iPhone 4 antenna libel: should Apple sue Consumer Reports?

The trumped-up iPhone 4 antenna controversy has now spread to Consumer Reports, with the publication revoking its iPhone 4 recommendation after “additional testing” of the product. The fact that Consumer Reports couldn’t find anything wrong with the iPhone 4′s antenna the first time around merely serves to show what a farce the whole thing is, as the magazine’s testers proved that there’s no “antenna issue” under normal usage in their initial tests, and only went back and did additional “testing” after the geek headline writers misrepresented the specific non-natural finger pattern they’d discovered which could slightly lessen signal strength under certain circumstances. Consumer Reports apparently then went and repeated the same specific finger pattern, found that they could replicate the non-issue, and like so many other reckless technology journalists, libelously labeled it a defect.

Nevermind that Consumer Reports destroyed its own credibility on the matter in doing so; if an issue doesn’t exist in real world usage and can only be evoked in a theoretical scenario that someone told them to try, labeling it a “defect” automatically makes your publication a joke. And nevermind that Consumer Reports, largely forgotten by the mainstream here in the twenty-first century, sold out by taking a desperate swing to try to get back in the game which will backfire in the eyes of the mainstream. The real question here is that with the application of the word “defect” to the iPhone 4 antenna being an obvious act of libel, should Apple sue Consumer Reports and other similarly out of control publications in order to get them to cease intentionally publishing false information about the iPhone 4? Make no mistake: Apple would win. Eventually. After years of legal proceedings, during which the geek headline writers, who despise Apple already, would make the legal proceedings their lead story. It would only serve to give geek technology journalists (and all technology journalists are geek technology journalists) more ammo when it comes to their increasingly creative ways of carrying out their own agenda of attempting to punish Apple for making products that aren’t geeky enough for their personal tastes. And it would bring even more attention to the iPhone 4 antenna story, which deserves none.

Then again, Apple may eventually have to do something to silence the libel coming from these clowns. Or Apple could just wait it out. Geek technology journalism is dying by the day here in 2010, as the mainstream has learned to completely ignore what the geeks have to say about consumer technology; it’s why you see one prominent geek having a public meltdown after another this year. It’s why you see geeks leaving the Apple platform (and good riddance) even as Apple’s products continue to increasingly conquer the mainstream. If one geek leaves the Apple platform and a thousand non-geek users take his place, that’s a double win for the mainstream, because if nothing else, it means that geek headline writers just might stop writing about Apple altogether – meaning that the libel, which is currently served up in a nonstop fashion, would go by the wayside (after all, you can’t falsely claim to have miraculously found an “antenna defect” on a product that you don’t even use).

This is separate from the question of whether Apple should sue journalists for knowingly publishing trade secrets (Apple did this in the past, lost, and looked bad doing so) or whether Apple should sue publications who buy secret prototypes from someone who claims to have found it in a bar. Actually, the fact that there’s not (yet) been a lawsuit against that particular publication suggests that Apple may well have decided that taking journalists to court – even journalists who steal their prototypes and/or intentionally libel their products – may not be a particularly smart way of going about things after all. But how to deal with all the libel, then? Interestingly enough, and serving as yet more evidence that geek headline writers really are being ignored by the mainstream these days, the nonstop libel written about Apple products hasn’t stopped Apple’s products from becoming major mainstream successes. Perhaps Apple’s best course of action is simply to allow these geek clowns posing as journalists to ruin their own reputations one libelous article at a time.