Consumer Reports declares Apple addressed antenna issue with iPhone 4S - Page 2

I had the same experience: My 3GS worked everywhere in my house. My 4 works in ONE area of my house.

So according to these bozo's, "bigger screen = better phone".

Awesome.

Big screen bozos

True or False:

If/when iPhone5 is released with larger screen/phone, it is going to make a lot of folks on this board complain.

That depends on how it will affect the usability of the device. If they can make a larger display without affecting the how the device feels in your hand by reduce the screen border to make it about the same width and making it thinner so that one handed operation can still work with a full thumb swipe then I'm all for it. If it becomes one of those excessive Android devices then it's not for me.

You mean, 3.5" is not the ideal screen size?

I have found that Consumer Report not to be trustworthy any more. I'm not sure but they appear to be selling out on their reviews.

During the past few years I have bought several products based on their recommendations and have found them to be totally wrong.

As for the iphone, I have had the iphone 3 and the iphone 4 and my experience has been that the iphone 4 had a better antenna than the iphone 3. I have to say I never had any antenna "problems" with either. The iphone 4 has given me better reception in more places.

Most of my friends with Androids made their purchase strictly on price, even though they knew were getting a less quality phone experience.

Uh no...

The iPhone4 has the same problem as all the other phones PLUS it has the problem where if you bridge the antennas with one finger, it loses connection.

For some... Come back when you need reading glasses.

There is no ideal size. Apple used the screen size they did because they felt it was the best size then, and also felt that the size of the phone was the best. Of course, we're talking about "best" meaning "for most people". And that seems to be the truth considering that Apple's phones are the highest selling models for about every carrier around the world where they're offered (and sometimes where they're not!).

But that doesn't mean that times won't change, and what might have been best for several years is now not best. That hard to say. I would like a slightly larger screen if only that means that the phone won't grow a lot as well. I believe that a lot of people feel the same way.

Apple's phones appeal to kids and adults. Hand sizes very accordingly. Other makers have a bunch of models, but Apple doesn't. So Apple has to make what most people would like. It's also why Apple makes more profit. All of their efforts are surrounding a single new model, whereas other companies have to pay to make a number, splitting their efforts and sales. Cost of development, manufacturing, and every other area cost more for each of those phones, cutting their profits. That's not good either.

So, apparently next year, we'll see a larger screen. According to the CEO of Hon Hai, Apple's manufacturing partner, they would have had that this year, except they had problems fitting the components into the slimmer phone.

Not really. I have a 4, and the problem isn't that easy to force. You really do have to grab the phone in a very uncomfortable position to make the problem serious. But if you're in an area with pretty bad reception anyway, where it's marginal, this will often cause the call to drop, or not allow it. On the other hand (no pun intended, but what the heck!), I've made calls with the phone that my older 3G couldn't make.

My 1925 house has brick exterior and a number of brick interior walls. It also has a steel mesh nailed to the wood lath that has .75" mortar and .25" plaster on the walls and ceilings. It's almost like living in a Faraday cage. I need not only the Airport Extreme, but three Expresses to get WiFi all through the house and basement. So you can imagine that 3G is pretty weak in parts of the house, and it is.

The 4 was better than the 3G in difficult areas there, but in a couple of spots got no signal of any kind. The 4s is better all around, though WiFi is still a problem in those same spots. I expect the new Extreme will solve most of that, as testing shows it's much stronger, and can reach spots where the original one didn't.

But overall, the 4 has been pretty good, while the 4s is better.

Not trying to be rude and I understand you want to say no. But you are really saying yes.

Yes really. I have a 4 and all it takes is a light touch bridging the antenna gap. That can be with a finger tip or (far more commonly) the base of the thumb. Otherwise the iPhone 4 radio performance is much better than the 3GS.

I work on many systems in older homes and your problems are typical. But gosh, most of these older houses have brickwork and trim that you could not have built today!

Uh no

AnandTech showed the iPhone 4 attenuated more than other phones but also noted it could make and hold calls in places other phones cold not even maintain an established connection so that even with a lower dB rating it was still a better option than other calls.

There article last year was the cause of the change made to dB levels as represented by bars but it was neither an AT&T issue or an Apple issue. A drop from 5 to 2 bars does not mean a 60% drop in signal strength. zero bars doesn't mean no carrier connection.

Apple did what any reasonable persona expected, they improved on a revolutionary design. They didn't recall the iPhone 4; in fact, they kept it as the flagship device for an unprecedented time. They now have 2 out of three of their selling models using this exterior antenna. So much for the worldwide recall¡

So the phone didn't lose an abnormal amount of signal strength simply by placing a finger on a specific spot?

Bad reading or not (the same code they've had for years to display signal strength btw) that is a design flaw.

Again. It is not as big as people trumped it up to be, and I feel the benefits of the iPhone 4 outweigh the signal problem...(especially as a user who uses a phone mostly as a mini computer than an actual phone) but there was still a problem...which doesn't happen with the new phone...


The way it worked (I use to know precisely) is that the way bars were read allowed a relatively weak signal to read as full and the slightest detuning would cause it to shift a few dB ranges to go from full to low but in a relatively strong signal the same loss would go from full to full (unnoticeable)

It was a real issue....not as big an issue as people assumed...but an issue nonetheless in the design of the iPhone 4...I don't agree with CR's initial report, but I do understand it. (I also don't get how they rate anyways as they sound like a bunch of clueless fools to begin with)


Different phones react differently in different situations. Point was the iPhone 4 lost a significant amount of signal simply by bridging the gap. Design flaw, not a huge flaw, but it existed.



I guess this means you're a troll now...

Point out in the Cellular Devices Bars Rating Guide that details what is normal and abnormal. You've made it clear that everything the iPhone does is wrong, bad and abnormal and that everything other phones do is great, right and normal, yet the evidence of the iPhone 4's sales and usability clearly show the device is not only usable but the best device that many have used making it the highest selling smartphone model over the past 1.5 years.

I guess you could argue that no one makes calls anymore, that people are only using data wilst on WiFi, and they bought the iPhone to be sheeple even though the device sucks, but you'd be wrong yet again.

Lets take a look at the definition of decibel

decibel |ˈdɛsəˌbɛl|(abbr.: dB )
noun
a unit used to measure the intensity of a sound or the power level of an electrical signal by comparing it with a given level on a logarithmic scale. Now lets take a look at the difference as detailed by AnandTech...

Holing naturally:

• iPhone 4: 19.8
• iPhone 3GS: 1.9
• HTC Nexus One: 10.7

First of all you's claiming the HTC Nexus One, which is closer to the iPhone 4 than it is to the iPhone 3GS is "normal" so I guess that means the 3GS is abnormal. Or could the 3GS be "normal" and the iPhone 4 and Nexus One both be "abnormal". You don't make any intelligent distinction simply because you can't stomach saying anything negative about a non-Apple product.

So that's holing anturaly, but what about cupping tightly? II'm glad you asked)...

Cupping Tightly:

• iPhone 4: 24.6\t
• iPhone 3GS: 14.3\t
• HTC Nexus One: 17.7

Now we see something else you forgot to mention. The iPhone 4 change in signal strength was 4.8 dB, the 3GS was 12.4 dB, and the Nexus One was 7.0 dB. So we have the three generation old Phone 3GS with the most change in attenuation, the Nexus One with with the 2nd best and the iPhone 4 with the least amount of attenuation. That goes against your claim that the iPhone 4 loses the most.

To quote AnandTech...

From my day of testing, I've determined that the iPhone 4 performs much better than the 3GS in situations where signal is very low, at -113 dBm (1 bar). Previously, dropping this low all but guaranteed that calls would drop, fail to be placed, and data would no longer be transacted at all. I can honestly say that I've never held onto so many calls and data simultaneously on 1 bar at -113 dBm as I have with the iPhone 4, so it's readily apparent that the new baseband hardware is much more sensitive compared to what was in the 3GS. The difference is that reception is massively better on the iPhone 4 in actual use. Now lets consider (yet again) that the iPhone 4 was the only device to work when the rating was so low. If you take the minimum dB that each phone will work and then move up from there, not down from 0.0 dB, you get a phone that is a revolution in design, the reason why the iphone 4 is so popular, and why the iPhone 4S follows it's lead with an externally placed antenna.

So you're just going to lie now?

You've forgotten Apple's interesting "oops, we made a mistake" in the software routine that overstated signal strength and displayed artificially higher bars on the iPhone? Apple corrected that mistake (yeah, right) so that an area where signal strength was being overstated as a "4" would correctly show as "2," for example.

I guess you can say Apple made a mistake in that they didn't adjust it for the new antenna design, but technically there is no "right" or "legal" way to represent the bars. Even after the change they are not evenly spaced between dB levels. As you can see anything 5 bars is anything up to −75 dB and the difference down to zero bars is only 46 dB.

PS: I can't be sure but I don't think the other iPhones that got the 4.0.1 update also got the new dB rating that goes down to −121.

Did you not read my post? 3.5" within the ideal goalposts for the size of the device encasing the display. Again, if you can add a larger display without making the phone feel larger thus reducing it's one-hand usability then the goalposts for what is ideal will grow to include a larger display.

I'm saying that under extreme conditions, grabbing the phone in an unnatural way will cause a problem. You're saying that one finger in many areas will cause a problem, and that's not so.

I haven't had that problem at all. I do notice the signal drop. But it hasn't been a problem. The signal drops much more if you grab it over the majority of the phone. Then, it's a problem.

If you live in an area with a really bad signal problem, it will be worse for you. I won't deny that. But there have been tens of millions of people with this phone, and the problems have been few.

Yeah. But what a hassle!

Consumer reports, Gruber [faithful].

Steve's own engineers warned him about this, and he was so hurt when it happened he even thought about ignoring it, but Tim persuaded him to hold a press conference and deal with it. Say what you will, but these guys were spot on to say the issue was real. In truth, the real reason it went away is that everyone (99.99% of owners) uses cases on their iPhones for fear of breaking them. True story.

I did read your post. It sounded to me like the 3.5" screen size a compromise for the stated benefits and a bigger screen would be more desirable. I just wanted to be clear.

I don't see what sales has to do with it. Brittany Spears records sell well. Yes, the 4 was the best phone at the time, but that doesn't mean the issue wasn't real.

The average consumer doesn't want bigger. It's the geeks who want bigger. And there are also design reasons for choosing 3.5".

Yes, Gruber, I mean Steve, I mean...

Look, there is a problem with understanding exactly what was happening. Sure, you could make a drop in signal with a finger, but it wasn't more than many phones exhibit with certain normal grips. You could cut the signal back by a large amount with the death grip, but that's unnatural.

But in addition, the question is how much did this matter? The answer is that most of the time; not at all. Unless the signal was very low to begin with, neither way of holding it affected a call. And in most areas where the signal is that low, you can usually move a bit, and it's fine.

In my house, the signal level goes from -74db to -130db, then cuts out. As long as the signal was above about -110db, no grip affected the call. Below that, it could be a problem until I got to -115, when with a grip it cut out. That's pretty low. And if I changed my grip; no problem.

So, yes, there was a drop, and it could get pretty big if you really gripped the phone, it's mostly not a problem. And if it was, you could just change the grip. Not holding the phone by the very bottom ended the problem entirely, and that's not an odd way to hold it, and was only needed about, what, 1% of the time? Not much of a problem.

Another important thing to note, that is hardly ever mentioned, is that not all hands are the same. In particular, sweat and natural oils can affect the conductivity of a person's hand. It is perfectly possible, even likely, that in medium to weak signal areas, one person's hand will have no affect on the iPhone 4 whilst someone else's does.

That's BS, about the cases at least. I see more iPhone users without cases than with them, and that includes 4 users.

Real and serious are two things. The issue was real, but it wasn't serious, except for those who have made a hobby out of it.

Can you refer me to the survey where the average consumers and geeks said that?

That's true too. But with over 100 million people owning this phone around the world, you would have expected far more of a scandle if this was a serious problem, and of course, it wasn't.

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It seems to me that we can simply look at sales. What are the most popular phones on the networks? #1 is the 4s. #2 is the 4, and #3 or 4 is the two and a half year old 3GS. All on the smaller side these days

Except that as soon as Apple realized the error they released an update for it. Surely you remember that? It's also why this stupid lawsuit will be won by Apple.

I agree that it was "totally wrong" in the sense that there was no attention to detail that the iPhone 4 was very much usable at a much lower dB single strengths than previous iPhones (and other cellphones in general) which warranted the change in the bars to accommodate this paradigm in cellphone antenna design. It's not like Apple to forget about these things, which is too bad because I think if people didn't see 1 to 3 drops in bars on their phones — a situation that was resolved by this SW change — the whole antennagate issue may not have happened, which means no free Bumper program for 2 months which means a 2.4¢ increase in my shares.

Indeed. I just think that "hand variation" and indeed iPhone to iPhone variation*, is something that's overlooked when trying to understand why some people swear blind that the problem is serious ("I just have to touch it with one finger and it drops calls!") when most people's experience doesn't bear that out.

* one iPhone 4 will not behave exactly the same as another; every chip that goes inside an iPhone 4 has its own level of statistical variation in performance from one instance of the chip to another. If a user is unlucky enough to get an iPhone 4 whose relevant chips (e.g. RF receive amplifier and transmit power amplifier) are at the low-end of the performance spectrum, they have particularly conductive hands, and use the phone in medium to weak signal areas, then from their point of view the iPhone antenna "problem" will be serious.