Which is arguably worse, since all of Apples official statements on that case contained that bit of intentional gaslighting at the beginning. The iPhone 4 did not just have "sensitive areas", it completely exposed the antenna, causing it to short circuit from normal use.
> Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases. - Steve Jobs
So the distinction is between "We screwed up but at least you can do x to mitigate it" and "There's nothing wrong with us. It's you."
Nothing in the statement argues either way, it’s simply two statements- one factual and one bit of advice on how to mitigate.
You're quite right, of course, that people vote with feelings and ignore facts, but you're wrong about that being specific to Apple. It's true of everything, and therefore it is not interesting (although it certainly is annoying). We want HN threads to be for interesting conversation.
It’s a shame as I think it is interesting to see how people perceive things with hindsight specifically related to apple and how engineers who presumably work on similar problems cannot apply the same logic to apple but I am forced to stop the conversation. This will be my last comment on any thread related to this and I am rethinking my contributions to HN.