Fixing antenna in white iPhone 4: will Apple admit failure?

Some are suggesting that the real reason behind the delay of Apple’s iPhone 4 is because the company is looking at ways to tweak the phone’s antenna. But wouldn’t that mean Apple is admitting fault?

To the average Joe, it sure doesn’t seem like it should be a very difficult thing. I mean, the hard part is done; they already made the phone do all the phone stuff, and all they need to do now is change the color.

However, Apple last week said that the white version of the iPhone 4, which should have come out very quickly after the launch of the regular, black iPhone 4, has been pushed back to later this year. This news comes after Apple already delayed the new model’s availability once.

Business Week, among others, posits that the delay must have to do with Apple finding some way to tweak the antenna design of the white version after the whole “atennagate” controversy that landed Apple in one of its biggest class-action lawsuits ever.

I cannot for a moment believe that would actually be true, though. For one, that would mean going back to the phone’s development team, tweaking the engineering, getting different parts, etc… for something that Apple has said very clearly and unabashedly is not a problem.

It’s not like the company can subtly just make the change. Any modification to the hardware will be picked up by technology publications, and if there are any tweaks it will be a total admission of failure by Apple. And there’s no way this smug and arrogant company will take that chance. They apparently are just having a really tough time finding white paint.