Credit: Apple, Inc.

Apple’s explanation for the widely reported iPhone 4 reception issues is, literally, stunning. “Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong,” the company said in a letter to iPhone 4 users.

The company implies that there never was a drop in reception, “We sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.”

Fixing the Display but not the Problem

Apple said that it is working on a fix that will improve the way they display signal strength but “the real signal strength remains the same.” They will fix the way they meter and report signal strength but not the signal itself. The “fix” is expected within a few weeks via a free software upgrade.

So, going forward, users will be able to figure out that they can’t use the phone by looking at the screen instead of trying to make a call. This would be like an airliner having a faulty fuel gauge that says the tanks have fuel when they’re actually about empty. The good news is that pilots would know they’re about out of fuel. The bad news is that they would be running on empty.

It Took Three Years to Discover the Problem

What’s really amazing about this is Apple’s admission that “this mistake has been present since the original iPhone.”

I find that astonishing that a company that prides itself on having the world’s best software engineers could – for three years– have a software problem as basic as not reporting a phone’s signal strength. It’s especially puzzling considering the enormous interest in the product and the millions of people who use it, including many of the world’s most technically savvy people.

For more, see “Poking holes in Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna explanations” (CNET News)

I’m not sure how typical they are of their generation, but my 26-year-old daughter and her husband recently canceled their cable TV service because they found themselves watching most of their TV programs over the Internet, typically via Hulu.com.

For the past three years, Hulu has been streaming thousands of free programs to PCs and Macs. Like broadcast TV, Hulu has commercials, but they are shorter than their TV counterparts. The company, owned in part by NBC Universal, News Corp., and the Walt Disney Co., is now launching a new paid subscription service.

Hulu Plus, which will cost $9.99 a month and be gradually rolled out, will feature all episodes from the current season of a show as well as full archives of entire back seasons. You can request a “preview invite” at Hulu.com.

Not all shows will be available, but the library will include “The Office,” “Family Guy,” “30 Rock,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Saturday Night Live.”

The new service will not replace the current free offering. The free Hulu will still offer selected current and some previous seasons.

In addition, Hulu is going beyond computer access by allowing paid subscribers to view programs on an iPad, iPhone, some Internet-enabled Samsung video players and the Sony PlayStation 3. A live Internet connection will be needed to view them.

One thing that is sure to frustrate some potential subscribers is that paying customers will have to watch commercials. The company plans to have the same number of commercials for both paid and free offerings.

This “hybrid model” of paid plus advertising is a big gamble for Hulu. It’s not clear to me whether people are going to deal with advertising with paid content.

To be fair, the publishing industry has long used that model; readers have long accepted advertising in magazines and newspapers even if they paid for subscription or newsstand copies.

Of course, there are other ways to watch TV shows and movies online. Apple’s iTunes, for example, allows you to purchase individual episodes or full seasons without commercials, and iTunes allows you to download the programs.

Also, some of the TV networks stream their own programs. ABC.com, for example, lets you watch recent episodes of many of their popular shows. CBS.com has full episodes of “Big Brother,” “Late Show with David Letterman” and other programs.

While I don’t mind using my laptop to watch TV shows in hotels or on airplanes, I prefer sitting on my home sofa in front of the big-screen TV.