The iPhone 4 and the scandals that rocked Apple

Quick–what’s the most important iPhone ever? Was it the original iPhone that started it all? The iPhone 6 Plus that offered larger sizes for the first time? The iPhone X that redefined the phone for a new decade?

There’s a strong argument to be made that the iPhone 4 is bigger than them all. It debuted in spectacular and infamous fashion, generated one of Apple’s most remarkable controversies, and also ended up being one of the most influential iPhones in terms of design.

Most important? Well, maybe. But there’s no doubt that the iPhone 4 is the most interesting iPhone ever.

Found in a bar

The iPhone 4 story starts with a bang exactly 16 years ago, as an Apple engineer accidentally left one in a German restaurant in Redwood City, California, where it was found by someone who sold it to the tech blog Gizmodo.

It was less than two months before the new iPhone’s debut, which was scheduled for Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference in June. Gizmodo thoroughly documented every aspect of the device, spoiling what had traditionally been one of Steve Jobs’s greatest marketing tricks, the dramatic new-product reveal.

It seems obvious now, but back in the day, the idea that a new product announcement could be theater was revolutionary. Technology product announcements were boring litanies of specs. Industry standard practice was to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt by pre-announcing products long before they even existed. Jobs kept Apple’s stuff in a black box, under a dropcloth, to reveal when the time was right, like a magician. It made it feel like you were watching technology being invented in real-time. It was a brilliant bit of showmanship.

The Gizmodo leak blew all of that up. There were police raids and criminal investigations, most of which went nowhere. But Apple lost its ability to publicize the iPhone 4–we all knew about it, in detail, way in advance.

You’re holding it wrong

Another milestone in the weird life of the iPhone 4 happened soon after the device was announced. All of a sudden, media reports began emerging that you could drop the phone’s cellular connection to no bars and end phone calls by placing your fingers on exactly the right spot on the device’s outside.

Antennagate wasn’t the first iPhone “gate,” but it might have been the biggest one. The storm of attention got so strong that Steve Jobs had to cut a family vacation short and fly back to Cupertino for a hastily-called press conference. After playing a viral music video by Jonathan Mann, Apple’s CEO appeared on stage and sure didn’t seem happy to be there.

Jobs pointed out that lots of phones had places on them where, if you touched just the right spot, you could lose signal. He also admitted that Apple’s algorithm that displayed “cellular bars” was not really accurate and was misrepresenting weaker signals as stronger. He also seemed frustrated that a seemingly tiny number of user complaints were overshadowing the fact that more than 99 percent of iPhone 4 buyers seemed perfectly happy with their devices. But, admitting that a “bumper” case around the phone’s metal edges tended to mitigate the problem, Jobs offered a free bumper case to every iPhone 4 buyer.

Jobs also famously gave every iPhone 4 user a little advice, if they found themselves holding the device in a way that reduced the cellular signal: “Just don’t hold it that way then.”

There’s also a less-well-known scandal involving the iPhone 4, which Jobs referenced in the “Antennagate” press conference by apologizing for the fact that the white version of the iPhone 4 was late, but would be out later in July. That’s right–Apple sold the iPhone 4 in two colors, black and white, but the white one didn’t ship. Not in June, not in July, and not even in 2010. Apple’s white whale, er, iPhone didn’t ship until April 2011, a full 10 months after it was announced. Can you imagine?

Does it look familiar?

But enough about the bad. Thanks to 16 years of hindsight, it’s also important to point out all the things about the iPhone 4 that make it a notable phone–in a good way.

The iPhone 4 was the first model to break AT&T’s exclusivity deal in the United States. For the first 3 and 1/2 years of the iPhone’s existence, AT&T was Apple’s exclusive wireless partner. Then, in early 2011, Apple announced a special Verizon-only version of the iPhone4 that brought the phone to America’s biggest carrier. It was a huge step for both Verizon and Apple, bringing the iPhone to a huge new set of customers who just weren’t willing to switch carriers to get the phone they wanted.

Perhaps most important, though, is the design of the iPhone 4. After the rounded original iPhone and the curvy plastic of the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4 was a real statement: Flat sides all around, clad in a band of silvery aluminum, with a flat front and back. The iPhone 4’s design persisted through the iPhone 5 and 5S, and then returned with a vengeance with the iPhone 12 series. Even today’s iPhone 17 Pro carries most of the shape with it, though it’s replaced the metal band with an entirely metal backshell.

For my money, it’s this design that has stood the test of time and is the definitive iPhone look. Despite being unveiled accidentally in a German restaurant by an Apple engineer via a tech blog, then re-unveiled at WWDC, then apologized for, and with a white color variant that almost never appeared, the iPhone 4 is a huge part of iPhone history. Especially if you don’t hold it wrong.