to tonight on "nightline," sour apple? we get an exclusive look inside the secret world of apple, on the day steve jobs admits the new iphone 4 isn't perfect. >> we're not perfect. >> so, does the flaw threaten the image of the world's most creative company. plus, war on religion. what may be your source of strength is their source of mockery. tonight, we meet the leader of this faithless flock and get a first hand look at in your face atheism in the usa. and, that orangey glow. from patchwork patterns to orange overdose, it's the attack of the spray tan, and no one is safe in tonight's "sign of the times." >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with

terry moran, martin bashir and cynthia mcfadden in new york city, this is "nightline," july 16th, 2010. . . . tonight on "nightline," sour apple? we get an exclusive look inside the secret world of apple, on the day steve jobs admits the new iphone 4 isn't perfect. >> we're not perfect. >> so, does the flaw threaten the image of the world's most creative company. plus, war on relig >> >> good evening. we begin tonight with technology and one of america's most celebrated companies, which finds itself in an unfamiliar place. the hot seat. since the much-anticipated iphone 4 hit stores three weeks ago, the company has sold more than 3 million of them, but they've fielded massive complaints, specifically regarding the phone's faulty antenna. today, ceo steve jobs tried to deflect the criticism and allowed us into their secret lab. how serious is apple about quality control? bill weir has our report. >> we're introducing iphone 4. >> reporter: so, how can the most successful ceo in america go from this -- >> this is beyond a doubt the most precise thing, one of the most beautiful things we've ever

made. >> reporter: to this -- >> we're not perfect. >> reporter: -- in just 39 days? well, it began with an antenna. a stainless steel case study in form versus function. >> this is part of some brilliant engineering, which actually uses the stainless steel band as part of the antenna system. >> reporter: more bells, whistles and battery life than any smart phone in history, there was no room to put the antenna inside, so apple put it on the outside of the iphone 4, knowing that the occasional sweaty palm might weaken the signal in certain areas. they could have covered it in plastic, but then it wouldn't have been the sexy device that makes people sleep on the street to buy one. apple sold six iphones a second. and then, a few complaints spun into the company's worst image crisis in years, spread virally on the very devices apple created. >> i have my new apple iphone

here. >> you see the bars right there? there's no bars. >> i'm going to pause right here. bars begin to go right back down. >> as you can see, it's got full signal. >> and the bars drop. >> the signal will drop to nothing. >> reporter: as jobs pointed out, it is possible to strangle the cell signal out of many phones, but according to consumer reports -- >> we've never seen it on a phone this strong. >> reporter: -- before the flap, they gave the iphone glowing marks, but refuses to recommend it until they fix that flaw. jobs acknowledged the power of that today, but at the same time, tried to put the complaints into perspective. >> we think there's a problem, but we think it's affecting a small percentage of users. we care about every user. and we're not going to stop until every one of those is happy because what the data says leads you to the conclusion that this has been blown so out of proportion that it's -- it's incredible. i know it's fun to have a story.

but it's less fun when you're on the other end of it. >> reporter: according to apple, less than one half of 1% of new users have called customer service. and the dropped call rate is almost on par with the iphone 3. but as a sign jobs is now fighting an image as well as a hardware problem, he promised to give free glitch-fixing cases to every customer through september. >> we're going to send you a free case. >> reporter: bill weir. and apple agreed to give us a tour into one of their top secret labs. >> we know of nothing like this on earth. >> reporter: wow. >> which is one of the reasons by the way, we don't like to show it. because we don't want it copied. but anyway. >> reporter: i understand. imagine there's a lot of people will be interested to look under these black curtains. >> i expect that's true. >> reporter: what can you show us? >> why don't we step this way. >> reporter: they show me how

ph.ds spend countless hours testing iphone 4s, strapping them to dummy heads and hands and testing signals in multimillion-dollar chambers. it was widely known that the prototypes got out of here and got out into the public before launch. did that affect the testing, did it accelerate it? did it change the dynamic? >> no. i don't think so. we've been doing testing on iphone 4 for many, many months. a lot of the testing that we had done on the device was completed by that time. what we did over the last 22 days is repeated literally months of work to verify that we understood the design that we produced in the first place. >> reporter: you stand by that original assessment? >> i do. and i think, you know, we had an opportunity to compress a lot of testing into a relatively few number of days and really reverify, you know, what we've built. >> reporter: right. but they admit the collective genius and effort in this lab is only as impressive as the

products you eventually hold. after all, they work for a perfectionist, a guy who has created an army of fans who expect nothing less. >> and when we fall short, which we do sometimes, we try harder. we try harder. we pick ourselves up. we figure out what's wrong. and we try harder. and when we succeed, they reward us by staying our users. and that makes it all worth it. >> reporter: i'm bill weir for "nightline" in cupertino, california. >> keeping the shine on apple, and trying to keep customers coming back. when we come back, we'll turn to a matter of faith and look at atheism in america, and the aggressive way one group is making their case against god. ng their case against god. this is data. data generated from an electrical grid. from wires, streets, businesses, homes.

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the special interests have chosen their governor. how about you? we turn now to religion. a 2009 survey found that about 15% of americans identify themselves as atheist. that leaves more than 260 million american believers. but the group you're about to meet are not among them. they not only disbelieve, but are waging a war on religion, and mockery is often their weapon of choice. dan harris has the report for our series, "faith matters." >> you're savior. there's a little sinner here. >> reporter: this ceremony you're seeing right here is called a debaptism.

>> coming from everywhere. >> reporter: it is the latest public display of brash bald-faced blasphemy from an increasingly aggressive atheist community. >> baptize inferno. >> reporter: the ring leader is this guy here, edwin kagan, one of atheism's premiere provocateurs. he says his community is at war. >> atheists have no chance whatsoever of per vailing in a correct confrontation with believers. there are far too many of them. i've called this phenomenon the american religious civil war. if you wish to be depap tized, will you rise, please? >> reporter: the idea behind debaptism, as you surmise, is to symbolically remove the baptize mall water. >> free at last. it involved a hair dryer, you see, we labeled truth and reason. >> reporter: how many people have gone through this? >> lots. and many have taken it as a joke, but some have found it

truly, if you will, a spiritually cleansing experience. >> reporter: if this offends you, edwin kagan doesn't care. >> should accept the laws of nature have been broken, that a dead body has come alive again, in the words of a deranged hooker. >> reporter: you called mary mag day lean a deranged hooker. >> i have. ♪ they will throw their rags away ♪ >> reporter: and then, there's his nickname for the holy yuk ris. >> swallow the leader. that's pretty bad, isn't it? >> reporter: i think some people would think that's offensive. >> sometimes you got to have shock value and i don't agree with all shock, but there's sometimes where you just have to shock people into getting

attention. and from there, they ask questions. >> reporter: 24-year-old cambridge brocksterman flew to this convention to take part in this debaptism. as she finishes the ceremony -- >> i've been about solved of absolutely nothing. >> reporter: she expresses no qualms about how it might be presteved. >> people are going to see this and they're going to see, well, look at them there, they're making fun of the church, and it's just like a religion. well, no, it's not. see, the difference is, we're having fun and you guys take it seriously. that's the difference. >> i deny god, jesus and the holy spirit. >> reporter: they are part of a new brand of in your face atheists who do things like deny the existence of god on youtube -- >> my name is chandler and i deny the existence of the holy spirit. >> see everybody in hell. >> reporter: and put up billboards like these in places

like charlotte, north carolina. a few days after this one went up, it was defaced. kagan seeps no problem in gleefully mocking what many people find sacred. let me press you on this a little bit. >> sure. all you want. >> reporter: religion is the source for strength, serenity, and it is a fuel for doing good works. >> in some cases it is also a fuel for doing some very bad works. >> reporter: godlessness has been a force for evil, as well. stalin comes to mind. given that we've had mass atrocities committed by the faithful and the faithless, why use that as an excuse to mock? >> you can mock anything you want, because you have the right to. >> reporter: that doesn't make it right to do. >> sure it does. humor is humor and what types of humor are going to outlaw. >> reporter: but the question is not one of censorship. >> you're getting far too concerned about mocking. if someone is so secure in their

faith, why are they the least bit concerned about some little atheist mocking them? and i think the reason they are worried and concerned is the very deep fear that if everyone doesn't believe it, maybe it isn't so. good evening, campers of camp quest. >> reporter: this struggle, which kagan characterizes as a fight between faith and reason, is very personal for him. a few years ago, he founded camp quest, a secular summer camp for young nonbelievers. many of whom, he says, have been harassed and hounded for their lack of faith. that harassment is in part how he justifies mocking the religious faith of people who it could be argued are doing him no harm. >> but they are doing me harm. that's what i'm trying to explain. they are doing harm to the children of camp quest. they are doing harm to a great number of people, and they're saying that what we're doing is

sacred and in violet. we can do whatever we want to your rights and you cannot react. >> so, the key to life, really, is to never lose focus on god. >> reporter: and then, there is this interesting twist. kagan's own son has become a fundamental itseist minister. >> one wonders where they went wrong. i have an excellent relationship with him. we just understand there are certain things that we really can't, at this point, talk about. >> reporter: so it's not frustrating to you, even in the abstract, to know that you son completely rejects the way you see the world? >> well, whether i'm frustrated by it or not is irrelevant, because everyone has the right to do what they want to do within the law, that's what i believe in. this is my book. >> reporter: and that's what the struggle comes down to, he says the right to say what you want. >> thank you.

thank you. >> supposed to get debaptized. i can't tell my mom. >> it has every bit as much merit as the original baptism. >> reporter: and in this war for truth and reason, he says, bad manners are a perfectly reasonable weapon. for "nightline," this is dan harris. >> the blurry line between free speech and poor taste. when we come back, we'll turn to health and beauty, sort of. and a deeper shade of orange. of. and a deeper shade of orange. this spray tan horror story is tonight's "sign of the times."

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with cynthia mcfadden. >> we turn now to a story about how we look, and specifically, one -- ways that some way try to improve their appearance. spray tanning. maybe safer than sitting in the hot summer sun or under the glassy glare of the tanning bed, but it can also be a disaster. more miguel marquez the attack of the spray tan is tonight's "sign of the times."

>> there's two sets of nozzles. which one is it? which one is it? son of a -- >> reporter: "friends" ross knows. and he knew it years ago. >> let me in. >> go away. i don't want to see anybody. >> reporter: spray tanning may be safer than sun tanning, but the results can be scary. there's the racoon, where you spray around the eyes. the thin brown line where half your face just doesn't tan. the splotch. looks more like a rash than a tan. then there's everyone's favorite. the oompa loompa. do i really need to explain this one? the website pale is the new tan popped up last year and seemed to have no end of spray tan horrors. >> i get submissions from all over the world and it, people are applying bad spray tans everywhere.

as long as there's bronzers still being sold in grocery stores, people are going to still be applying too much of them and producing some pretty crazy pictures. >> reporter: but the bad spray tan can get anyone. from the famous to the powerful. no one is immune from the possibility of looking like a spray tan gear read. i know, cheesy. a sharp orange color, cheddar, if i'm not mistaken. you've seen disastrous tans. >> yes, and they are shocking, indeed. >> reporter: why do people do that to themselveses? they overapply self-tans. if you put too much on, you're going to get that orange look. people don't exfoliate after three days. they are really interested in wanting to be brown all the time so, the more iowafully the more orange they look. >> reporter: and do you just look at these people and think, i can help you.

>> i think, i'm your savior. >> james reed is spray tanner to the stars. he can't say which stars. well, he could, but then he'd have to kill you. you go around the world tanning people. >> i do. i'm probably the number one in the world. i like to be global. >> reporter: people will pay, what most of us would carry deke louse amounts of money for a tan. >> indeed. they pay for the flight, the hotel, and just for a ten-minute tan. >> reporter: the popularity of sun tanning caught on in the 1920s, so the story goes, when colorado coco chanel got sun burned. sounds sexy enough. makes me want to tan. why is that so important? >> i think people want to look great and look healthy. i think it makes you look healthy. you don't have to go in the sun. >> reporter: that's why spray tanning has become so popular, i

suppose, because people are concerned about spending too much time in the sun. >> it's less aging, and it's, you know, the whole risk of cancer and stuff, so, kind of people going for the safer option. >> reporter: so, using the same chemical that turns apples brown combined with a spray can, and anyone can be toasty brown. but wait, there's more. >> i just work on the lines of the body. >> reporter: in the hands of a tanning artist, you can use that sprayer not just to tan, but to define, even highlight body parts you want to show off at the beach this year. >> it's advanced now. you can use sprays on the market now to contour the body. so, what you do, you apply it the day before, the next day, you then highlight the areas on the body, you kind of do the he-man poses and work with the lines of the body to add definition. obviously if somebody has a big belly, you can't really give them a six pack. >> reporter: maybe next summer.

six-pack abs in a can. for "nightline," i'm miguel marquez in london. >> i don't think so. one other thing about that spray tan, no vitamin d. when we come back, an update from the gulf. first, though, jimmy kimmel with what's coming up next on abc. tonight, marisa tomei, peter facinelli, 3oh!3 and david allen greer, undercover boss. "jimmy kimmel live" is next. ♪ hey bets, can i borrow a quarter? sure, still not dry? i'm trying to shrink them. i lost weight and now some clothes are too big. how did you do it? simple stuff. eating right and i switched to whole grain. whole grain... [ female announcer ] people who eat more whole grain nd to have a healthier body weight. multigrain cheerios has five whole grains and 110 calories per serving. multigrain cheerios. try new chocolate cheerios with a touch of delicious chocolate taste in every bite.

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a note tonight from the gulf of mexico. the end of a critical week. the cap installed by bp continued to hold today, 24 hours after testing began. there have been no leaks and there is cause for some optimism, but it regards guarded, and for good reason. while the pressure is increasing, it is not yet reached the level where it can be called a success. perhaps president obama said it best, quote, i think it's important we don't get ahead of ourselves here, end quot