The Wall Street Journal

Mark Papermaster's Discusses iPhone Rollout, Antenna Problem

Apple's antenna problem happened in 2010 when Mark Papermaster was head of the company's devices hardware engineering. 

Now the chief technical officer at AMD, Papermaster reminisced about the old days with Press:Here.

"I was working at the product line at Apple working on the iPod and iPhone," he told Press:Here. "It was what I loved to do."

When asked how he dealt with the hardware issue, which Apple claimed it was all because of inaccurate signal strength computation and fixed with a software update, Papermaster was diplomatic.

"It was a real eye-opener," he said. "It's always a challenge to have software and hardware work together."

Still, Papermaster said it's the only way to create great devices with great applications."(Apple) is like any company. If you have any problem, you get the team focused on it," he said. "The company came together and was very forthcoming. . . . Look at the number of iPhone it sold. it was a phenomenally successful product."

The Wall Street Journal reported in August 2010 that unnamed sources stated that Papermaster left Apple because of "cultural incompatibility" and that he had "lost the confidence" of Apple chief Steve Jobs. 

Papermaster left Apple in 2010 and began work as an vice president in engineering at Cisco Systems. He joined AMD in 2011.

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