Apple's iPhone 4 antenna issue ridiculed on Top Gear

Did anyone else notice the Apple iPhone 4 reference in last nigh’s Top Gear episode? When Jeremy Clarkson was introducing The Stig, he started with…

“Some say.. if you hold him in the wrong way, he doesn’t work properly…”

Cutting!

Unfortunately for Apple, the antenna issue has most definitely entered the mainstream consciousness in a negative manner. The apparent failure of the antenna, along with the company’s uncharacteristically inept handling of the supposed Jobs response (“hold it a different way”), has been an absolute boon to other mobile manufacturers.

I wonder if Apple haven’t overreached with the iPhone 4. I remember the audience response when Jobs explained that the whole outer shell section was the antenna. Folk reacted with nothing short of wonder. But if you have to go and buy a stupid piece of plastic so you can use it properly — for one of it’s basic functions — that’s ridiculous.

Whatever you might think about Nokia or Symbian, I am pretty sure that there will never, ever come a time when their respective CEOs have to publish a letter along the lines of, ‘woops, we… goodness me, we’re stunned, we discovered a coding error in how we display the signal strength indicators… sorry’.

When Clarkson is inserting iPhone ribbing jokes into the show — which regularly reaches upwards of 350m viewers a week — that is bad news for the brand.