Some early iPhone 4 shipments have defective screens, missing bars - Page 4

My friend received his new iPhone 4. I dont know if it was the antenna issue or what. It was disheartening and I am thinking of cancelling my order after the problems he was having. I have and old 3G and we had the phones in the same area outside and inside. My 3G had 5 bars on 3G, the iPhone 4 would go on Edge and sometimes no signal at all. I tried to call the phone with my 3G and it went to voicemail. The other issue was Safari would not work. It would pull up a page and freeze.

Let's hope, we are not getting what we deserve. That is, new and exciting products, TO FAST.

We beg for
We start rumors about
We ask for, no we demand new and exciting products from Apple, just about as fast as they can create, invent, design, produce new products, and now it could be coming to a head. The folks overseas, can't work that fast and still provide the quality that we as Americans want and expect.

You can crack the whip all you want, but making them faster, just won't hold the quality - it just won't!

Faster is not always better.

So will Apple go down as a innovative company yes!

Will Apple go down as a company that provided it's users with the toys they wanted, when they wanted them Yes!

Might Apple go down as a smaller version of Toyota it could. If these issues were life threatening, you could be assured, Toyota would be thanking Apple for coming out with the iPhone 4 at this time, so as to take some of the heat off of their screw ups.

If WE stopped asking some much from Apple, maybe they would slow down, and make cool, quality, innovative products that we could use as soon as we purchased them instead of dealing with "a few small issues".

We have allowed for a tolerance for X, built into each new thing that comes down the pike. So are you one of the lucky ones, only time will tell.

Answer me this, would you be happier if the new iPhone 4, didn't come out until September, IF it did so, trouble free! Then let Apple know, to slow down, your ok with it.

Skip

I can, sometimes, make the 3G bars drop and the WiFi arcs drop by creatively holding the antennae-- but not predictably.

I ran several speed test apps, including the one shown in gizmodo-- both WiFi and 3G.

Often, the speed tests were better when I tried to "short" the antennae. But nothing was predictable. The same test, without moving my hands, could be double or half the preceding test-- pretty much normal behavior!

It should be noted that most speed test apps allow you to select among several servers. You can skew the numbers by selecting a more/less accessible server.

My display is fine... beautiful, actually.

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Just like a bad batch of hash brownies... I say that because mine doesn't have any in-hand signal issues nor does it have any screen discoloration either. None of friends have those issues as well...

More than likely those people got the shipment of bad iPhone 4s. We'll find out more today how many more of those bad phones are out there.

Very happy to report that my screen on iPhone4 is absolutey amazing with no defects at all.

Best of luck to anyone who's got issues.

Mmmm... overstating a bit?

I just checked the link, 9 hours after your post:

-- there were 58 total posts

-- near as I could tell there were 15 phones with a display blotch problem

-- some reported that the problem went away


Certainly, 15 defective units is an issue-- but I wouldn't call it "pretty prevalent".

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How do we KNOW that the screens are defective. Should we not have said MAY be defective?

There's nothing wrong with reporting news.

But there's a big difference between "one person was hit on the head by a falling object" and "the sky is falling".

Maybe they should have done more field testing? LOL

I guess we would blame Gizmodo for this. Maybe Apple rushed it because Giz forced their hand. I am not being facetious. I am not going to get into the debate again about Giz's guilt or innocence in their actions. But the fact is, that with so many details leaked, Apple may have been pressured to include specs that were not properly vetted and/or to curtail external field testing. The fault would not lie with Giz alone, but with all the other sites and we as readers that helped to propagate the story.

Hopefully the yellow bars and spots are just a bad batch and the reduced signal bars when touched can be corrected via software/firmware. Actually glad Canada is getting it a bit later now, so the early adopters can work the early kinks out for us.

My screen is fine but my bars drop everytime I pick up the phone to talk.

From four bars to one in 10 seconds or so. This kinda blows.

Hey, Elmer, please stop the FUD. Nobody is listening to the iHater's nonsense. By the end of the week a couple of million iPhones will be in consumer's pockets.
http://www.electronista.com/articles...ral.countries/

Excellent post!!!

Ahhh, irony.

Steve missed his chance:

One more thing! RUBBER BABY BUGGY BUMPERS!

the crowd roars!

Just buy one of Apple's rubber rings (only $30!) for you phone and POOF! the problem will go away.

Makes you wonder if they knew about this issue before the release of the new phone and that's why Steve mentioned the glorified rubber bands during his keynote.

I'll stick with my 3G for now.

Easy Veruca dear, daddy will buy you an Oompa as soon as possible...

Here and over at MacRumors, it's insane. Thank you for being so level headed. Also the person who said that it's unlikely to be a fundimental design flaw and it will work itsself out. It WILL.

And you're some dude with one post named AppleDudder. Who are you working for again?

I'm sticking with 3G now also considering I'm a lefty. This is a widespread problem and it isn't software related. I now believe those rumors of the iPhone being the primary cause of dropped signals. These problems, in the manner you hold the iPhone, apparently go back to the 3G model. It really is disappointing and I won't buy it until there is a hardware fix. Hate to be cruel but Apple should learn how to build an actual better phone.

A video of the same problem occurring on a 3GS.

From Engadget :

One iPhone 4 demonstrated the issue everytime it was held in our left hand (as a right-handed person is apt to do) so that our palm was essentially bridging the two antennas. You can see that in the video after the break. Bridging the two with a finger tip, however, didn't cause any issues with the reported reception. If we had to guess, we'd say that our conductive skin was acting to detune the antenna -- in fact, we've already managed to slowly kill two calls that way so it's not just an issue with the software erroneously reporting an incorrect signal strength.

That good news.

Still, it's not just superficial with the bars as the dropped calls on these specific texts, "Searching…" for carriers in Texas while doing it and speed-tests slowing down to a stop while doing it. Hopefully it can be fix via software, but it currently "looks" like a hardware issue.

It could be a software-to-hardware issue, but that remains to be seen. As is I'm afraid I can't buy until I hear Apple publicly announcing a solution a solution.

Ahhh then all is well, AT$Ts network is so awesome we should have no issues

Na. There was evidence out there that AT$T was canceling all leave and vacation for mid-end June 2010. This was long before Giz leaked the phone. This day was set in stone long before the Giz issue.

I wonder if this is related to the iPad wifi issue they've been having as well. The wifi signal on my iPad fluctuates, but I'm able to connect even when it registers no signal. Not sure what Apple is up to with this one, but hopefully they can fix it soon.

iPhone 4 users in Japan doesn't seem to have reception/antenna issues while holding it. Looks full bar to me...

I THINK THOSE WHO GOT iPHONES ACTION PACKED WITH ISSUES JUST GOT THE BAD BATCH OF iPHONES. Mine doesn't have any of the issues some people seem to have.

Sure, the date was generally set. Doesn't mean the feature set was set in stone though. Once so concretely leaked, it might have been difficult to withdraw some that were not-quite-ready-for-primetime.

Yellow tint on the bottom of the screen. Geez just like MacBook screens for the last few years. What the crap is Apple doing to its screens. Netbooks costing $300 have better screens without tints. I had this on my MacBook Pro, the first unit. Got it replaced and the new one doesn't have it fortunately. I don't know if it's LED related or what but tinted screens are not cool.

Well, there was the story/rumour of Apple having another iPhone 4 in development. The other unit was more similar to the iPhone 3G/3GS in external design. It was a possible fall back to use, in case the newer design and the new manufacturing processes it required couldn't be perfected in time for the launch. The report was that the leak forced Apple's hand and they felt they had to go with the new design as it had been so thoroughly leaked.

I don't actually blame Giz itself (I was generally one of the few that were defending them from the onslaught of accusations). But, I do see how the leak itself, whether the Giz leak or the ones from Viet Nam, could have resulted in Apple choosing to go with the new design.

Picked up my iphone today, took me a good hour before i noticed i had a yellow blotch in the lower left of the screen, about where the left of the unlock slider is. Read this, pumped up my brightness to max, and continued to use it, it appears to fading down already, admittedly mine was fairly small in the first place in comparison to some i have seen, but this solution at least appears to be working for now.

Hope this helps.

No dude, didn't mean to say all iPhones in Japan doesn't have issues. I'm just saying not everyone has this problem... I sure don't... And none of the people I know personally who got their iPhone 4s have a problem...

I still think they got a bad shipment of iPhone 4s. That's why the major news agencies are not reporting this yet until they're sure it's truly a widespread problem. After today and more and more are reporting issues, I'm sure CNN, AP, FOX, etc would be reporting it. I guess we'll find for sure when more and more people get their iPhones today.

What is the mystery here folks? If you block the antennas of course signal will go down. How is this a software issue? It is a hardware issue!!!! Still not buying this thing...

LOL!!!

Ireland the troll. We know what to do.

1: Label him as a Techstud alias.

2: Tag every post he makes as troll to mods.

3: PM every poster here to place Ireland on their ignore list.

4: Create a on line poll to force a IP ban.

5: Create signature with "My ignore list: Ireland" in red.

6: Disagree, argue, name call and troll Ireland in every post he makes.

7: Coordinate with Solipsism via PM on attacking Ireland.


Will we tolerate honest opinions about Apple products and services, free from the Reality Distortion Field? HELL NO!!

If you don't have something good to say about Apple, then your a troll.

Welcome to the club Ireland!!!

LOL!!!

my yellow appears to be going away

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvH-i7rKPJc

It remains to be seen if Apple can use software to effect this interference that is caused when a connection is made between both parts of antenna. So it could be a software "to" hardware issue. Right now though, things are not looking good. It comes off a hardware issue, we can only hope it's not a simply as that. It can clearly be demonstrated on the hardware level, the hope is it can be fixed on a firmware level. It's not looking good.

Very unlikely. But they may have felt forced to ship it, knowing it could use more testing or that the older design would require less testing.

In the end, it was Apple's call. The leaks may simply have pressured them to go with certain decisions over others. I am sure they will resolve these two issues (yellow and bars) readily. In fact, it sounds like the yellow spots are already working themselves out.

Apple has been choosing bargain basement PC parts for quite some time now, the shame is people are paying for quality and not getting it anymore.

With all the security issues lately, Safari, WebKit, iOS numbering over 100 exploits in the last two patches alone, AT&T security issues, etc. The App Store lockdown, the closed machines, Flash-less, crippled iPads etc.

I'm not seeing a good enough reason to pay thousands for a laptop from Apple when a Ubuntu Linux laptop would cost a few hundred and provide excellent security for all my netbook needs.

The new Ubuntu release is excellent, any Mac user could use it fast. Tons of free software, Flash and Firefox is a great browser.

I see the yellow blotch. It's on the guys teeth.

I just watch a video that proves there is a defect with all iPhone 4s. All the guy did was walk into a Farraday cage and the signal dropped. WTF Apple¡

That's awful trollish of you.

We need more of post like this. Great job!