Apple To Recall iPhone 4?

After the heavy and official stamp of disapproval hammered down from Consumer Reports yesterday, the blogosphere is abuzz about a possible iPhone 4 recall. People are even going so far as to compare it to the Toyota recall crisis of 2009/2010, with experts saying that Apple will have to recall the phone in order to save its image.

Now don’t get me wrong; I think Apple’s handling of the iPhone 4 issue thus far has been completely bogus. Telling owners to hold their phone a different way or spend more money for an ugly case isn’t really customer service. And deleting forum threads about the Consumer Reports review isn’t helping much either.

But, is a recall really necessary? Apple already dropped the restocking fee, giving owners 30 days to return the phone without any financial consequences. You should be able to tell within the first day or two whether or not your iPhone has reception problems. And while the problems have dominated headlines since the iPhone 4′s debut, not all users are experiencing them. So, if you do, you return the phone, and if not, you don’t. Aren’t consumers smart enough to figure that out. It’s not an ideal situation, but neither is bringing your phone in for repair/replacement under a recall. And if you want to avoid the entire fiasco, just don’t buy an iPhone 4 to begin with. It’s not 2007 anymore; there are other high-end smartphones to choose from.

I spend a lot of time covering recalls on Crave’s car blog MotorCrave, including the aforementioned Toyota crisis, and they usually relate to major problems that can cause fire, accidents and injuries. Not dropped calls. [via Cult of Mac]