[Nexus One General] flarbear:
Hmmm... To me, and my understanding of the problem, their statement cannot possibly be construed as spin doctoring or blame shifting because it is a very factual description of the nature of the problem. But you seem to see it as spin doctoring. And there are always differences of opinions, but let me at least present to you what I know about the problem in case it helps you see their statement in a different light.

[Note that all of these examples below are from first hand experience.]

I had one location where my N1 had the classic problem. My G1 right next to it had 5 bars of 3G and a very stable data connection. My N1 in the same location oscillated between 1 bar of 3G and 5 bars of Edge constantly and never transferred any data worth noting. This is one of the common sets of symptoms of the "classic problem" (though the details sometimes varied).

But, when I moved 2 miles away from that location (just far enough that I was probably on a different tower), suddenly things changed. Both my G1 and my N1 had 5 bars of 3G and both had blazing fast data with my N1 even nudging out my G1 typically.

The N1 actually does have a really good 3G radio that works really well right now - but only in some "magic" areas and not in some other "differently voodoo'd" areas. I don't have any insight as to what the magic and voodoo are, but it could be areas that were upgraded to 7.2 vs. not, or areas that used one brand of radio in the towers, or who knows, but the results were clearly location dependent as I have observed first hand moving back and forth between those two areas frequently over the course of 4 days.

I also have other locations that I've used both phones in frequently where my G1 always used to stumble a bit on 3G and switch to Edge occasionally and my N1 is no different there - usually getting 3G and sometimes switching to Edge. If I walk a little bit more into the interior of that building then both phones also get very marginal - switching back and forth a lot and having trouble getting much data across - both of them identically. And the symptoms there are very similar to the symptoms my N1 has in the area where I routinely saw "the classic problem" above. So much so that I'd have to go into the phones status displays to note the connection type in order to tell the difference.

So, our N1s have a specific problem with 3G data, and that problem is fairly widespread, but at the same time very location dependent (I imagine that some unlucky readers, perhaps you, live in vast areas of the "bad voodoo" coverage and so have come to the conclusion that the N1 has universally bad 3G, but that is not the case).

Also, many customers who did not have "the classic problem" but who frequented areas of marginal 3G coverage may have seen the reports and confused the similar symptoms of their fringe 3G coverage with the reports of the classic problem.

So, now enter the engineers who have found the solution to the "classic problem" that will make so many of us happy. If they simply say "we found the problem with the N1 3G" those words are loaded and not very well understood, especially by the casual observers who simply saw the news reports.

Those who have only ever seen the "bad voodoo" situation on their N1 could very well have every aspect of their N1 3G experience improved. Those who lived in "good magic" areas of 3G might not see any more bars of signal (though they are not likely scouring the forums waiting for news of a fix either). Those who live on the fringes of "good magic" areas may not see any change, but they will still see some hunting after the OTA arrives which might surprise them and annoy them.

They tried 2 ways of conveying that information, but it seems that someone always wants to believe that they are trying to point fingers and shift blame when all they are trying to do is let people know that the original problem was situational and sometimes confused with standard 3G coverage issues and so the fix will thus necessarily be situational and will/can not address standard 3G coverage problems.

In any case, it is a fact that the fix will not be universal because there are plenty of locations that never caused any problems with N1s. And it is also fairly certain that there will be people who thought they had the problem but who didn't and those people need to have their expectations set appropriately.

And so, they absolutely must add that statement that "some" people may have simply been experiencing bad 3G coverage. This isn't shifting the blame, it is just a plain fact of the confusing nature of the original problem. It is a simple fact that not everyone who will read the statement will have been part of the target audience who was experiencing the problem they fixed and those people have problems which cannot be fixed.