iPhone 3G problems: who's responsible doesn't matter, Infineon will take the blame

As the finger pointing continues in the 3G reception fiasco, unnamed sources quoted by Business Week claim that the issue comes from a component provided by Infineon and that a software patch from Apple will solve the problem. That's the best solution for Apple, which would rather avoid an expensive (and embarrassing) product recall and for users, obviously. Business Week seems to think that the rumor reinforces the sentiment of Richard Windsor, who also believes that Infineon's chip is the root of the problem. The poor reception problems are said to affect 2% to 3% of iPhone traffic.

Strangely, this same chip is used in Samsung phones where no problems were reported. It might be that the Samsung models aren't selling well enough or aren't under such scrutiny that the problem would be reported, but that's a long shot. If a software fix really solves the problem, how could the Infineon chip be solely responsible for Apple's woes? Software can work around problems, but can't fix broken hardware. It might also be that Apple tried to be aggressive in its power-management software. We will never know: even if Infineon isn't at fault (which, we don't know), we suspect that it would rather take the blame than lose Apple as a customer.

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