye (or two) that many media outlets imply it has because of this situation. Sure, Consumer Reports came out with their tests and gave the iPhone 4 the biggest ratings of any smartphone, but couldn’t recommend it because of the antenna issue. However, Consumer Reports didn’t truly do a thorough test. According to Bob Egan (a former electromagnetic engineer), they would have had to do several things (that they didn’t do) in order to get the truest results.

The one jewel that Apple has in it’s crown…that often gets ignored, is that what they do is very calculated. This situation is different, in that they issued a press release that I can gaurentee you was not written in the presence of Steve Jobs. That was a bad mistake. This press conference today will patch up that damage. And you can bet that the Apple we know and love will come through with what we’ve loved Apple for: a solution, and some options if you don’t like that solution.

Really – this is Steve’s Crown Jewel! (other than the iPad) Why would he or Apple do anything less? I suspect that this will not only be solved very soon, but it will all be calmed down to a barely audible peep…and it will back to business as usual. One thing that media has based on fact is that this issue has not stopped Apple from selling iPhones like crazy. Stores are still out of stock…and the white iPhone hasn’t gone on sale yet. What does that tell you?

AppleInsider now reports that they have given iPhone 4 the highest rating, and considers it the best smartphone available. What? Yeah…iPhone 4 scored 76 points, 2 more than the iPhone 3GS and HTC’s new EVO 4G, both ranking 74 points. The yo-yoing is getting me dizzy.

AppleInsider continues with, As noted by John Paczkowski of the Wall Street Journal “Digital Daily” blog, the Consumer Reports paid evaluation rates the display, navigation, web browsing, multimedia and battery life of iPhone 4 as “excellent,” gives its phoning and messaging a “very good” ranking, and describes voice quality as “good.” “Well this is ironic,” Paczkowski writes. “iPhone 4 is hands-down the best smartphone available today, but Consumer Reports advises against buying it.”

Ironic indeed…but for us, it really shows the truth behind this fiasco – iPhone 4 is the BEST smartphone available today, and the only thing people can come up with to slam it is this “death grip” antenna issue…which isn’t an issue at all if you put Apple’s own Bumper on it, or any case at all…which most people do anyway; more so now that there are two glass panels that could crack if dropped four times (going off of tests reported that eventually with a fourth drop, the screen cracks.)

Egan explains:

To even reasonably run a scientific test, the iPhone should have been sitting on a non-metallic pedestal inside an anechoic chamber. The base station simulator should have been also sitting outside the chamber and had a calibrated antenna plumbed to it from inside the chamber.

Bottom line. From what I can see in the reports, Consumer Reports replicated the same uncontrolled, unscientific experiments that many of the blogging sites have done.

I’m going to have to agree with some people who think it a bit odd that this Consumer Reports story comes out just before Apple’s quarterly report which happens next week. If they had not come out with their prior report, stating the “problem” was a non-issue, then I probably wouldn’t smell a rat…but putting the two together, it is odd. People, tech blogs, etc do try to drive down stock before Apple’s quarterly reports, it’s possible this could be part of that.

However, I personally have been able to re-create this “death-grip” in my home office, but it has not affected my AT&T calls or 3G usage. What I’d like to hear more of is from people that haven’t been affected by this “problem” – I’m sure that I am not the only one, and most certainly am among the majority. This issue has been made into a mountain from a mole hill, and not everyone is affected.

Lastly, if this is truly a hardware issue – I am really baffled that Apple would not have seen or tested this and caught it before production. The immediate thought when suggesting putting an antenna on the outside of a phone would be, “would that be affected by people’s skin touching it?” Isn’t that an obvious concern?

Ad Age has reported that Oprah dropped by Hearst headquarters to mark the 10th anniversary of O Magazine…and gave each staff member and iPad with leather case (engraved with their initials) and a $10,000 check, no matter how long they had been employed at the company.

A Hearst spokeswoman confirmed the visit and gifts. “These were personal gifts to the staff from Oprah to thank them for their hard work and dedication to the magazine,” the spokeswoman said. via Ad Age

We agree with Ad Age that this is a much better version of “you get a car, you get a car, everybody gets a car!” And it makes us wish we worked there too!

The magazine had a difficult launch period, but has since become a powerhouse and most likely will continue on that stretch, probably faring better than other magazines, which have had a difficult time staying healthy and viable as the digital age ushers in the non-tangible periodical.

“Because of the incredible interest in iPhone 4, today was the busiest online sales day in AT&T history. As of Tuesday afternoon, customers who preorder iPhone 4 moving forward will receive their device on June 25 or later, depending on when the order is placed. We’ll email customers with confirmation once their order is placed, and again when it ships. In addition, we will have devices available on a first-come, first-serve basis in our stores beginning on June 24.” via Engadget

Looks like Apple has once again conjured up another hit on their hands. There is no telling just how many were available for pre-order, but if they’ve sold out, that’s a pretty good indicator of the demand for the new iPhone. I myself was a bit stealthy…after hearing/reading about all the snags and failures via the Apple and AT&T site, I discovered you could reserve one at the local Apple store through the newly released Apple Store iPhone app. Could this be the reason that app was also released today?

As John Paczkowski puts it in WSJ Digital Daily:

And there it is. Today Apple, not Microsoft is the world’s most valuable technology company.

As I write this Apple (AAPL) shares are trading at $244.87, giving it a market capitalization of $223.1 billion. Meanwhile, shares of Microsoft (MSFT) are trading at $24.79 and the company’s market cap sits at $217.78 billion.

The only company that is worth more than Apple? Exxon-Mobil. Pretty damn impressive.

As others have pointed out, it is ironic because Microsoft did breathe new life into Apple back in the day. However, in 1998 Bill gates said this:

“What I can’t figure out,” Gates asked in a 1998 interview, “is why he (Steve Jobs) is even trying (to be the CEO of Apple)? He knows he can’t win.” At the time, Microsoft was a $250-billion company, while Apple, Inc. was worth $6 billion, even after Microsoft had given $150 million to Apple in 1997. – via Huffington Post

Touché Apple Inc.

Adobe really is in trouble with Flash. One can say that this is what happens when you mistreat an underdog and its users. Unfortuntely for Adobe, that underdog was Apple, 10 years ago. My how time does change things. Yet, what really is at stake here is the now and the future…Flash is old and proprietary, and doesn’t have the ability to use touch technology. Touch is the now and the future.

Adobe made a bad decision way back when to align itself with Windows, so much so that it consistently ignored Apple and its users. Therefore Adobe products didn’t function as well as those on the Windows platform. The problem was that Apple had long ago told Adobe that they needed to adopt Cocoa. They never did…until two weeks ago. As Job’s says in an open letter about Flash, they were the last developer to adopt OS X.