RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen. I gotta talk about this iPhone business. There’s some incredible stuff going on, being said, about the iPhone 4. Now, I have seen four iPhone 4s. They are amazing
I just find it amazing because in a way I kind of relate. They can’t rip Apple successfully for what they do so they try to rip the credibility of the product, in this case the iPhone 4. There is a reception problem that is common to many cell phones. It’s common to a Nokia phone, for example. You put your hand on the phone and you might negatively impact the antenna that receives the cell signal, and so your bars might decrease or you might lose signal strength. You might lose a call, you might drop a call. Apparently if you read all the Apple blogs, this is happening to a lot of people who have purchased the iPhone 4. It’s happened so much that a law firm is setting out to establish a class-action lawsuit against Apple over this loss of signal! I’ll tell you how absurd this is. When you buy the phone, you’ve got two weeks to 30 days to take it back and get your money back if it doesn’t work or if you don’t like it.
You’re not stuck with it. You’ve got some time. They’re trying to get this class-action lawsuit going, even before that contract period to take the phone back has expired, which is immediately suspect. Now, I’ve seen four of these phones. I have yet to be able to duplicate this problem. I am not denying it happens to people. Some of these websites are showing video where people pick up the iPhone… It’s called ‘the death grip.’ You pick it up and if you hold it in your left hand and you cover the left-hand corner, then you lose your signal. I’ve tried to duplicate it. I’ve tried to duplicate it in the car. I’ve tried to duplicate it here at the EIB Southern Command, at home, in Minneapolis, wherever I’ve been since I got the phone. I can’t duplicate it. I do not lose signal. Now, admittedly I don’t make a lot of phone calls because I don’t like the phone. There’s always somebody on the other end of it and they generally want something.
So I e-mail and text and so forth. But this iPhone has a new video calling feature called Face Time. It’s got two cameras, and you can actually talk to somebody while they see you and you see them. Just hold the phone in front of our face like the original picture phone was supposed to be that I famously test marketed for Bell Telephone in Pittsburgh back in 1972, and it’s amazing. It works. It works over Wi-Fi. It’s not even a cellular call. You don’t get charged cell minutes for it. You initiate the call over a cell network but it transfers to Wi-Fi; it will only work over Wi-Fi. So look at all of these lawsuits, class-action lawsuit against this. Now, there’s a story here, the San Jose Mercury News: ‘More Glitches Found in New iPhone — Apple’s new iPhone 4, already criticized for problems with its antenna and screen, also suffers from glitches in its camera system that can undermine the video chat program that is one of the standout features of the new phone.
‘iPhone 4 owners first started reporting troubles with the device’s camera system Wednesday, the day some users who had pre-ordered the gadget received it in the mail. On the discussion boards on Apple’s website and in comments on various blogs, users have complained that the phone’s camera application locks up soon after launch, leaving them unable to take a picture.’ I’ve yet to encounter any of these problems! I’m not denying they exist, but to say that they are in every phone, that there’s a giant glitch worthy of a class-action lawsuit? Now, Snerdley said, ‘Why do you care about Apple? They don’t like you.’ It’s not that. I don’t care about Apple. I love the product. You know, I’m sort of an evangel for this thing. I use Macs everywhere here in our office, and I am especially sensitive to efforts to destroy the credibility of somebody when they can’t destroy the substance of somebody.
That’s been happening to me for 21 years. Nobody ever argues my ideas. They just say, ‘Oh, he’s fat,’ or, ‘Gee, he says extreme things,’ or, ‘He’s mean’ or whatever, but nobody ever argues with my ideas about things — and now with this phone it’s clear that Apple has got the state-of-the-art product out there, and the attacks are on. They can deal with it. They don’t need me speaking out for them, but I look at all this: Class-action lawsuit over signal loss within the first 30 days of the launch! I’m reading there might be a software update to fix this if it’s a software problem. Whatever. I believe they’ll get it fixed if it is a problem, and I’m not bragging when I tell you I’m not experiencing any of these problems. I have a couple of friends that say they are, but I haven’t experienced it. (interruption) No. (laughing)
Dawn’s saying mine were especially tested by the president. No, no, no, they weren’t. My phone’s randomly selected from the production line just like anybody else’s were. Look, if the problem happened, I would want get it fixed, but the effort to try to make Apple out to be some sort of rotten bad guy is just typical of what happens when you become the best. They just go after you. Even some of your own fan boys will go after you! Anyway, they’re still lined up. AT&T is… (interruption) Oh, I’m sure the bloggers… (interruption) Snerdley, I don’t care if the bloggers take me on over this. The primary reaction of the bloggers will be, ‘If Limbaugh has an iPhone, I’m certainly getting rid of mine.’ That’s what they’ll say. But just the whole notion of a lawsuit over signal loss when every phone has that! Now, Steve Jobs (laughing), he didn’t help matters. He said, ‘Don’t hold the phone that way!’
Purportedly Apple issued a statement: ‘Don’t hold the phone that way. You’re holding the phone wrong.’ Well, I’m sorry, there’s no way. If you hold the phone in your left hand there’s no way you can’t hold the phone that way and make a phone call. Then somebody else said Jobs issued a second statement saying, ‘There is no reception problem, stand by,’ and people are standing by.(laughing) They think that maybe there is a fix coming for the thing. Just imagine if the United Auto Workers made the iPhone. Just imagine if Obama took over the company and his bureaucrats decided they were gonna make the iPhone. All right, here’s my brother. ‘I’m not looking for you to say this on the air.’ Right. Then why did you send it to me, David? (laughing) ‘Mine does drop the connection when I hold it a certain way. It’s happened when I’ve had to hold up it to my ear with my shoulder when I need to free my hands. It happened about five times yesterday.’
This is the first I’ve heard of that. How in the world can you hold this thing with your shoulder when you can’t hold it in your hand? Okay, so my own brother writes to contradict me. (interruption) Yeah, well, you can put it in… (interruption) Snerdley says, ‘Oh, they have earpieces.’ This is another thing that’s irritated people. One of the fixes is, of course, go to the Apple store and buy a $29 essentially rubber band colored case that will insulate your hand from touching the steel antenna which is the border of the phone. I heard that. I would no more put a pink or pastel blue rubber band on the phone, destroy its looks than I would put Mickey Mouse ears on it. But you can get a Bluetooth earplug there and use the Bluetooth wireless connection to use the phone. My brother lives in Cape Girardeau, and I think a lot of people lose things in Cape Girardeau, folks. It’s a small town. It’s one of the reasons I left. (chuckling) I’m just kidding. Of course I’m just kidding.
But I’ve never lost one of these Face Time calls. I have never lost a phone call. I have never lost a call. I hold the phone constantly. I’ve tried to duplicate this and I can’t make it happen, cannot make it happen. ‘More Glitches Found in New iPhone.’
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I was really only kidding about Cape Girardeau being a small town. Really I was. I mean, my heart’s still there. I really was just only kidding. My brother lives so far outta town I think the cell tower’s probably 25 miles from his house, too. You gotta factor that in.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The official program observer, Mr. Snerdley just asked me, ‘Why is the antenna on the bottom of the phone?’ If you hold the phone, if you put it in the palm of your hand where the ball of your thumb and left hand hold the phone, that’s where the antenna is. Actually, all the antennas are there, the GPS, the Wi-Fi, the Bluetooth, the cell signal, cellular data is all there in the lower-left hand corner apparently where the phone antenna is. The reason is there’s a federal regulation that the antenna has to be as far away from the head as possible because of the, what, ongoing threat you might get brain cancer. So Apple has said they’ve put the antenna where — and this happens in a lot of other cell phones, too, Nokia. In fact Nokia, Nokia tried to get a little edge up on Apple, they made a TV commercial poking fun at Apple losing signal when you hold the phone the wrong way, and somebody said, ‘Well, it happens on my Nokia and they made a video showing it happening on a Nokia.’ It happens to a lot of cell phones.
What fascinates me is I’ve had every iPhone there is, and every problem the whiners and complainers of our society have come up with I have yet to experience. FCC rules require this antenna – (interruption) well, I don’t use it as a phone, H.R. He said, ‘For somebody who hates phones you really like that one.’ I don’t use it as a phone. I’m a gizmo guy and it’s revolutionary. But even if I had the problem the last thing I would do is join a class-action lawsuit. I’d either, ‘Okay, this doesn’t work,’ and I’d go get something else or I’d try to get this fixed or what have you, but to whine and moan. (crying) ‘My iPhone!’ (crying) And to have everybody act like this is the worst thing that ever happened to them in their lives. What a bunch of whiners our society has become.