iPhone 4 Review: 1 - Hardware Fit & Finish - Page 3

Nice to see that someone else noticed. For a moment there, I thought I must be alone in having misrerad the piece.

I have to agree with Ireland on comments, it not the issue so much, but the reply from SJ that irritates me. It was arrogant at least and crazy to be frank. You purchase a new product all excited and you found out that you can not use the product in comfortable fashion because there is an issue and SJ says "Hey why don't you adapt your practices to our product and get over it'

Sorry mate, it may not be end of world, but not going to accept arrogance from anyone, when I am filling their company's bank account with my hard earned money. People should voice their concern and ensure Apple lives up to high quality products, we expect in paying premium prices (Not talking US market).

As customer I am allowed to voice any opinion within reason, since I am PURCHASING the product and if SJ wants to be arrogant, then he may found history repeats itself, Can someone say Microsoft'

AS Apple shareholder for a long time, he better not screw up my retirement plan by giving such answers, since I want the company banks to overflow and my dividends keep coming in and share price rise steadily

Very few people here are tolerant to any apple criticism.. including real, honest and factual criticism.

I got a iPhone 4 32GB and I have suffered 10+ dropped calls at my home and I did not drop that many in 2 years of 3GS (well, before you yell, both my wife and I had 3GS since early days of it, so 1yr + 1yr = 2yrs). I love 4 in all other aspects, but guys, dropped calls and RF problems are real!!

www.marketingtactics.com


And you, Dave Barnes, are practicing your "Marketing Tactics" in the hopes that you will find some gullible people who will decide not to buy iPhone 4 after finding your statement in a Google search. First tactic: claiming that, not you, but your wife, has the new iPhone. That shows so much objectivity. Second, presenting such a suave description of the reception problem; surely a sophisticated guy like you wouldn't get upset about it, but maybe someone else ought to. Great technique for trying to cultivate doubt and panic.

Feel free to collect your Android check, but give your audience maybe just a tiny bit more credit than your "tactics" would admit. After all, there are millions of "Apple Fanboys" who are getting tired of the label.

Read two paragraphs and gave up in embarrassment for DED. Are you sure this isn't a spoof Ã* la The Office?

Not the one that shows signal strength though.
Sorry, couldn't resist.

Wow, when this day comes, it really is a sad day for human dignity. There are a lot more important things in life, and global issues, to even contemplate such a thing. Whether the statement was made in jest or not, I'm sorry, I find it extremely, extremely offensive. A phone does not demand reverence. That's reserved for certain higher things, you know what I mean...

It's just a goddammned mobile phone. FFS what is going on these past few days. Sure geekiness is fun and exciting and somewhat spiritually happy and uplifting, but, geeeez.

Hardware fit and finish is sleek and pleasing to the eye and hand.

As for the connectivity problem; Lets wait till next week and see if Apple posts a software update to remedy the problem. If you are unhappy with the phone after that keep in mind you have 30 days to bring it back without any ETF. don't complain later.

ATT has just complicated the problem with their poor connectivity.Had the service been good to begin with, perhaps you signal strength would drop but not your call.

Oh, the quote from The Steve is quite another matter. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't think it was arrogant or perhaps ill advised. Still, I have to say it made me laugh when I read it. The guy is not known for his tact.
I find it interesting there is such a dichotomy with Apple's CEO - he is famed for being a real SOB to work with and his one liner emails are.. well... interesting. On the other hand he can play a keynote audience like a concert pianist.

I think everyone here wants Apple to put out the best products on the market. As their customers I agree that we are the ones to hold them to that. The point I was making is that I don't think angst and beating of chests is helping anything.
I have no love for Microsoft and if I felt Apple was anything the Redmond people I would be the first one out the door.

Even the Android fans want Apple to do well (secretly). Competition can only make smartphones better! Especially when it comes to reception.

I have to say from pure design point of view, the Droid X is like a brick compared to the iPhone 4 and even though it has a bigger screen and more functionality (apparently), just does not cut it. Issue with majority of phones trying to compete with iPhone is the design. Customers will buy Droid X for a number of reasons, but it going to be difficult to pull existing iPhone users away from buying iPhone 4 and go to Droid X. Why have those four buttons that look frail and weak on bottom of the screen?

Lets stop with 8MP camera crap, since 5MP in iPhone is has good, if not better than 8MP in Droid, if that marketing poly is still working with consumers, then serve them right! Since iPhone will not come to India until end of this year, I can wait and see how the performance goes, but unless someone comes with a smartphone that makes the iPhone 4 look like a brick, then I will be upgrading my iPhone 3GS.

I believe there is general agreement that some percentage of iPhone 4 users are experiencing problems with the 3G antenna.

I think it is too early to tell if the problem can be resolved with a software/firmware fix.

Let's say that it is a design defect that can only be resolved by changing the hardware-- say, move the separators on both sides down to the bottom of the phone where it would be difficult to hold the phone in such a way to short the antenna, (This could be done internally by deadening the bottom antenna areas that extend up from the bottom on each side)

Let's say that Apple revises the design and comes out with rev 1 hardware, say, by Aug 1.

At that time, lets assume there will be 1.5 million defective rev 0 iPhone 4s sold and delivered.

The important question is: What does Apple do?


History may give us some insight:

Case 1

Back in 1979, Apple came out with a 5 1/4 micro floppy external diskette drive for the Apple ][.

This was a breakthrough product for its time-- in a way, very similar to the original iPhone. (VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program had just become available, and many customers were buying Apple ][s with 2-4 floppy drives to run their budgets, forecasts, their businesses-- this was a big deal!).

The floppy drives were very popular and difficult to get with a long lead time-- Our Computer store had hundreds of back orders. Apple ramped up production and filled the backlog. But, the latest run of floppy drives had problems reading/writing on the floppy disks. Our store would burn-in and test hardware for 24 hours (minimum) before delivering it to customers. We experienced a 80% failure rate on the drives.

When we notified Apple*, they were concerned and sent some engineers to see if they could resolve the problem.

The floppy diskettes were not being properly centered/seated when inserted into the drive (a hub dropped down to grab the diskette by a thin circle around the center - so it could spin the disk within the enclosing sleeve).

A temporary fix was to apply a plastic adhesive circle around each floppy to stiffen the area where the hub grabbed the diskette. (Apple and the diskette mfgrs made these stiffeners available at no cost).

Long story, short: The temporary fix was acceptable to some customers who desperately needed (or wanted) the devices and accepted the "inconvenience" as a cost of doing business (or just a hardship of being a pioneer). Others, decided to wait until the drive was reengineered.

Apple allowed return of any drives at the option of the customers/dealers.

I don't think a public announcement was made (no blogs back then, and we were much less litigious)-- But Apple did right by their customers and dealers.

* We stacked 100 defective floppy drives on top of (and around) an Apple ][-- called it the "Data Wall". Then we called Wil Houd, Apple VP of Engineering, and invited him to stop in for lunch at the Chinese restaurant next door.

Case 2:

Much more recent-- circa 2007; Apple realizes that the iPhone is not meeting sales expectations and reduces the price $200. Many early adopters are upset, at a major price reduction, 2 months in. Apple does the right thing and offers $100 credits to early adopters... some grousing, but most are happy.


If the Phone 4 is defective, what does Apple do?


History tells us that Apple will do right by their customers, dealers and shareholders!

.

Steve will be known as an extremely innovative person and highly polished marketer. That's my view of him right now. Certainly in managing a company he's done a great job, but as he gets more eccentric, there will be certain incongruencies throughout Apple, for example, how Apple is run in non-Western countries, things like the iPhone4 where form appears to have (at least initially) overridden function to a certain extent, and of course, PR and other issues when it comes to how Steve responds and deals with the media, public and other businesses.

Ok, my 4G does drop and will disconnect a call after 30-40 seconds of holding it the "wrong" way...But not to pile on here...but my phone has another bug which I've seen mentioned online but not experienced until this evening.

It seems the proximity sensor, at least in my phone is buggy. I was on a call with my brother for about an hour. About half way through the call, my Bluetooth headset died on me. I switched to the wired headset and continued, putting the phone in my pocket. Not even a minute later, my brother interrupted me to ask, "Hey, what are you doing?"...My reply was, "What do you mean?" and he said it sounded like I was pressing on the keypad of the phone...he could hear the "beeps" as if I was pressing numbers on the keypad...Looking at my phone, which was in my pocket, sure enough were a bunch of random numbers showing in the input area of the keypad. Three other times on the call this happened...

I took the phone out of my pocket and put my finger over the proximity sensor area, and the screen dimmed. Putting my phone to my ear, the screen came back, which makes sense since I uncovered the sensor. But holding the phone to my ear, it never reset itself and the screen stayed full active. By moving the phone around, I could randomly trigger key presses from the keypad from where my ear was making contact with the screen. Can someone else test this out to see if it's happening with your phone?

Ireland, ever since my first mobile dropped out of my shirt pocket to the floor and broke, back in the 80's, I've always had a case. Since then, no matter how many times I've dropped a mobile since, none have ever broken, so I always recommend them to any friends without a case. End of problem - but hopefully Apple will quickly issue a fix for the antenna problem.

I have to agree with you though, that Jobs' comment was very bad and insulting. I guess the stress of the problem must have got under his skin, but he definitely lost the plot there and came across very arrogant - which we know he is anyway. Not the best attitude to promote your products - "customers go ***k yourselves"

Read it again and again. And again.

Good points. I think people find it hard to argue with the results he achieved with Apple, even if you are just looking at bald stats like share pricing and market capitalisation.
That being said I will be very interested to see how the antenna situation is handled. I hope Dick Applebaum above is right.

Agreed. I'm glad anyways... I can save my money for the time being. It won't be out where I am for another few months so the problems should be all sorted out by then. But will my current perception of Apple be fixed by then after Steve's "you're holding it wrong"? I don't know. I really don't.

Get used to it



Bingo.


I thought not having plastic was because of Apple's environment-friendly push? Or was it design, or both. Or obsession with something or other.

Mine also works flawlessly, and I echo the sentiments of the article as well!

What you and everyone else is missing is that there are TWO antenna problems here.

1. The normal degradation of signal when a hand is placed near or over the antenna. Every phone has this and it is controlled by the laws of physics. Apple can not change it. Even the Droid manual mentions it. This is the issue that Jobs suggested that people might hold their phones differently if it bothers them. Since Apple can't override the laws of physics, I don't know what else they could do. I suppose they could increase the signal power by an order of magnitude, but the FCC won't let them - and all the whiners would be complaining that Apple was frying peoples' brains.

2. The abnormal degradation of signal if you touch the antennas at the spacer. As someone else pointed out, this is apparently due to a capacitance issue (like the lamps that turn on or off when you touch the base). Mossberg reported this in his review and the response from Apple was that it was a software problem and they would be fixing it. (There is a rumor of an iOS 4.0.1 coming out this week). This problem appears to be related to the quality of the signal - look at the tests in SF-some locations showed the problem and others didn't. I'm guessing that you can thank your friends at Gizmodo for reducing the number of iPhones in field testing.

Now, if the software fix solves problem #2, then there's no issue. If the software fix doesn't solve problem #2, then Apple will have to do something else. Apple has consistently fixed customer problems throughout its history and there's no reason to think that they won't solve it this time.

It IS interesting, though, that the loudest complainers on this topic are people who don't even own the phone - and the same people who have been whining about everything Apple does for years. That suggests that they're whining simply because that's what they do. If it wasn't the antenna issue, they'd complain about something else.

My Griffin car charger stopped working as well. I thought it was clicking into place securely though as the iPhone 4 would chime that it was connected. It just wouldn't charge after that. I'll have to check it again though. Hopefully it is just the connector head and not something with the plug hardware.

Unfortunately, you are right.

I personally have been adding and posting the worse ones to my ignore list and certainly, AI helps make it easier and more pleasant to read especially on my iPhone once the trash is covered up. I would gladly add more. If you or any other members have their own list, it would certainly make it easier.

Actually I'd say there are more people around here that are tolerant than not. It's just those that aren't tolerant then to shout a lot and spout a lot of crap. I feel your pain dude, let's hold Apple's feet to the fire on this one.

The word "paranoid" comes to mind. You need help mate.

Apple has raised the bar, it's just up to us to lower them by holding our iPhone 4's in a regular manner.

The issue has very little to do with AT&T. People have the same issue in all the countries the iPhone came out it. Where have you been the last two days?

Of all the cases I've used with my various iDevices, the black Bumper for the iPhone 4 is the best design match of all that I've owned. While it wraps snugly around the stainless steel band (concealing the "industrial look" of the new iPhone design), the Bumper's own polished surfaces exactly match the glass front and back of the iPhone 4 itself. This, to me, creates a very unified "extension" of the iPhone 4's fit and finish rather than detracting from its aesthetics. Adding to that last point, the Bumper adds no significant bulk to the iPhone 4 at allless, in fact, than what the InCase two-piece shell adds to my 3Gand is much thinner than I'd imagined it would be, or even appears when not installed on the iPhone 4. That it also offers a solution for the signal loss/attenuation problem some people are reporting is a plus as well (which isn't to say that the attenuation problem isn't an issue that needs to be addressed by Apple).

I bought a Bumper with my iPhone 4 (intended to do from the start, but became convinced was the smart move when I read about the reception/attenuation problems I might run into without it). I'm not experiencing any signal loss/attenuation issues with my iPhone 4 at all. Echoing the article, the fit and finish are spires above Apple's previous iPhone offerings and lightyears ahead of the competition. Function may be lagging behind form for some, but the Bumper is an excellent bridge for the time being.

I'll tell you what have done. They have told us to: "just don't hold it in that way". Or buy one of the many cases available.

If you are gullible enough then they have done the right thing for you, their customer. If you are being honest with yourself, they have just fucked up a product royally, and blamed you the customer for holding the product wrong. They have just kicked in the balls after taking your money. To accept that it stupid. And it doesn't even serve to make Apple a better company. All it serves them with is the knowledge if they fuck up with something as stupid as putting a mobile phone antenna right where you hold the phone normally their customers will sit there and take it like a bunch of idiot zombies.

Question: If it is firmware fixable, why didn't Steve just say that?

Because the only info I have that it is software fixable is a very shady story on Apple Insider.

I'd be very surprised to see a recall... unless this is a manufacturing defect. I suspect we'll see a software update tomorrow.

That comment is total bollocks, all the videos on YouTube with people complaining are people who own the phone, and plenty of people here who got the issue on their newly purchased phone are complaining.

Steve Jobs thinks those who have the problem are holding it wrong, he said so. And he's rightly being called for talking out his ass.

You don't need to own the phone to complain, Steve gave us all enough reason for that. I like everything else about the iPhone 4. Stop spreading FUD. People who don't own the phone are also complaining because they wanted the phone, but now they can't get it because there is a legit issue, and Apple aren't as of yet even publicly admitting it. They are telling us to buy cases? Give me a fucking break. Apple used to care about design, now when they have an issue as big as this they want their customers to cover it up for them? It's so bad it's difficult to believe.

How convenient. I wonder it that's because it covers up a flaw on the iPhone's design. Don't answer.

A lot of people are expecting a software fix Monday or Tuesday, frankly something tells me we won't be seeing it. After all Steve said: "just don't hold it in that way" or "buy a case". He never mentioned it's just a software bug, expect a fix very soon, and until then just avoid holding it in that way. That would have been something you'd expect if a software fix was coming. He didn't say that because it's probably not a software issue.

It's worth knowing that this issue was predicted by a antenna scientist two weeks before the iPhone came out.

This has been my experience as well. Upgrading from the iPhone 3G has been a real treat in every respect!


Because of the change in shape, the feeling in the hand is a bit less familiar and takes some getting used to. I wouldn't go so far as to say the iPhone 4 is "WAY easier to drop" though. I've always been very careful with my iPhones and have instinctively been even more so with this new one. Like the article states, it seems so much nicer than the previous models (possibly because the stainless steel band and FRONT AND BACK GLASS SURFACES are higher quality than the plastic casing of the iPhone 3G and 3GS); I'm more mindful about protecting it.

A lot of people here keep knocking the price of the Bumper as exorbitant, but I disagree. I find the price to be no more excessive than the prices for other cases, and the Bumper's build quality is easily just as good (or better) than many other options out there. I don't know if you've seen the Bumper up close, but it isn't just an ugly piece of rubber stretched around the edge of the phone. It features some aesthetic design cues that elevate its own fit and finish to a level "worthy" of the iPhone 4's sophistication. Third-party cases will appear soon enough, I'm sure, so you'll be able to find something if Apple's Bumper doesn't do it for you. But I can't imagine them costing much less than $30, not the quality ones anyway.

Wow, that Kool Aid sure tastes great, huh?

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/27/...ue-stay-tuned/

Steve just admitted it's fixable with a software update.

You do realise that this is the first of a set of reviews, this one just covers Hardware Fit and Finish.
The details you want will be in later reviews.

We'll see. If it is then great, but I'm not holding my breath.

Well I guess I'm dumb, I'm getting one as soon as they launch in Australia despite all the whining.

I'll probably get a case or see f it fits in one of the many 3G cases I already have.

I can't wait to play some of the games I have which suffer performance issues on my 3G.

Oh, and by the way I have been observing the way I use my iPhone and I don't hold it so I am touching the bottom left corner I hold it mainly using my fingertips with the back of the phone supported on my palm.

I'm sorry, but how many BMW's are on the road today? And how many Taurus's are on the road? I see none in California, or very rarely. I used to own a Taurus... it was a piece of junk, it gave new meaning to "breaking my wallet". On the other hand, my friends had had BMW's that have been reliable as a Honda.