14 DAY TRIAL // Admittedly sold for entertainment purposes only, HiFi 3D Inc. have announced Antenn-aid, a “precision-engineered” custom sized vinyl ticker for owners of an iPhone 4. According its makers, the sticker may improve signal performance, when placed over the left corner of the phone’s antenna. An asterisk takes visitors to the bottom of the page where HiFi 3D reveals its $4,99 Antenn-aid six-pack is actually more for kicks.
The entire ad on the antenn-aid.com site suggests HiFi 3D is fooling around. “Apple made a boo-boo,” reads the ad. “Make it all better,” the company states, suggesting visitors should consider the purchase. Moreover, the product’s key features are:
Magical - works like magical Revolutionary - Ben Franklin would approve Sticky - world-class adhesion Colorful - colors you can see with the human retina
The $4,99 price does not include shipping, and while some may see the fun in placing a sticker like that on their $600 Apple smartphone, others may consider it an insult.
Apple is known to have conceded to offering up a free Bumper or third-party case to every iPhone 4 owner who thinks they may have a problem with reception. "We're going to send you a free case,” Steve Jobs said, during Friday’s press conference. “We can't make enough bumpers. No way we can make enough in the quarter. So we're going to source some cases and give you a choice." Customers will be able to just pick an item from the Apple Store and have the company ship one over to them. Following the move, case manufacturers jumped in to offer their products at reduced prices.
Now, Apple stands to lose some $175 million on the free-Bumper deal, according to the company’s executives talking to Wall St. analysts at yesterday’s conference call discussing Q3 - 2010 financial results.