News iPhone 4 Signal Problem Verified

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2010/07/02/iphone-4-signal-problem-verified/1

 

It'll be the twitch-worm that Mom launched through Fry & Bender's accounts.

 

Steve Jobs said this is non-issue and he knows everything. And if you have an issue you are muppet and you are holding wrong. But don't worry, apple has thought of everything and you can buy a bumper for an incredibly low price $29. Baaah!!!!

 

there are so many things I could say about this, starting with 'apple is sh*t' and ending with 'i told you so', but it will do nothing for those with purchase justification syndrome, so I won't waste my time.

 

The really class thing for Apple to do is to acknowledge the problem and say sorry. However, that's not going to happen.

If they had come out and explained that every phone suffers from this problem then it would have been a none event but to call people stupid because they haven't learned to hold a phone properly is just typical from Jobs.

How can any apple fanboi defend this practice?

 

these iPhones are phones too?

 

I don't really know, but I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. Just wait until BT's resident fanboi forumites join the thread. We will undoubtedly hear that we are stupid and this is not a problem.

 

Did anyone who commented actually read the article. For those too lazy to read, it says that the signal does drop but this does not affect performance, so is a non-issue. I dislike Apple as much as the next guy, but please don't spout drivel without reading. You just give us Apple haters a bad name.

 

@ Combinho

I'm glad you said that. It does seem that the art of reading an article is being lost.

 

What are you on about? Internet is full of videos of dropped phone calls with the new iphone. Or are you saying that people made the whole thing up in some huge conspiracy against apple? Just google it. I think Anand is the best reviewer on the internet but I don't care about numbers in his reviews if I experience dropped calls!

 

Reading the article on anandtech, I got the impression that the effect in performance depends on how much signal you have to start off with.

I.e: if you start with 5 bars (-51dB) and lose 20dB, it won't make a huge difference because the iPhone 4 works better than the 3GS at lower signal strengths (in fact because of the range covered by 5 bars (-51 to -91dB), you won't even see a drop in bars).

However, between 4 bars (-91dB) and no signal at all (< -113dB) you have a range of 22dB. This means that if you are at the lower end of the 4bar range (say -95 or -98), losing 20dB will cause you to drop below the -113dB threshold and lose ALL signal.

That, to me amounts to a significant difference.

Yes, you could get a bumper case, but that is beside the point, IMO.

 

Oh bejeezus, I am getting involved in this and I don't want to.

Firstly can I say I hate apple. And can I also say that with heavy heart and wearing a comedy false moustache to hide my identity, I went and bought one of these iphone thingys.
My justification? I fancied the HTC desire, but my car has an ipod dock and ipod control. My kitchen radio has an ipod dock. My house came with a fancy in every room sound system thing, which uses a damned ipod dock.

So I say this as a reluctant iphone user, with no love for the company and a dislike for Mr Jobs.

My phone is sat in front of me right now. My previous phone, in the same place, on the same network couldn't get a signal. This phone has 2-3 bars. If I hold in the "death grip", I go down to 1 bar, which is what I used to get with my old phone.
This aerial thing is a pain, but I haven't dropped a call yet, except in areas I couldn't get a signal before anyway. With some form of insulation this should be the best signal I have had from a phone.

I DO however think they should be offering some form of free bumper to those that are having problems. In the same way as Nintendo gave people who bought early Wii's the rubber cases to stop wiimotes ending up in tellys.

 

What I personally don't understand (well, apart from the fact that this problem exists in the first place....) is why the decided to put the gap between the two antenna on the side... why not on the bottom? Whenever I hold my phone I bridge that point on it, but if it were on the bottom it would be much less likely...

 

@ Stewb
2 Reasons:
Firstly because the length of the aerial is really important, and extending it to under the iphone would have reduced the sensitivity of the aerial. ( I believe. I am not an aerial engineer)
Secondly (and most importantly) because we know that field testers had their phones disguised as 3GS's i.e. inside a case. So field testers had no problems and apple knoew nothing about the problem until the iphones were on the street.

Which is why they should give out bumpers. But they won't cos that would be admitting a design flaw. And Apple are the Gods of design, and Gods don't do flaws

 

The reason folk think that this signal problem isn't an issue is because, as stated in the linked article, the hardware copes with low signals much better than previous generations of the iP.

The aerial lengths have been carefully worked out by someone for a compromise of abilities between the GSM and WiFi antennae. In this case it wasn't quite right because it's in a position to allow bridging by hand.

The proper solution, as stated in the Anandtech article, would be to coat the antennae to lessen the effect.

 

The problem is only, if you hold the damn thing in your left hand and it rests in your palm there, which will bridge the two antennas.

If you're righthanded then you'll probably never face this issue, as it's allmost impossible to hold it in your right hand in a way, which would bridge the two antennas.

Other then that, you want to buy the bumper for the iPhone4 nevertheless, as otherwise your phone will get tons of scratches and stick like glue to any glass-surface you lay it flat onto.

 

Unfortunately I'm left-handed, so it'd be an issue for me. The other thing is that it's likely to crop up is someone who's normally right-handed who uses the computer or something while on the phone.

 

So only 10% of their customers have a problem, it's alright then.

 

My iPhone 4 has the best signal strength & call quality of any phone I've had (and I've had my fair share)!

I work in the hills in Wales inside a steel building and I constantly have full signal!

 

This is a problem, it's just not as massive as everyone's saying. If you're on a low 5 bars, you will still lose all your connection with the iPhone - it's just that you aren't losing all signal.

If dBm is the same as dB (ie a logarithmic scale), then the signal strength still drops fourfold when you're holding the phone that way.