Apple deletes discussion threads about Consumer Reports and iPhone 4 - Page 4

am not a troll or a plant, but did have serious signal problems when held in my left hand, which is how I use the phone with apps, but not calls. I bought a bumper, and its pretty much cured the problem, I had intended to get a bumper anyway, but its still £25.00 that I had to spend to fix the problem.

Calling everyone who has an issue a troll or a plant is not the answer. If it had bothered me that much I would have returned the phone, as it was I made the choice to spend some more and fix it myself.

I don't however think that there is a justification for a class action that just the lawyers trying it on.

Im also already since quite some time disgusted by the fact that Apple deletes forum threads. They also do it if you report certain bugs. Then again, this is not an Apple problem on its own. Many news sites do it regularily, many many news sites have even stopped their comment section altogether (see also CNN), or they have banned the comments sofar away from the articles that once you reach the comment section, you cant remember what you wanted to bitch about.

I think its time for a website that can comment ANY website, and which cant be switched off. Like in a Frame would be good. Then we can read the world through our opinions and noone can shut us off.

Re Steve Jobs, I do think he has integrity and I do think that in this case he will simply need to conceed, that its all a big SNAFU and Apple will need to pay out the dosh to get it all fixed to everyones satisfaction.

I think he will do that because his reputation, is the only thing he really has to loose, and loosing that would be far more costly in any sense, than loosing a few hundred million dollars to fix the iPhone4.

After all, hes not like Bill, whos reputation has been lost for a long time, on the other hand, hes making up for lost ground by spending all the money me made on screwing consumers wrecklessly without any consideration for them, on poor kids who need medical aid and education. One extra point to Bill there.

Steve; just fix the thing; yes this will cost money but hey who doesnt make mistakes?

Were all just human.

What is inexplicable to me is why apple won't insulate the cables that form the antenna on the whole and in the affected lower left join. I can of course wager that this might degrade the signal, but won't a bumper case have a similar degrading effect? Any of the technically inclined might want to explain this for me?

This just goes to show how irrelevant their criteria can be.

They take a product which they can't recommend, run their tests, and get the highest rating.

What sort of tests are these again?

Apple's PR department needs to hire a crisis management specialist. That is the underlying problem here.

Correct. It is a software issue that has been present since the first iPhone. It will be fixed in due course.

Pornography is just about the best example of free speech that exists. Ask Larry Flynt.

That's exactly what I like about AI board. There's always some guy, who tries to think rationally right in the heart of common hysteria and ignorance orgy.

No, coating can not noticeably weaken antenna reception capabilities. Neither can Apple's bumper. And all other phone antennae all over the world somehow survive underneath 2 mm thickness of plastic cases.

There's no satisfactory explanation of the necessity to expose iPhone antenna metal other than following the industrial design guidelines pushed to the limits.

I see. Thanks for the reply, makes a lot of sense. Surely then they must have looked at some option for coating the metal exterior frame of the phone to prevent attenuation by user contact, I wonder why they did not find any sufficiently feasible solution. This is a very strange matter indeed with this phone because we all know th talent that went into this. I fail to understand how so many signals engineers could have missed this potential problem, so I would think they didn't, but informed the design team. Even so I still fail to believe a scenario where the design team pushed them and ignored their red flag outright.

So all in all my imagination deserts me as to what might have happened.

In terms of a potential fix, which would include a small redesign, why don't they just put the joints of the antennae in the corners of the phone? Hardly anyone touches the very corner so it seems problem solved? Doesn't it? If they can fit them thus that is.

Btw, Ivan, aren't there health concerns by exposing the antennae to the user and he or she touching them. I am very sensitive to sar issues in mobile phones, an area where I think the industry has been very dishonest about potential health threats, apple included.

I have had NO problems with reception or dropped calls on my Iphone 4G.
Lawyers, Google, Consumer Reports are all out to make a fast buck on this.

much as I want a 4G and I've been apple based for 20+ years, my gut told me that a radically new design would inevitably have some glitches. While Apple probably tests new products far more than anyone out there, they can't anticipate all of the real world problems, especially given the veil of secrecy that surrounds new products or redesigns

For what my two cents is worth, this might have been avoided had they wrapped the new product in really boring package, perhaps even to make it look like a 1st gen iPhone; 95% of the people who'd pick it up would be fooled by the disguise (unlike the Gizmodo twerps) and try to return the 'old' phone to its rightful owner.

The clever redesign of the antenna is to be lauded but maybe it needed more testing before the launch, perhaps even 6 months of testing to allow for incorporation of changes and retesting

Yes... I am deadly... do not cross me

Clue: Of course Apple can do whatever they want in their forums. It's about how desperate they look when they're doing it, all the while denying they have a hardware problem.

You mean, um ... like the 2008 Apple Time Capsule that they recently acknowledged? So, what about the people who had one of these lemons go out on them 6 months ago - and rushed out and bought a new wireless router - because they may actually NEED them .... as in ... oh .... today?

Sorry, putting your head in the sand for an unspecified period of time and ignoring the problem is NOT the way to solve the problem.

I was thinking the same thing.

This stuff had been somewhat entertaining to watch though; an organization has something good to say about Apple/Jobs/iPhone they are a fine, reputable, trusted outfit. Should that same org say someting even slightly negative about Apple/Jobs/iPhone then there's an agenda, they're a rag, can't be trusted. Not long ago CR was the cat's meow when they came out with a customer satisfaction survey that rated AT&T low.

Hilarious!

Remember the problem with iPhone 3Gs battery draining problems last year and similar ranting about that issue? This one seems to be no different except in one respect. In order to identify the source of the problem (besides being Apple) those having a problem with their phone were asked to submit the serial number of the unit. This allowed Apple to narrow down the build date of the phone and, subsequently, identify the problem. I haven't seen that suggested on any forum since the iPhone4 came out. Is AI interested in setting up a link to which these numbers can be sent?

Jeez ... I don't have cancer; therefore there is no such thing as cancer.

Here's a brief introduction into analog RF communications. If you are somewhat close to a tower, you may take a tin snips and cut off your antenna. You may even be able to rip the wires off of the PCB and STILL get great reception. You may even be able to lift the PCB traces off of the board, right up to the leads of the chip. There may be enough signal such that the internal traces on the chip are sufficient to makea phone call.

Now, move that phone a half-mile away from the tower - and now the phone may be useless. If you have a tower close by ... oh, goody for you. Just make sure you never, ever travel further than some distance from a tower. Because when you do, you will eat crow and say "Golly, my phone doesn't work ... I wonder why?".

A hardware design flaw is a design flaw .. you phone is affected, you are just not in an area where you realize this. Humans compromise primarily of two types of impedance; depending upon the water content of your skin, you may be 1,000 ohms to 100,000 ohms of resistance; but you are also a capacitor generally ranging from 10-40 pF. So, by virtue of being a human, you "de-tune" the antenna when you get within millimeters of touching it - just from your impedance. This is a design flaw.

If the antenna were behind a layer of glass, plastic or wood - and that material was just a few millimeters thick - then your impedance influence would be minized. This is why the bumpers seem to help - it puts some distance between you and the antenna.

I upgraded last week from a 3Gs to the new iPhone 4 despite reading all these horror stories about poor signal issues etc etc and so far I havent had any problems with my iPhone 4 in regards to signal and/or losing reception. I have held the phone in my left hand and even gripped unnaturally tight and still have a full signal.

Now I am in the UK on the O2 network and was wondering if anyone else on O2 has had this problem?? I know 2 other people on the same network BOTH brought theirs on launch day and neither have had any problems. So I am beginning to wonder if this Signal issue is only on the AT&T Network? Correct me if I am wrong though.

But so far I am 99.9% happy with my new iPhone, it loses 0.1% cause its super flat back means it slides of any slightly curved surface, like a Sofa arm rest which my previous iPhone didn't

How hard is it to understand? Everything about the iPhone 4 is top-notch, with the exception of one niggling problem that can actually affect, you know, PHONE CALLS. You expect a phone with that kind of problem, albeit the only problem, to receive a recommendation? Fix the problem, it will be retested and no doubt receive CRs highest recommendation.

Others saying they were on O2 have reported the problem. Not an issue exclusive to the AT&T network.

Some people use "pornography" broadly and may actually mean "child pornography" which is not, of course, protected speech. Hopefully that's what the guy meant.

Your post is wrong about so many things, it's hard to know where to start. I have owned an iPhone since June 23rd. Actually, two. Apple swapped out the first one when I couldn't hold the phone in my left hand without dropping the signal and losing all voice and data communication. Unfortunately, the 2nd one works just as poorly.

And yes, you can drop the signal inside an AT&T store. I have done it, to the chagrin of the clerks there. No doubt you won't take me up on this, but come here to Medford, OR and I'll demonstrate it for you. And then I'll take you out for a nice, big, steaming plate of crow.

No offense, but do you buy everything that Apple says, hook, line and sinker? You sound like you're from their (recently bumbling) PR department.

As many have logically shown, the proposed software fix is cosmetic in nature and will have no effect beyond trying to pass the blame elsewhere.

There is a software glitch. It has been there since the first iPhone. It is now being remedied.

This reasoning is very close to my theory of what actually happened. The issue was probably not seen as serious enough, while no one had the courage to stand the temptation of the case design elegancy.


It's hardware. Any modifications to manufacturing process and to used materials take very long to design, implement, get all necessary approvals and to finally switch factories. IMO, they may venture to apply some insulating coating on antennae, but still it will take a considerable amount of time.
Quick software fix would always be appreciated. But I doubt there's one being really feasible.


Allergic people may be somewhat concerned.
Besides that, as you've already figured it out for yourself, there's pretty much nothing with iPhone 4 to be scared of more, than with any other cellular phones; 2 mm of dielectric casing do not make that big difference. Official reports on iPhone 4's SAR levels have been published by FCC. iPhone 4 looks better, than 3GS.

Exactly. However, the stupidity, whining and exaggerations continue ad nauseam.

Ha ha - it's 1984... Apple is now The Man.

Sources, please?

I really wish people who have never read 1984 and have absolutely no idea what the book is about would stop using it as an analogy for anything they don't like. For one thing, it trivializes the issues actually raised in 1984. But, mostly, in this instance, it utterly and completely mischaracterizes Apple's actions. I know ignorance gives a certain freedom to be a fool, but it would really be best to resist the temptation and talk about what you know, not what you don't.

Yes. The way they decide what we can run on our phone and how we can hold it, etc. Kind of weird.

Remember back when Apple/Mac was about choice. Windows was bad because you did not have any choice. Run IE or else. Etc. My how the times have changed.

They deleted a post of mine after I complained about them pulling apps, from the app store. This is a free country but apperently Apple doesn't think so

My sentiments are pretty much said in your little rant here. Apple a while ago lost its charm on me, and I see the company going more towards the gadgets (iPhone, iPad, iPod...) than I do seeing them focus on the computers. They used to make decent machines. They used to make a decent OS. Now its all about the label... and it makes me sad. If the old Apple comes back (pre 2004 in my mind), and owns up to its own mistakes instead of thinking its too big for them, then I will consider going back. Till then, I'll stick with my Linux distros.

To be honest, the ONLY thing I miss is Garageband (but with a lot of work, you can get something pretty close). There really aren't any alternatives out there in either Linux or Windows. Ubuntu is a great OS, and can be streamlined if you know what you are doing. I'd suggest checking out Ubuntu Studio. Also, for video editing, check out Kdenlive. The biggest suggestion I'd say with linux, is be patient when setting it up. But once its going, its VERY nice. Welcome! Here, you can do what you want!

Thje reference isn't to the book, but to Apple's "1984" commercial. Or at least I assume that the OP was doing so.

@Ivan thanks for the useful and intelligent posting.

Well, even that reference would represent a misunderstanding of the issues and be incorrect.

Not really. The commercial was breaking free of "the Man," the OP was joking that Apple has now become "the Man" they railed against in that commercial. Nothing more than that.

A question . . . I don't twit/tweet/whatever though realize "@" is used in usernames there. Why has the use of "@" moved to forums and such when referring to previous posters? Seems totally unnecessary. Just a carryover from Twitter and such?

My pleasure.

P.S. Here's the popular extract of FCC's measurements and comparisons:

The bottom line is that most of those threads are filled with whiners who don't even own an iPhone - much like threads at AI. Given the posting profile of the threads, it appears likely that some of the posts are pure FUD stirred up by Apple's competition.

So why should Apple continue to support the competitor's FUD?

And I owned 25,000,000,000 shares of Microsoft stock and sold it when they released Vista. And I'm the one who told Google to go into search. And Santa Clause asks my opinion on tough 'naughty or nice' cases.

Isn't the Internet wonderful? You can claim anything you wish.


Do you have proof that there's a hardware problem? Or are you just spewing the same FUD you've heard from elsewhere?


That is not correct. Both CR and Anand state that the iPhone is better than other phones for phone calls. It's just not as much better if you hold it in a certain way.


Yes, but it's a good guide to which posts you can ignore because they're coming from ignorant twits. It's generally easy to sort out the posts from people who don't know what they're talking about, but that's one more clue to make it easier.


That's all true - but it doesn't give the Apple haters ammunition. I think Google, HTC, and RIM are actively stirring up trouble. Look at some of the post profiles of people here.


That's absolute nonsense. My current car is a Lexus. The car before that was a Buick Enclave. Before that, a different Lexus. Before that, an Acura. The Buick is every bit as good a car as the Lexus before and after it (in fact, it was better than the first Lexus I owned). Characterization of the Enclave as a "25 K car" is purely an indication that you don't know what you're talking about.

American car quality has, in general, improved a great deal. Several of the top rated cars are now American and the best American cars are certainly in the same ballpark as Honda or Toyota.


That's true. Apple has always tried to limit their support forums to support questions and weed out the whiners and FUDsters. Why is it news (other than the Android fans are up in arms because they're losing one place to spread their FUD)?