Apple says any mobile phone has reception issues when held wrong - Page 6

Looks that way. I know two people with a new phone and BOTH have this issues. Bothe live in two separate states. That is 100%

Which phones were those? I am sure I could look up the manuals. I have never seen this type of verbiage before.

Is my multi meter broken? Because when I measure the resistance across my finger I get around 4M ohms.

So they must be the ones AT$T talks about getting 5 bars, ahhhhhh. What about the rest of us that live in crap AT$T coverage land?

A small separation should be enough for the iPhone antenna and a thin piece of scotch tape does seem to work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GanfYUPaXH0


They may be able to issue a software fix but if it's hardware, I'd say they can change production to just inset the antenna from the edge a bit further and on current models, exchange them if people have an issue.

Are you not famliar with the fable?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_Is_Falling_(fable) The term quite nice compared to what I'd likely say in person to someone jumping to erroneous conclusions and running around claiming imminent doom based on anecdotal evidence or other very, very limited data.

There is no evidence to support a HUGE problem. There is proof that people have held their iPhones in a certain way and the bars dropped. There is also proof this has occurred with previous iPhones and other cellphones.

Now you have Ireland and SpotOn making it their mission in life to talk people out of buying new iPhones because have experienced an issue. They are saying it's a design flaw affecting all phones. You don't think that's an acorn falling being touted as the apocalypse?

The only HUGE problem we've seen so far and has always and will always affect every product ever made is if your device doesn't work as expected you are an unsatisfied customer. If my iPhone 4 would lose bars and drop calls from holding it in my left hand (the hand I hold it in) I would take it to Apple to get a new one. It's really that simple. To expect there will be no production issues with mass-produced CE is simply unrealistic and ignorant.

PS: Apple engineers say it's better to lose iPhone bars than to lose an iPhone in bars.

MANY reports not ALL reports. Wow. Considering AT$T has such lousy service it will only get worse. Lets see take one crappy carrier, add one phone with major design issues what do you get CRAP.

Yeah, and I suppose all those areas were where you hand naturally held the device? The iPhone 4 is flawed, the only field tests Apple did were with cases. They missed the issue.

Signal bars are relative. Do you think a phone with 5 bars, 1 mile from a cell tower, will have the same signal strength as a phone with 5 bars, 100 ft from a tower?

If a phone is close enough to a tower, an antenna's poor performance becomes less of an issue.

Now who's the one that doesn't have a clue?


I'm not trying to defend Steve Jobs or Apple. I'm just trying to point out why it's not happening to all phones. I do think there is a fundamental flaw with the phone.

So if you buy his explanation, then why do think he isn't relevant? He pretty much sums up what's going on, why it's going on, and why nobody has done anything different.

Plus by the end of the article, after all he says about the design of the new iPhone and how it could affect the signal, he says he's buying one!

If you don't like the explanation, then don't buy one. If you already did and are unsatisfied, take it back and get a refund and buy what you think will get better reception.

I don't like the explanation either, but i'm not going to shoot the messenger.

Maybe they are just doing that so they don't have to wait in line when they go to get one.

Not my experience. In a strong signal strength area, no change in data download speeds no matter how I held the iPhone 4. In a weak area, I did see a difference.

I don't like Apple's response. But it is also reasonable to advise people that reception isn't a problem if they are planning on using a case anyway. If they wouldn't be using a case, I'd advise them to choose a different phone.

As for taking a stand. Picking one's battles is always important because there are so many things that we could be upset about in life. If I were to take a consumer empowerment stand, this would be pretty far down my list of priorities. If the phone doesn't work for people, simply returning it seems sufficient.

Or maybe if they can stop all the blind fanbois from running out and writing Stevie blank checks he may do something about the problem. Right now Stevie has no incentive to do so because people will blindly give him money.

That's already been done. It's a real problem. Get over it.

Well, the antenna is a SNAFU that should never have happened.

But, moving forward...

Electrical tape in the lower left hand corner, going down to NEAR the plug and extending up well over the junction is a PARTIAL FIX.



However, take a wild guess where your microphone is? Yup, lower left hand corner of the phone, near the Apple jack - so don't cover it; or you will get a good coverage connection but your friend on the other end of the line won't hear a word you are saying.

That said; the other part of the partial fix is to cover the same section of the metal on the lower right hand portion of the phone. You see, the antennae in question is a 'U' shaped piece of metal on the bottom of the phone. If you short it, you lose bars. So, we need to isolate this 'U' antennae - the problem is this antenna has holes cut in it for a microphone and the Apple connector.

If you opt not to tape the lower right hand signal, then you will likely short it when you use the phone - to hold the phone, this antennae is positioned to be a key grasping area - despite what Stevie says.

How do you know that for certain?

This is not about signal "attenuation." This is about signal LOSS. I've run Speed Test three times in a row now.

1. When I place my iPhone 4 on my desk here in my office, I get 5 bars on the 3G network, and my download speed averages 2870 kbps, upload speed averages 1328 kbps.

2. When I hold the phone in my left hand in the exact same orientation, the signal drops to one bar in ~10 secs. Running Speed Test, I got 110 kbps download speed on one of the three tries, on the other two download and all of the upload tries I got zero.

I've tried the same thing on my wife's original 2G iPhone, and my old 3G iPhone. There is no significant speed difference on either of those phones when I run the same test.

So let's please stop with the "oh, all cell phones do that," and "it's a non-issue, just don't hold it that way" blather. When I hold this phone in my left hand in a way any ordinary human might do, it becomes a brick. It's no longer a useable phone.

And for the record, I'm not an Apple hater nor a troll. I bought the original 128K Mac back in February of 1984, and have been buying and using Apple products ever since.

There is a major problem with my iPhone 4, and no one can reasonably deny it.

Yes, I did. But it's jailbreak so no comeback.

I agree with you. It's just that when someone, like you, said the problem won't happen if you're in the strong area, people will come and tell you it doesn't matter because the video shows 5 bars droped to zero (look at post in the first page). Then someone posted the picture of his phone holding death grip with 5 bars intact another person will come and tell us that's because you live in the strong area. In short, nobody has a clue. I'm sorry for using "you", I should use "everybody" instead.

Sure he does ... it's called "Class Action lawsuit". If you continue to sell a product, after being made aware of a design defect - you are committing fraud. In fact, each and every phone Apple sells further increases the damages that will be accessed.

Thus, it is in Apple's best interests to fix this problem post haste.

Gruber pushing his agenda.

That would be a funny. Apple is starting to feel the pain of being a large company, hard to hide in the shadows when you have grown this big this fast.

I think the issue is made worse due to the signal being GSM and 3G. I've had issues in the past with GSM, back all the way since AT&T left TDMA and went GSM. It didn't matter what phone I had: Sony Ericcson, Nokia, Palm (ugh), and Motorola. They all had issues with signal loss. Worse than TDMA.
The only place where my phone worked beautifully was in Seattle, and that's because the original AT&T headquarters was there.

I still have the original iPhone and it's ok as far as signal goes, but compared to my girlfriends 3G, mine is better in receiving calls unless she drops the 3G and goes 2G. My brother who uses a BB, also has issues with 3G. His phone sounds like he's underwater, and replacing it hasn't done much to the call quality.

Now Apple has done some further changes to the new iPhone in the way it connects to the network, according to what they told Walt Mossberg. I think that this new way, coupled with the antenna design, and AT&T being what it is, makes this issue amplified. The other thing to consider is how long was this phone being tested and where. Where, being more important.

It's going to be a challenge to fix this issue, but it still won't make me go Android or BB.

Ditto, no change for me regardless of how I hold the phone. I have four bars to start with, but others posting here say they see a drop "from five to zero" bars.

I'm also failing to see how this is a conspiracy against left-handed people. Whether I hold the phone in my right or left hand, my fingers end up wrapping around and "connecting" all three parts of the outer case anyway. This would make more sense if the claim is that the hand blocks the antenna signal, because in that case I have more "meat" on the left side than on the right side. But I don't see how this can be a conductivity problem. Not on my phone, anyway. I watched a YouTube video where the guy was really gripping it tight, cupping his palm all the way around the left side, so I could imagine that's a blocking rather than a conductivity problem.

Anyway, does this phone use the headphone cable as an extension of the antenna as other phones do? I wonder if anyone who sees the problem on their phone has tried with headphones attached?

You seem to be lumping all of your opponents into a single category. Sure, some people who disagree with you are doing so in an ill-informed or trollish manner. But that doesn't mean that you can write everyone off with a single brush stroke. In fact, you've rudely and incorrectly characterized my point, and then proceeded to rail against that incorrect characterization.

With no empirical data to consider, all any of have to go on are the anecdotes we've personally observed or seen on the internet. Certainly, there is always a tendency for problems to be over-represented in the news and on forums. So at what point is it reasonable to make a claim that a problem is significant? That is a sincere question. Seriously, what would it take for you to say this is a significant problem?

Does it matter. No.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees these absolute statements based on limited information as absurd.



Now that is a reasonable post. Personally, I would return it for another device.

Err, what? Gruber? He isn't even mentioned in that article. This guy is an engineer named Spencer Webb, who was asked by PC magazine about the issue.

Nice try. Try reading first before shooting your mouth off, Ireland.

I just got my hands on one a few minutes ago. Girl in the office pre ordered one. I tested the antenna issue and here is my experience.

If I hold it normally with the left palm touching the area of concern it dropped from 5 bars to 4 after about 10-15 seconds. I was holding it gently not pressing hard into my palm. However if I pressed my thumb quite firmly across the seam it would drop the bars down to 2. I found that with normal use where you touch the sensitive location somewhat off and on during a call you should be ok, but if you are applying a lot of pressure as to make full skin contact for a sustained length of time you may affect the reception.

If Steve said it then he couldn't deny it. Steve isn't saying it, 'cause he knows there's an army there for him.

I think they know HOW to do it, but I think they don't do enough real-world testing because they have become so ridiculously paranoid about new models being leaked.

A phone that sells 600,000 in its first day and presumably 10,000,000 in a year should probably have been tested by at least 1000 people. I'd bet Apple didn't test the phone with 100 people.

I love Apple but their arrogance is going to turn the perception of Apple from something unique into "just another typical cruddy manufacturer" in the long term.

As for this particular problem, assuming it's real, if Apple had been aware of the problem, it seems to me it could have been easily solved by placing the breaks in the antenna either at the very top or the very bottom of the phone. But they probably weren't aware of the problem because they didn't do enough testing.

And, I'm right handed, but I hold the phone in my left hand because I type with my right, except when I'm on a call, when I hold the phone in my right hand. I don't know if this is typical for right-handed people or not. From the videos I've seen, I'm not sure why the hand you hold the phone in should make any difference. Isn't the antenna break on both sides of the phone in the same location? So whether you hold it left- or right-handed, isn't it likely for the edge of one's palm to cover that spot?

I do buy his explanation about internal antenna placement and attenuation when occluded. He alludes that every phone suffers what the iPhone 4 does which is false.


Except that halfway through his article he starts to change his tune, he even says that it was a design decision by Apple and could not be fixed, which is a nice way of saying it has a design flaw. Yes it is a design flaw because they chose a thinner enclose that forbade an internal (non touchable) antenna.

So after equating other phones that lose a few bars when their antennas are occluded to the iPhone which goes out of service if simply touched in the wrong spot he goes on to link to a youtube video. This video shows an iPhone losing service by placing the iPhone 4 on it's side and laying a key across the antenna gap. That is plain bs, where is a SINGLE video of ANY OTHER PHONE completely going from full strength to no signal by laying a key on it. All it takes is one, just one and then he can say that all phones are affected this way.

So yes I do buy his explanation of antenna attenuation by hand occlusion in all phones, but I flatly refuse to believe that all phone are affected the way the iPhone 4 is by holding it, touching it or laying a key on it.


Yeah that made me wonder about his motivations in the whole thing. First he tries to muddy the water by saying all phones do that, then he claims he is going to buy one.


I did pre-order my iPhone 4, received it Wednesday, returned it to the Apple Store in Greensboro, NC this morning just waiting now on AT&T to cancel my contract upgrade. If I didn't have hundreds invested in iOS software then I would switch to a different platform.

Does it affect the call, have you tried calling her phone from a land line while performing those tests? Is it possible that you can have her test the phone calls while doing that? This way, it can confirm whether or not doing so will make you loose calls or have the quality drop.

This antenna thing is an Apple Basher trick. My IPhone 4 works great. If you have sweaty hands, and are out on the edge of a Wi-Fi network range, it might make a difference. I have tried and it just doesn't happen. AT&T dropped down to Edge coverage briefly yesterday, due to the system overload they experinced. It came back to 5 Bars of 3G by late afternoon. This is a non-issue, and should not be blown up into a genuine problem. It Isn"t1

I don't think you can until there is some formal report stating it as such. We can theorize that it's significant to all devices sold and hypothesize as to what the cause is and what the resolution will be, but to we cannot reasonably claim that it's a "design flaw" that affects everyone while standing on an anti-Apple soapbox without looking like crazy people on the street spouting Revelations and prophesying the end of the world.

Question: has anyone tried a Belkin or Griffin Technology iPhone protective case and see it THAT cures the problem? If it does, that tells me there's a physical problem with the iPhone 4 itself--too much sensitivity to the electrical charge from a human body transmitted through the skin of your hand. I'm surprised Apple didn't catch this issue during final testing.

you know what else happens when you hold the iPhone 4 the wrong way.. you can't see the screen. what a huge mistake.

Ok, just got off the phone with Steve Jobs, it is not a design flaw at all, it is actually the key combination to turn your iPhone 4 into an iPod Touch 4. So you see you are getting TWO devices for the price of one, and you are getting a yet released device on top of it. I am so happy Steve does so much for us. All you fanbois can get back inline, Apple will take care of you.

I called my iPhone while holding it gently but I can't say that I evaluated the sound quality. It did not drop but then again we had at probably 4 bars on hers and 4-5 on my 3Gs.

I think my conclusion is that I am no longer concerned and will eventually buy one, but my contract is not up until next year.