I know I'm not supposed to say this because my account is less than a year old but this thread is definitely like being on Reddit. I actually like Reddit, I'm just not used to seeing these types of comments being upvoted so high on Hacker News.

Sorry, but the use of the verb "to hold" in connection to the iPhone4 made it too difficult to resist. I know snarky comments are not always well received here and generally agree they should never be the core of a discussion, but not many of us watch soap operas and companies like Apple and Microsoft, along with their Steves and Bills provides us with the missing drama.

A world without Apple would be a lot less interesting. In fact, I am convinced one of us would have no alternative but to invent it.

I was not disappointed at the quality of your post; In fact it made me chuckle. My comment was really on the chain that followed it. I replied to you only because you we're the leader of what resulted in a Redditesque joke thread. I think it's important that we can not come off as completely uptight around here and can enjoy the occasional quip but I definitely wouldn't enjoy long thread's where people are trying to be more clever than the next all for "the lulz."

If they succeed in being more clever than the previous, I can live with that. It's the failed attempts that kill the fun ;-)

Well, naturally. Otherwise it will get a poor reception.

Well, if it does fail, they'll need more than Steve to run interference, or else they'll really drop off.

I think they are going to own up. I mean, even Microsoft called iPhone4 "Apple's Vista moment". Steve must have spit his coffee out and said "Oh crap! I have to make this right".

Anyway, that is what I am hoping.

By owning up, they are not making it right. Owning up is for the mediocre 90% of the pack. Apple lives and dies by its perfectionist reputation, and "owning up" would shatter that asset. They will most likely announce something big to change the conversation, as someone else already mentioned. This way, they'll make us forget us fast, and this will be making it right for them.

> Owning up is for the mediocre 90% of the pack.

Agreed.

> They will most likely announce something big to change the conversation

Changing the conversation is for the pathetic lowest 40%.

A brilliant company fixes the problem, does something extra to make up for the pain, and makes their customers happy.

I thought that by definition being a perfectionist means being cognizant of your mistakes. . . At the moment not owning up is making that asset a little toxic: "Apple think they're perfectionists but that's just because they don't acknowledge their mistakes" seems to be floating around right now

I don't think it is going to "shatter" anything. Letting the problem continue, that would "shatter" the reputation.