A look back at Antennagate and Apple's iPhone 4 bumper case program

Summary

“Antennagate” refers to a scandal around the iPhone 4 dropping calls when held with a relatively normal grip.
Apple tried to skirt the issue when it reached the media, but was ultimately forced to hand out free bumper cases and face a class action lawsuit.
CEO Steve Jobs may have been warned about the design before the iPhone 4’s launch.

While it’s easy to think of Apple as having always been dominant in smartphones since the first iPhone, that’s far from true. Samsung still has the largest global market share, according to Statista, and there was an early period where companies like Samsung or even BlackBerry maker Research in Motion could have swooped in for the kill if they’d made the right decisions. Or at least, exploited major mistakes on Apple’s part.

One such gaffe came to be known as “Antennagate.” If you’re too young to remember, or old enough that you forgot, here’s a brief history of what happened, and how Apple struggled to control its public image and avert disaster. It’s a lesson that affected the design of smartphones from then on.

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What was Antennagate?

A pattern of denial

Steve Jobs shows off iPhone 4 at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference.

Matthew Yohe / Wikipedia

After the iPhone 4 was released on June 24, 2010, it quickly racked up millions of sales. Indeed, before I go on, I should note that the phone was ultimately a long-term success. It’s often remembered fondly, since it was the first iPhone with an ultra-sharp Retina display and a FaceTime camera for video calls.

While the product was still in its honeymoon phase, however, people began to notice that holding one corner of the phone — the “death grip” — could kill its reception, causing it to drop calls. Media attention began to mount, prompting a statement from Apple that customers should “avoid gripping [the phone] in the lower left corner.” That didn’t satisfy anyone, and July 2010 saw the filing of a class action lawsuit against Apple and its main US carrier partner at the time, AT&T. The pair were accused of committing fraud by concealment and negligence.

A “death grip” could kill the iPhone 4’s reception, causing it to drop calls.

The same day the lawsuit was filed, Apple claimed it had discovered the real cause of the problem, which wasn’t a flaw in the iPhone 4’s new antenna design. Supposedly, it was a flaw with the way Apple’s software calculated signal strength, present since the first-generation iPhone. It promised a software fix, but that still didn’t appease the public — publications like Consumer Reports noted that the easiest way to fix the problem was with a piece of tape, or else using a case like Apple’s own “bumper” model.

In an unprecedented move, Apple called a press conference on July 16. The company brought journalists into its antenna testing labs, and then-CEO Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be providing free bumper cases to iPhone 4 owners through September 30, or else third-party cases when there wasn’t enough stock. He continued to downplay the issue, pointing to AppleCare numbers showing that only 0.55 percent of owners had made a complaint about antenna problems.

The company never truly admitted it made a design error. The class action suit was settled out of court two years later, and the initial version of the iPhone 4 continued to be sold until September 2013. Behind the scenes, it decided to change its antenna for CDMA versions of the phone, beginning with the Verizon model launched in February 2011. It wasn’t until the iPhone 4S — shipped later the same year — that every iPhone owner could count on solid reception without a case.

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What was the cause of the iPhone 4’s antenna problems?

Foreseeable consequences

To help make the iPhone 4 “the thinnest smartphone on the planet,” as Jobs dubbed it, Apple devised a new antenna design. This moved the antenna out of the device’s internals, instead making use of the phone’s stainless steel rim. There were three slits in the rim — one at the top, another in the lower-left corner, and a fake one in the lower-right for the sake of symmetry.

Apple appears to have known the gap might cause trouble before the iPhone 4 was even released.

It’s that gap in the lower-left that created chaos. We know this not just because that’s where people were holding their iPhones when they lost signal, but because that’s where sticking a piece of tape was a miraculous cure.

Despite its protests, Apple appears to have known the gap might cause trouble before the iPhone 4 was even released. On July 15, 2010, a Bloomberg report claimed that a senior antenna expert at Apple — Ruben Caballero — had warned Jobs that the new antenna might cause dropped calls. Assuming that’s true, it’s not clear why Jobs continued full-steam ahead.

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What was the fallout of Antennagate?

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme

An iPhone XR, 6, 5S, and original in a fanning position on the grass.

I’ve already touched on some of the consequences, including the lawsuit and the bumper program, but it’s also worth pointing out that Antennagate was one of those rare tech issues that gained mainstream attention. It wasn’t just tech blogs that were covering it — it was major newspapers and television stations, like CNN.

Personally, I remember late-night comedians making fun of Apple, though it’s difficult to track down clips to prove that memory.

Though Apple did get its antenna design on a better path, that was hardly the last iPhone scandal. In 2020, for instance, Apple agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle a class action lawsuit over throttling the speed of older iPhones, a software measure to prevent sudden battery-related shutdowns. While Apple did make a confession — unlike Antennagate — the throttling initially happened without most users being aware, prompting accusations that Apple was really just pressuring people to buy new iPhones. The first payouts in that lawsuit would have to wait until January 2024.

Really, I could barrage you with the controversies since 2010, one of the most recent being a lawsuit over Siri eavesdropping. It seems like Apple may be a bit more mindful about hardware these days, but it still finds itself overstepping its bounds in other areas.