None of this refutes the plethora of videos out there of iPhone 4 dropping service by the simple act of being held, not to mention the ones showing the iPhone 4 losing service while laying flat on a surface and being touched at the antenna gap. I would rather believe that there is less of a bias in the videos over these talking blogheads and Apple apologists.
Where are the videos of any other phone going from 5 bars to no service in 20 seconds simply because they are picked up and held?
My test here takes it down to no bars after about 40 seconds. And to make matters worse, with the bumper installed and on a call, it drops as well. Just happened to notice it after wondering why calls just disappeared. No beep, no indication, just gone.
I originally thought my iPhone didn't have the reception problem. The first few times I experimented with it, reception was fine. However last night I discovered otherwise.
The problem appears to be worse when the signal is already weak or perhaps when there is noise in area. While lying on my couch last night, holding the phone in my left hand (as I always have) resulted in two bars instead of five. With those two bars, all data traffic was ground to a halt. No data was passing over the 3G connection. When held without bridging the antennas, reception jumped back to five bars and throughput went back up to around 2Mbps. This was 100% repeatable over and over again over the course of a half hour of testing last night. Basically, the phone was completely unusable when used in a normal fashion.
I've already got a bumper on order so it will likely be a non-issue for me soon. But this is a definite problem, a major problem. Let's hope it can be fixed in the manufacturing process or via a software update. Otherwise, I hate to say it, but Apple stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars and suffer a blow to its image. They'd have to allow millions of phones to be returned and/or respond to class action lawsuits.
Keep in mind that this report is coming from someone who isn't angry or enraged, loves apple products, and even loves the iPhone4 despite this problem. I'd even still recommend the phone to friends, with the caveat that it must be used with a bumper or case. With that said, this is a major problem!
The fact that you'd still recommended the phone to a friend is precisely why Jobs has the balls to say these kinds of things. If more decent, honest guys like you said no, it's time to take a stand, Apple would have less of leverage when it came to things like this. As for me I'm telling anyone who's buying a new phone to steer clear of the iPhone 4, until a legitimate fix is issued.
Have you let someone else hold your phone in the manner that causes others to fail? Or shorted it with foil gum wrapper or some such? It would be interesting to see if hand dampness and dead skin cell thickness plays a role.
I've run probably every test you can imagine except leaving my city to test in an area with weaker AT&T service. I also haven't been able to assertion the 3G band in use due to the removal of the *3001#12345# Field Test Mode.
I've even gone so far as to open a Neti Pot sodium packet into water before moistening my hand. Nothing! It's simply not an issue an issue affecting every phone.
At the very most, it's an issue with a particular 3G band with the TruQuint chips being utilized, which would mean a design flaw with the TriQuint chips, not the iPhone's antenna. As noted by my previous post the iPhone 4 is offering reception where there previously was none. Of course, there is the off chance that AT&T upgraded their network between the time the last iPhone wa used an te iPhone 4 was activated. \
I'd post a video, but I'm too lazy. I just tried holding my 3GS the same way (without case). From full 5 bars on Rogers in Canada, it drops 2 bars when I hold it in the bottom left corner. Perhaps on AT&T it would go from 3 or 4 bars to a dropped call.... who knows. Perhaps all this over blown?
Since your too lazy your post is irrelevant, all the people that aren't too lazy and have posted videos on You Tube of the iPhone 4 issues are not irrelevant.
If you are in an area with a strong signal, it won't happen.
This again? Someone said they saw the video showed the bar drop from 5 to zero suggesting the problem can happen even when you got strong signal. Then someone posted the picture of his holding the phone "the wrong way" with 5 bars intact or when someone said they didn't have the problem, there's always this "that's because you got strong signal" excuse. If you have no clue about the situation then why won't wait until you have a clear idea?
I've run probably every test you can imagine except leaving my city to test in an area with weaker AT&T service. I also haven't been able to assertion the 3G band in use due to the removal of the *3001#12345# Field Test Mode.
I've even gone so far as to open a Neti Pot sodium packet into water before moistening my hand. Nothing! It's simply not an issue an issue affecting every phone.
At the very most, it's an issue with a particular 3G band with the TruQuint chips being utilized, which would mean a design flaw with the TriQuint chips, not the iPhone's antenna. As noted by my previous post the iPhone 4 is offering reception where there previously was none. Of course, there is the off chance that AT&T upgraded their network between the time the last iPhone wa used an te iPhone 4 was activated. \
What about friends & family (if any) that live close enough to you to be on the same cell site? Are their iPhone 4's trouble free as well?
It is heartening to me that there are some that do not exhibit this behavior.
edit: Everyone I know that purchased an iPhone 4 has this problem. That is 14 people in 9 cities in 3 states (NC, SC and GA)
That's for calling me a jerk btw. I'll try not to call Apple out on massive design blunders in the future. You're the type of reason PC users hate Mac users. Blind love.
I have loved my iPhone 2G since the day I bought it. Loved it!
The iPhone 4 has a major issue, if you can't admit that your stupid.
Yeah but didn't you shout to high heaven for six months about no wifi on your phone?
Apparently the issue isn't as defective design flaw that will cause require all iPhone 4's to be recalled. What will the Chicken Littles do now?
Considering AT$Ts coverage is spotty pretty much everywhere it will effect quite a few people. The sky wont fall people will just return their phones. Before it was easy to blame AT$T for crappy service now we have crappy AT$T and a crappy iPhone.
In a nutshell, the FCC doesn't test the phones by actually holding them up to someone's head and making calls, they test the phone flat with nothing touching it. Now this doesn't let Apple off the hook for the design, but it does explain why its easy to block the antenna, and why is it there in the first place. Take a look.
The last 3 phones I've owned (all non-apple, and all non-smart) have included specific verbage in the manual on how to hold the phone in relation to the antenna, and one even had a sticker on it essentially saying "don't touch here". Its too bad Apple is getting so much negative press about it.
typical apologist response.
The issue here is not that all phones have points where reception goes down. The issue is that the iPhone 4 reception goes down when held in the MOST common way all phones are held. if ANY other phone is held like iPhone 4 is when signal goes down, nothing happens. Its only happening on the iPhone 4 where the signal is going down when you hold it to receive or make a call.
I couldn't tell if he was serious or sarcastic. But now it seems all his posts have been deleted from this thread. Thank you! They were nonsense posts repeated over and over and over and over again. (Time to go add somebody to my ignore list )
Did he go to Stevie's house looking for this new instrument? Did he hook him up?
Apparently the issue isn't as defective design flaw that will cause require all iPhone 4's to be recalled. What will the Chicken Littles do now?
Engadget on the iPhone 4’s Reception
Engadget has this official statement from Apple on the iPhone 4 reception issue:
Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.
The key phrase is “if you ever experience this”; most iPhone 4 users seem unaffected by this. Engadget has a video showing the exact something thing happening with an iPhone 3G from 2008, and Joshua Topolsky admits that in their testing of the iPhone 4, “we had improved reception and fewer dropped calls than we experienced with the last generation, and we never noticed this issue.”
My best guess at this point is that the issue pops up in areas with spotty 3G coverage. With nothing covering the antenna, the improved reception of the iPhone 4 gives you more bars, maybe even up to 5. But when you cover the antenna in these areas with poor coverage, the phone is unable to get a strong signal. I’ve seen several reports from people who can reproduce the problem, but only from certain locations.
This is bullshit. Listen, I have never, ever, ever seen a phone that goes from 5 bars to no service touching the part you are meant to touch with one finger, or even a key, in my whole life. No iPhone has even been this sensitive to touch on the reception front. And remember this, there are over 50M iPhones out there already. This thing is only out a day and YouTube is flooded with videos, and Apple's telling people to buy cases to fix the issue. And it is an issue. Even if the cases were free I'd tell Jobs where to go.
Fix it or risk sending customers away and tarnish your reputation for a long, long time. Apple needs to get to fixing this.
Besides, when Giz said they got better coverage than before that was wearing a bumper. This is literally the first iPhone that can't be used naked for a lot of people. I sincerely thought Gruber was going to be honest on this one. I was waiting for him to write another shit-sandwitch post, but he didn't. Gruber has been wrong in the past, and it seems like his wrong this time. What's worse, he didn't even mention that Gizmodo were using a bumper for those extra bits of coverage. He either didn't do his research or chose to omit that important piece of information.
What's worse, Gruber tries to hint there's an ulterior motive to Giz's post. With regards this particular circumstance, he's full of it.
In a nutshell, the FCC doesn't test the phones by actually holding them up to someone's head and making calls, they test the phone flat with nothing touching it. Now this doesn't let Apple off the hook for the design, but it does explain why its easy to block the antenna, and why is it there in the first place. Take a look.
The problem with this guys article is that he was approached by a reporter and asked about the iPhone loosing some signal bars. He launched into his whole analysis about attenuation. I buy that. If the reporter had said instead "talk to me about the iPhone going from 5 bars to no service in 20 seconds when you pick it up or touch it in a certain spot" then he would be relevant.
I couldn't tell if he was serious or sarcastic. But now it seems all his posts have been deleted from this thread. Thank you! They were nonsense posts repeated over and over and over and over again. (Time to go add somebody to my ignore list )
FACT: This is just highly questionable design... Function Should Never Follow Form
Remember:
- Good design makes a product useful (Apple iPhone 4 reception issue = Fail)
- Good design is durable (Apple iPhone fragility issue = Fail)
You must be new here.
Hang out a while. You'll learn from the others here that Apple's designs are infallible. Any issue that appears to be a result of an Apple design is merely a user error.
Yep.
And the hockey puck mouse was just misunderstood.
And the Wallstreet PBs never had any hinge problems.
I dont get it either, are we the only people on the planet without this problem...you'd think it was everyone, but I can hold my phone the "wrong way" and see no bar drop off...maybe it depends on what cell band the phone is locked onto?
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%
Comments
None of this refutes the plethora of videos out there of iPhone 4 dropping service by the simple act of being held, not to mention the ones showing the iPhone 4 losing service while laying flat on a surface and being touched at the antenna gap. I would rather believe that there is less of a bias in the videos over these talking blogheads and Apple apologists.
Where are the videos of any other phone going from 5 bars to no service in 20 seconds simply because they are picked up and held?
Here: (1st hit on google as an example)
http://www.macworld.com/article/1523...4_antenna.html
My test here takes it down to no bars after about 40 seconds. And to make matters worse, with the bumper installed and on a call, it drops as well. Just happened to notice it after wondering why calls just disappeared. No beep, no indication, just gone.
I originally thought my iPhone didn't have the reception problem. The first few times I experimented with it, reception was fine. However last night I discovered otherwise.
The problem appears to be worse when the signal is already weak or perhaps when there is noise in area. While lying on my couch last night, holding the phone in my left hand (as I always have) resulted in two bars instead of five. With those two bars, all data traffic was ground to a halt. No data was passing over the 3G connection. When held without bridging the antennas, reception jumped back to five bars and throughput went back up to around 2Mbps. This was 100% repeatable over and over again over the course of a half hour of testing last night. Basically, the phone was completely unusable when used in a normal fashion.
I've already got a bumper on order so it will likely be a non-issue for me soon. But this is a definite problem, a major problem. Let's hope it can be fixed in the manufacturing process or via a software update. Otherwise, I hate to say it, but Apple stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars and suffer a blow to its image. They'd have to allow millions of phones to be returned and/or respond to class action lawsuits.
Keep in mind that this report is coming from someone who isn't angry or enraged, loves apple products, and even loves the iPhone4 despite this problem. I'd even still recommend the phone to friends, with the caveat that it must be used with a bumper or case. With that said, this is a major problem!
The fact that you'd still recommended the phone to a friend is precisely why Jobs has the balls to say these kinds of things. If more decent, honest guys like you said no, it's time to take a stand, Apple would have less of leverage when it came to things like this. As for me I'm telling anyone who's buying a new phone to steer clear of the iPhone 4, until a legitimate fix is issued.
Have you let someone else hold your phone in the manner that causes others to fail? Or shorted it with foil gum wrapper or some such? It would be interesting to see if hand dampness and dead skin cell thickness plays a role.
I've run probably every test you can imagine except leaving my city to test in an area with weaker AT&T service. I also haven't been able to assertion the 3G band in use due to the removal of the *3001#12345# Field Test Mode.
I've even gone so far as to open a Neti Pot sodium packet into water before moistening my hand. Nothing! It's simply not an issue an issue affecting every phone.
At the very most, it's an issue with a particular 3G band with the TruQuint chips being utilized, which would mean a design flaw with the TriQuint chips, not the iPhone's antenna. As noted by my previous post the iPhone 4 is offering reception where there previously was none. Of course, there is the off chance that AT&T upgraded their network between the time the last iPhone wa used an te iPhone 4 was activated.
Many reports seem to indicate that the issue occurs in poor reception areas and is not evidenced where there is a strong signal.
Which goes against the trolls claim that it's a design flaw shorting out the antennas.
I'd post a video, but I'm too lazy. I just tried holding my 3GS the same way (without case). From full 5 bars on Rogers in Canada, it drops 2 bars when I hold it in the bottom left corner. Perhaps on AT&T it would go from 3 or 4 bars to a dropped call.... who knows. Perhaps all this over blown?
Since your too lazy your post is irrelevant, all the people that aren't too lazy and have posted videos on You Tube of the iPhone 4 issues are not irrelevant.
And to make matters worse, with the bumper installed and on a call, it drops as well.
That I would believe is a software problem or network congestion problem, not a problem with the antenna.
If you are in an area with a strong signal, it won't happen.
This again? Someone said they saw the video showed the bar drop from 5 to zero suggesting the problem can happen even when you got strong signal. Then someone posted the picture of his holding the phone "the wrong way" with 5 bars intact or when someone said they didn't have the problem, there's always this "that's because you got strong signal" excuse. If you have no clue about the situation then why won't wait until you have a clear idea?
I've run probably every test you can imagine except leaving my city to test in an area with weaker AT&T service. I also haven't been able to assertion the 3G band in use due to the removal of the *3001#12345# Field Test Mode.
I've even gone so far as to open a Neti Pot sodium packet into water before moistening my hand. Nothing! It's simply not an issue an issue affecting every phone.
At the very most, it's an issue with a particular 3G band with the TruQuint chips being utilized, which would mean a design flaw with the TriQuint chips, not the iPhone's antenna. As noted by my previous post the iPhone 4 is offering reception where there previously was none. Of course, there is the off chance that AT&T upgraded their network between the time the last iPhone wa used an te iPhone 4 was activated.
What about friends & family (if any) that live close enough to you to be on the same cell site? Are their iPhone 4's trouble free as well?
It is heartening to me that there are some that do not exhibit this behavior.
edit: Everyone I know that purchased an iPhone 4 has this problem. That is 14 people in 9 cities in 3 states (NC, SC and GA)
That's for calling me a jerk btw. I'll try not to call Apple out on massive design blunders in the future. You're the type of reason PC users hate Mac users. Blind love.
I have loved my iPhone 2G since the day I bought it. Loved it!
The iPhone 4 has a major issue, if you can't admit that your stupid.
Yeah but didn't you shout to high heaven for six months about no wifi on your phone?
Remember:
- Good design makes a product useful (Apple iPhone 4 reception issue = Fail)
- Good design is durable (Apple iPhone fragility issue = Fail)
Apparently the issue isn't as defective design flaw that will cause require all iPhone 4's to be recalled. What will the Chicken Littles do now?
Considering AT$Ts coverage is spotty pretty much everywhere it will effect quite a few people. The sky wont fall people will just return their phones. Before it was easy to blame AT$T for crappy service now we have crappy AT$T and a crappy iPhone.
http://www.antennasys.com/antennasys...-antennas.html
The last 3 phones I've owned (all non-apple, and all non-smart) have included specific verbage in the manual on how to hold the phone in relation to the antenna, and one even had a sticker on it essentially saying "don't touch here". Its too bad Apple is getting so much negative press about it.
typical apologist response.
The issue here is not that all phones have points where reception goes down. The issue is that the iPhone 4 reception goes down when held in the MOST common way all phones are held. if ANY other phone is held like iPhone 4 is when signal goes down, nothing happens. Its only happening on the iPhone 4 where the signal is going down when you hold it to receive or make a call.
I couldn't tell if he was serious or sarcastic. But now it seems all his posts have been deleted from this thread. Thank you! They were nonsense posts repeated over and over and over and over again. (Time to go add somebody to my ignore list
Did he go to Stevie's house looking for this new instrument? Did he hook him up?
Apparently the issue isn't as defective design flaw that will cause require all iPhone 4's to be recalled. What will the Chicken Littles do now?
The key phrase is “if you ever experience this”; most iPhone 4 users seem unaffected by this. Engadget has a video showing the exact something thing happening with an iPhone 3G from 2008, and Joshua Topolsky admits that in their testing of the iPhone 4, “we had improved reception and fewer dropped calls than we experienced with the last generation, and we never noticed this issue.”
My best guess at this point is that the issue pops up in areas with spotty 3G coverage. With nothing covering the antenna, the improved reception of the iPhone 4 gives you more bars, maybe even up to 5. But when you cover the antenna in these areas with poor coverage, the phone is unable to get a strong signal. I’ve seen several reports from people who can reproduce the problem, but only from certain locations.
This is bullshit. Listen, I have never, ever, ever seen a phone that goes from 5 bars to no service touching the part you are meant to touch with one finger, or even a key, in my whole life. No iPhone has even been this sensitive to touch on the reception front. And remember this, there are over 50M iPhones out there already. This thing is only out a day and YouTube is flooded with videos, and Apple's telling people to buy cases to fix the issue. And it is an issue. Even if the cases were free I'd tell Jobs where to go.
Fix it or risk sending customers away and tarnish your reputation for a long, long time. Apple needs to get to fixing this.
Besides, when Giz said they got better coverage than before that was wearing a bumper. This is literally the first iPhone that can't be used naked for a lot of people. I sincerely thought Gruber was going to be honest on this one. I was waiting for him to write another shit-sandwitch post, but he didn't. Gruber has been wrong in the past, and it seems like his wrong this time. What's worse, he didn't even mention that Gizmodo were using a bumper for those extra bits of coverage. He either didn't do his research or chose to omit that important piece of information.
What's worse, Gruber tries to hint there's an ulterior motive to Giz's post. With regards this particular circumstance, he's full of it.
In a nutshell, the FCC doesn't test the phones by actually holding them up to someone's head and making calls, they test the phone flat with nothing touching it. Now this doesn't let Apple off the hook for the design, but it does explain why its easy to block the antenna, and why is it there in the first place. Take a look.
http://www.antennasys.com/antennasys...-antennas.html
The problem with this guys article is that he was approached by a reporter and asked about the iPhone loosing some signal bars. He launched into his whole analysis about attenuation. I buy that. If the reporter had said instead "talk to me about the iPhone going from 5 bars to no service in 20 seconds when you pick it up or touch it in a certain spot" then he would be relevant.
I couldn't tell if he was serious or sarcastic. But now it seems all his posts have been deleted from this thread. Thank you! They were nonsense posts repeated over and over and over and over again. (Time to go add somebody to my ignore list
He's been banned. You're welcome.
FACT: This is just highly questionable design... Function Should Never Follow Form
Remember:
- Good design makes a product useful (Apple iPhone 4 reception issue = Fail)
- Good design is durable (Apple iPhone fragility issue = Fail)
You must be new here.
Hang out a while. You'll learn from the others here that Apple's designs are infallible. Any issue that appears to be a result of an Apple design is merely a user error.
Yep.
And the hockey puck mouse was just misunderstood.
And the Wallstreet PBs never had any hinge problems.
And there was no NVidia replacement needed.
And no one's ever seen a bulging battery.
And....
I dont get it either, are we the only people on the planet without this problem...you'd think it was everyone, but I can hold my phone the "wrong way" and see no bar drop off...maybe it depends on what cell band the phone is locked onto?
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%