iPhone 4 owners report fewer dropped calls than iPhone 3GS - Page 2

Also note that this is strictly a US survey (altough it doesn't say so expressly in he heading). Wonder what results they'd get if they asked overseas users who don't have the AT&T network.

Sadly true.

I would say Apple have failed if they put the most gorgeous screen on the new phone and people didn't notice it.
Surprised facetime is not higher up though considering all the Apple ads.

EDIT: forgot to say this survey, in a way, spell doom to BB Torch if people love the screen so much.

I have yet to even see an iPhone 4 "in the flesh," but everyone I know who has says the same about the screen. It's a small sample, but in the last five days, I've run across three different friends who have seen one at the local Apple store or Internationaly and the conversation always goes like this:

"(Optional OMG here), ... you *have* to get one of those, the screen it's just ... " (and here they are literally at a loss for words).

Then they start making blubbing sounds and waving their arms and eventually pop out with something like "it's so clear!" or "it's just ... unbelievable"

2 of these 3 then went on to tell me of "how incredibly fast" it was and the "amazing speed" to use the exact quotes.

No one mentioned the multi-tasking.

I'm not sure about your point #2. On that point, are you suggesting that there are fewer dropped calls on iPhone 4 than on 3GS because more people are using cases/bumpers? If so, I think that this particular point is questionable. Although more people may want bumpers or cases due to this whole situation, I don't think that enough are available yet. Data from Gene Munster's (an Apple stock analyst) surveys suggest that 80% of 3GS owners have cases. Meanwhile, with the iPhone 4, there were not nearly enough bumpers manufactured to meet demand, so that figure is probably lower, even now with new cases coming on board.

Thompson

My iPhone 4 is on order. Looking forward to it coming next week if there are no delays. Dropped calls is a part of life in Downeast Maine. Top of a hill make a call and drive down the other side to drop the call. Doesn't matter what phone or service. Actually, the only choice up here is AT&T and Verizon. Have had them both and prefer AT&T. My wife has the 3gs and it works fine where you can get a signal. At home we are on the Microcell which is a pleasure to use.

Didn't you read the story?

The source of the survey was disclosed: ChangeWave Research. (See changewave.com.) This group funds and performs surveys like this in order to characterize the dynamics of technology in the market place. They perform surveys, analyze the results, make some predictions and editorialize a bit, then they sell their results and conclusions to their subscribers. Since they are making money from their subscribers, they are not beholden to the companies they cover, and their work is fairly unbiased and independent. They live and die from their ability to predict, or at least characterize, trends. So they need to get it right.

Thompson

I have a friend who has had AT&T for years, and he calls his wife daily. He commutes to Austin most of the week, and she is in Waco. They both had Motorola RAZR flip phones and AT&T would drop their calls, all the time. Now they have iPhones (3G). Their calls still drop, pretty much all the time. However, I have never experienced a dropped call since I joined AT&T 3 years ago. I've concluded that it's not the iPhone per se, but likely AT&T in the particular cell tower and time of day.

BTW, I when I got the iPhone 4, I have not seen any change in signal quality, or any dropped calls, but I acknowledge that some people have in other parts of the country, and this was probably the origins of the media-created "antenna-gate".

One more anecdote: a fandroid friend of mine wanted to demonstrate antenna-gate on my new iPhone 4, so I take it out of the bumper and hand it to him... He gives it a good left-handed death grip and it drops... From 5 to 4 bars of signal. He seemed unhappy that it did not drop to no signal.

I figured this to be good news. Some seem angry... lol.

But that won't shut up the haters. They'll likely point to the objective data which shows that the iP4 drops more calls than the 3GS, and deny that the owners of the 4 think they get fewer dropped calls.

But that's what haters do.

Thanks for weighing in, tekstud

actually it can. learn some statistics. the joke is on you.

For me - this would merit a visit to the local Apple Store to see about fix or replace. Your phones do not sound like they are working correctly. But I'm particular - if it doesn't work right it gets taken back and fixed or replaced.

He's been on quite a roll lately with this latest shtick.

it was a change in meds? I hear that can do wonders!

Admitting you are wrong is one of the hardest things for people to do.

The denial among the droidtard army is strong on antennagate.

What I think is that in future when LTE starts being adopted is that Apple will have a headstart with this innovative antenna design, it will be hard for other manufacturers to copy it, thanks to the droidtards.

No, they'll copy it without a second thought, and it'll be hailed as a marvel of engineering.

All my friends who have one say that they get fewer dropped calls vs. the 3G and 3GS.

I saw an iPhone 4 in the flesh for the first time yesterday, and if I hadn't known the screen was higher resolution, I wouldn't have noticed it (and my vision is 20/20).

Wow. I knew it was hi-rez, but I wasn't really prepared for just how good it looked. I had thought that Apple made a mistake in not increasing the screen size, but compared to many other larger, but lower rez screens, the iP4 screen is truly impressive.

Did you compare it with anything side by side?

Well if you are the statistics guru, what is the best sample size for a 95% CI of a population of around 2,000,000? (assuming 2/3 of the iPhone4 were US sold)

Held it next to my 3G and surfed to the same web page.

It's extraordinary all the attention given to this bogus antenna problem, while 3G iPhone owners who upgraded to iOS4 have been hung out to dry by Apple with nary a peep from the press or Apple.

It's worth noting that the difference in dropped calls is not statistically significant. Assuming that the previous survey of iPhone 3Gs owners is of the same size (213 responders), my calculations give me a p-value of about 0.3, nowhere near the usual 0.05 required to conclude that there is a real difference.

The number of Very Satisfied customers, however, is significantly lower for the iPhone 4 (p < 0.01).

Well, antenna-gate was a bit of a damp squib, eh! Was it really an iPhone 4 problem or more of an AT&T problem? I wonder what the anti-Apple forces will dream up now to stem the inevitable march of Apple and its iOS devices all over the 'pretenders' and followers who they champion?
Perhaps you guys ought to start piling pressure on Google, Nokia, RIM, Microsoft etc, to get their short-sighted and fragmented product development strategies sorted out before Apple shakes off it's AT&T chains. Otherwise you will have no option but to buy 'horrible' Apple products because they will be the only ones left in the market.

213 People is hardly any number of people to base a survey on. My questions are:


1. Why would anyone do a survey of 213 people what kind of cross sampling is that???

2. Why would Apple Insider even bother to post that as news

I dunno, maybe my vision is failing me but I can't see that big of a difference. The screen seems brighter to me, and a bit sharper but not to the point where I would be able to say that text is way more clear on iPhone4 then 3GS.

I would say it's more like going from 320p to 480p, then from 720p to 1080p. (metaphorical comparison rather then estimation of actual picture quality)

In some countries that's known as alcoholism.

Just kidding. "Bars", geddit? "Bars"?

No?

Hmmm... tough forum...

And a more apt description of Daniel Eran Dilger I could not hope to express. Congratulations anonymouse. You have distilled everything I have attempted to portray about his actions even better than I.

Well done.

I believe you misinterpreted his question. He was asking who commissioned the research, not who undertook it.

It may be that ChangeWave undertook it and commissioned it on their own behalf, but at present we don't know for sure. So if, for example, Apple commissioned it, then we might all draw a different conclusion than if ChangeWave independently commissioned it.

Although Neilsen conducts research on its own instigation, it also undertakes much more research on behalf of third parties as that's where most of its income derives from.

I hope that clears the issue up?

You crazy rational beast you!

Yeah, mine was kind of the same reaction. I held it next to my 3GS and thought to myself, "Well I think I see a difference. I guess I was trying to talk myself into seeing a difference. To be honest, I never looked at photos side by side, maybe you can see a difference there. I was mostly looking at the home page icons and a web site.

I still plan to get a iPhone 4 in the future (in a few months), but I'm genuinely happy with my 3GS with iOS 4 for now.

Depends. If you knew anything about statistics, you'd know that.

If the effect you're looking for is large, you need a smaller sample size. If the effect you're looking for is small, you need a larger sample size. If you don't know how big the effect is, then you pick a sample size, but you may not be able to demonstrate the effect if it's too small for your sample size.


Why do people insist on babbling about things they don't understand?

There's nothing wrong with the sample size. It's very common to do surveys with small samples. If a result is clear cut enough, the effect may be statistically verifiable even with a small sample size. If it isn't observed, you can always choose a larger sample later.

I haven't seen the raw data, so I don't know if this result is valid or not, but throwing it out simply because the sample is small is not very smart, either.

There is, of course, the fact that it's a self-selecting group (restricted to people who just spent a lot of money on a new phone, for starters. Most people are less likely to criticize something they just spent money on), so it's probably not valid regardless of the sample size.

I do, but I wasn't the one criticizing everyone that questioned the sample size without providing a reason why.

But since there isn't any information provided regarding the sample, you can assume they have choosen a sample size to get a result they wanted to get.

I'm a diehard fan and in my opinion i think the proximity sensor is the real culprit. I've become so annoyed and have started to become neurotic everytime I go to make or recieve a phone call, I'm always so worried my ear or check will hang up the call, or mute the call if I just hold the phone like normal, like i have with all previous iphones since day 1. It's become such a problem i rarely hold the phone to my ear and if i do i have to hold it at a 45 degree angle just barely touching my head so i can hear the speaker. if for one second i forget about the "problem" and hold phone regularly, it hangs up, 100% of the time, every call i am on is dropped if i hold it that way, the "normal" way. no calls are dropped if i use speaker phone or hold it off my entire body and some neurotic angle. It's made calls no fun, and always a hassle, and i never had this problem with original, 3g or 3gs, and i've been through lots of phones, in fact i even had them replace my new iphone 4, to see if because i was one who got the phone on day 1, maybe they improved this problem with a new batch of phones, and STILL the problem persists and 100% of calls are ended when i hold the phone the normal way, because my face or ear activates the screen. THE PROXIMITY SENSOR is not functioning correctly. I hope this will be resolved this week as i miss my old iphone 3gs, and would rather have one that works. this is no fun, and the worse part is i have 3 friends that all got the new iphone 4 as well and THEY ALL HAVE THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM, they just use their phones on speakerphone mode, or bluetooth car mode, or earbud mode to avoid this flippin problem. What is taking apple so long to update this problem. I think the dropped call thing was really this issue confused as people dont realise the problem isnt the antenna, but the screen/proximity sensor. That's the primary reason APPLE, and other companys can release numbers that say iphone 4 has fewer "dropped calls" that iPhone 3Gs, it's because they do, they do have fewer dropped calls, BUT THEY A DROPPED CALL IS DIFFERENT THAT AN ended call, a USER ENDED CALL, that's just like hanging up your phone and therefore is not considered a DROPPED CALL.

I'm a diehard fan and in my opinion i think the proximity sensor is the real culprit. I've become so annoyed and have started to become neurotic everytime I go to make or recieve a phone call, I'm always so worried my ear or cheek will hang up the call, or mute the call if I just hold the phone like normal, like i have with all previous iphones since day 1. It's become such a problem i rarely hold the phone to my ear and if i do i have to hold it at a 45 degree angle just barely touching my head so i can hear the speaker. if for one second i forget about the "problem" and hold phone regularly, it hangs up, 100% of the time, every call i am on is "hung-up" if i hold it that way, the "normal" way. no calls are hung-up or dropped if i use speaker phone or hold it off my entire body and some neurotic angle. It's made calls no fun, and always a hassle, and i never had this problem with original, 3g or 3gs, and i've been through lots of phones, in fact i even had them replace my new iphone 4, to see if because i was one who got the phone on day 1, maybe they improved the issue with a new batch of phones, and STILL the problem persists and 100% of calls are ended when i hold the phone the normal way, because my face or ear activates the screen. THE PROXIMITY SENSOR or it's corresponding SOFTWARE is not functioning correctly. I hope this will be resolved this week as i miss my old iphone 3gs, and would rather have one that works. this is no fun, and the worse part is i have 3 friends that all got the new iphone 4 as well and THEY ALL HAVE THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM, they just use their phones on speakerphone mode, or bluetooth car mode, or earbud mode to avoid this f*****g problem. What is taking apple so long to update this problem? I think the "dropped call" issue was really this issue confused as people dont realise the problem isn't the antenna, but the screen/proximity sensor. That's the primary reason APPLE, and other companys can release numbers like the charts in this post, that say iphone 4 has fewer "dropped calls" that iPhone 3Gs, it's because they do have fewer "dropped calls" BUT a user ended call, like the ones initiated with this proximity problem, do not count as a dropped call. that's just like hanging up your phone and therefore is not considered a DROPPED CALL. UGGGGG how many of you agree>