What was the drop rate of the 3GS? That will put things in perspective. Remember, Steve said it was about 1 in 100 MORE than the 3GS.
If the 3GS drops 1 per 1000, and the iPhone 4 drops 11 per 1000, then his statement is correct. And the drop rate is 11 times higher.
See, he gave us the difference, but not the starting point. It’s like saying your annual salary increased by $4,000. By itself, it’s meaningless in terms of good or bad. If you make $40,000 per year, hey that’s a nice 10% increase! If you make $400,000 per year, you’re not even keeping up with inflation...
Now I am a naturally cynical guy when it comes to big companies, seeing them as necessary creators of wealth, but that wealth creation is really what they are all about. Thus I look at statements about problems with that viewpoint. And when impressive sounding statistics are put out, but when you look at them you find most of the context missing, it’s usually done for a reason, and that is usually to shade the bad about the real situation.
So if a normal 3GS phone drops 10 of 100 calls, and the new iPhone 4 drops 11 per 100 calls, I’d agree it’s basically a meaningless increase.
However, if the 3GS drops 1 out of 300 calls, and the new iPhone 4 drops 1.3 calls per 100, then that’s a pretty significant increase (about 400%).
Context - in this case, the baseline - is key.
Oh Boy, we ARE going to do some fuzzy math.
Wait.. we don’t HAVE a baseline!!
Oh No....
Now what? I mean if it’s 1 outa 10 calls then it’s nearly zero and if it’s 1 in 10,000 its HORRIDLY HIGH.
When I had my old Blackberry, it seemed like it was one out of every three calls....
Hmmm, what to do now...