Sudden departure of Apple iPhone exec fuels Antennagate fires

August 9, 2010 - By Justin E. Gehrke

In what many see as residual fall-out from the iPhone 4 antenna problem or Antennagate, as it has become unofficially known, a high level Apple executive has reportedly left the company quietly but quickly. Mark Papermaster had been charged with the oversight of iPhone engineering, but according to an August 7, 2010 New York Times report, Apple representatives confirmed Papermaster had indeed departed but provided no further comment regarding why or how it occurred.

Based on recent iPhone events, all signs obviously point toward the high profile problems reported throughout the media regarding the now infamous steel banded antenna that wraps around the exterior of the iPhone 4. Prone to the so-called ‘Death Grip,’ user complaints reached such a fever pitch that Apple was forced to both update it’s iPhone software to more accurately reflect signal strength and offer free bumpers to all those who had already purchased the device. What does Papermaster have to do with all of this?

As mentioned above, Papermaster was tasked with overseeing operations within the iPhone engineering department. His departure comes a little more than a year after a court ruled that his employment with Apple was not in violation of a non-competition agreement he had signed with former employer IBM. Papermaster left that company in November 2008 to join Apple.

Of course, no one expects Apple to issue any press releases clarifying why Papermaster left. The words quit, fired and replaced have strategically been avoided. He simply no longer works for the company. That said, is Antennagate Papermaster’s fault? Was he aware of potential issues with the device’s reception and simply tried to look past them, hoping for the best? Alternatively, did he bring the issue to higher level executive attention only to have his concerns ignored?

We’re not likely to find out anytime soon. In keeping with the topic of the iPhone 4 antenna issues, one telecommunications expert who, based on their employment with a company closely related to Apple, told GSL that he feels the antenna issue was probably noted early on and was being worked on for resolution prior to the device’s launch. Though he has no direct knowledge of Apple’s inner workings, he theorized that Gizmodo’s inadvertent discovery of the iPhone 4 prototype back in April may have had a lot to do with the current series of events.

Why? Based on his analysis of the issue, quality control was unlikely to miss something as significant as an engineering flaw that negatively affected the antenna’s reception. Though efforts may have been underway to resolve it, perhaps Apple executives feared any delay in releasing the iPhone 4 officially could result in a competitor having the opportunity to rush out their own device, effectively beating Apple to the punch. In their minds, the potential risk relating to an inferior antenna may have been financially, less damaging than having a competitor release a product similar in design and function.

While this is little more than a theory, consumers might actually prefer if something like this were the case. At least, it would mean that Apple didn’t let their standards of quality control drop so far that such an obvious problem was missed. Alternatively, no one wants to think that Apple believes consumers to be little more than trained Apple fanboys and girls who will buy anything that has the Apple logo on it.

Regardless of whether the theories are correct or not, Papermaster’s departure confirms that the internal machine at Apple continues to work feverishly. This means that Papermaster’s replacement, Bob Mansfield, who serves as senior vice president for Macintosh hardware engineering, will have to hit the ground running and hope that ‘Antennagate’ is nothing more than a hiccup in the big picture of Apple’s history.