What is the NY Times Talking About?

This morning the NY Times published an article entitled "Apple Can Skate by Taylor Swift, but Not Product Missteps."  I challenge you to explain to me what the heck Brian X. Chen is talking about.




I can't even discern what the premise of this article is, but the reasoning encompassed therein is perhaps best summarized by the following excerpt:


But Apple has in fact had product missteps in recent years. The iPhone took a hit in 2010 when a design flaw on the iPhone 4 — called Antennagate by the tech press — caused cellphone reception to be lost for some users when the handset was firmly gripped.

The long-term impact? No harm done yet. In fact, iPhone sales kept growing.


Ok.

But that's not what the originally published version of this article said. Originally the article claimed there was an impact, and backed up the point by stating that while most recently the iPhone sold 70+ million units, the iPhone 4 sold only 40+ million in the same time period.

Obviously this is incredibly flawed reasoning - iPhone sales have been on a steadily upward trajectory and the iPhone 4 did nothing to disturb that trend.  And apparently someone at the NY Times figured this out and changed the article (without noting that it changed!)

But it shows what the author of the article was trying to do - slime Apple.  But then the facts got in the way.  And what is left is the skeletal remains of a story that now makes no point whatsoever.