It seems so long ago that Consumer Reports was like “No, srsly, the iPhone 4 has antennae problems,” and then Apple was like “OMG, fine, have some free bumpers, you mooches.” And then everybody grabbed up their rubber doohickies and stopped complaining.
Actually, it was only two months ago, back in July.
Anyway, back when Apple made the announcement that it would be offering free stuff to quell user complaints, it said that the aforementioned free stuff would available until September 30th, pending review. Yesterday Apple announced that the free-bumper program will indeed end at the end of this month.
We now know that the iPhone 4 antenna attenuation issue is even smaller than we originally thought. A small percentage of iPhone 4 users need a case, and we want to continue providing them a Bumper case for free. For everyone else, we are discontinuing the free case program on all iPhone 4s sold after September 30, 2010. We are also returning to our normal returns policy for all iPhone 4s sold after September 30. Users experiencing antenna issues should call AppleCare to request a free Bumper case.
If you buy an iPhone or a bumper before the 30th, you can still apply for a free bumper or a refund, respectively.
If you never bought an iPhone, you can completely disregard all of this, and go on with your life.
