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Antennagate lives: Consumer Reports maintains thumbs-down for iPhone 4

Apple may say that the iPhone 4's antenna problem - dubbed Antennagate - was smaller than it originally thought but that apparently didn't matter much to Consumer Reports.Today, on its blog, the magazine said that Apple's latest move to discontinue its free bumper case offer, effective Sept.
Written by Sam Diaz, Inactive

Apple may say that the iPhone 4's antenna problem - dubbed Antennagate - was smaller than it originally thought but that apparently didn't matter much to Consumer Reports.

Today, on its blog, the magazine said that Apple's latest move to discontinue its free bumper case offer, effective Sept. 30, is "less consumer-friendly" because it forces consumers who experience reception issues to reach out to Apple to fix the problem.

Apple said last week that it was discontinuing the program that was announced in July as the issue of antenna problems with the device spread across the Internet. At that event, Apple downplayed the antenna problems, despite a non-recommendation from Consumer Reports, which loved everything about the device - except for the antenna problem.

In today's blog post, the magazine said:

Our tests found the Bumper successfully mitigates the iPhone 4's reception issue, which was a weak point in the phone's otherwise-stellar performance in our tests. And we agree with Apple that not all iPhone 4 owners will experience reception difficulties with the device. But putting the onus on any owners of a product to obtain a remedy to a design flaw is not acceptable to us. We therefore continue not to recommend the iPhone 4, and to call on Apple to provide a permanent fix for the phone's reception issues.

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