You make it sound as if people are covering the antenna on purpose just to complain.
Many are, unfortunately.
Quote:
This is my first post and I just registered to say that I don't try to cover the antenna, I just pick the phone with my hand like I've normally done with my previous iPhone and the signal goes away.
Did you do that before or after you read or heard about it on the Internet? Because on my 3GS with iOS 4 it did the same thing, but I never noticed, and I doubt the majority of people posting about it would have noticed if they hadn't read about it somewhere else, tried it and then it became a "major problem".
Perception becomes reality
Quote:
This certainly is a design flaw because how are you not supposed to cover the antenna if the antena is surrounding the entire phone?.
The cellular anntenna is only the strip on the bottom of the phone (notice the gap in the band on either side?). The upper antenna is for wi-fi and Bleatooth.
Agreed, I have no issues with mine, I can replicate the no bars syndrome but even when it is showing no bars i can still make and receive calls no problem, so let's see what Apple come up with for a fix before we write off the new gorgeous flawless iPhone4
I have the no signal issue. I just ran a test with my son's 3G. I called him when I had 4 bars from 4G. then I held the phone until the bars started to go down and it dropped the call. It said call failed. I tried having him call me and when I had full bars the call went through as normally would. But if I help the phone in my hand normally with my whole hand them my calls get dropped. It didn't matter if it was an incoming or outgoing call it was dropped. I tried to make calls when it said "No Service" to test if it was just reporting it incorrectly...but "No service" means .....no service. it would not go through.
That is my situation with my new 4G....yours may differ. Later today I am going back to the Apple Store and try to get it replaced. Maybe a new phone will alleviated the problem.
I will report back later what my experiences are with that process.
People just want to be assured they won't be stuck with a useless brick. Do you get that? Geez.
I think we are far from that. Do you even own one? Have you done more than hold one in an Apple store? Because even with no bars on the display (after licking my palm and carefully gripping the phone to induce the problem to happen) mine connects and makes good sounding phone calls.
Sheesh indeed. No wonder Tivo was so resistant to putting in a free space indicator and Apple is traditionally resistant to spitting out tech details on the iDevices. If the problem hadn't been so over-blown in the blogosphere and then stupidly "reported" by the main stream media, how many people would have really noticed an actual impact on their real world usage? I can say without a doubt that the iPhone 4 is leaps and bounds better than my 3Gs - I was starting to get a rash of dropped and failed calls and it was really beginning to tick me off. I've had none of that with the iPhone 4. Indeed, I've had calls survive dead zones where my 3Gs would drop out routinely.
So to go so far as "useless brick" is WAY to the extreme hyperbole side of things
I walked around to the iPhone displays (12 of them) and held each phone deliberately trying to cause the problem. I held the phone in my left hand with the seam directly in my palm. I held each phone there for about a minute, sometimes less if the issue arose faster than that. [b]I did not make any calls
So let me get this straight - instead of making a test call, you decided on whether you should or should not buy a phone by looking at a essentially meaningless meter on the display?
And people wonder why Apple exercises extreme minimalism? Talk about focusing on something that doesn't even matter!
I think we are far from that. Do you even own one? Have you done more than hold one in an Apple store? Because even with no bars on the display (after licking my palm and carefully gripping the phone to induce the problem to happen) mine connects and makes good sounding phone calls.
Sheesh indeed. No wonder Tivo was so resistant to putting in a free space indicator and Apple is traditionally resistant to spitting out tech details on the iDevices. If the problem hadn't been so over-blown in the blogosphere and then stupidly "reported" by the main stream media, how many people would have really noticed an actual impact on their real world usage? I can say without a doubt that the iPhone 4 is leaps and bounds better than my 3Gs - I was starting to get a rash of dropped and failed calls and it was really beginning to tick me off. I've had none of that with the iPhone 4. Indeed, I've had calls survive dead zones where my 3Gs would drop out routinely.
So to go so far as "useless brick" is WAY to the extreme hyperbole side of things
Can you please run the SpeedTest utility like I did above? My wireless speeds drop dramatically when holding it normally (aka Death Grip).
It's on the front page of The Daily Telegraph here in the UK - a well respected national broadsheet.
Did they do their own fact checking (i.e. by actually testing) or are they just re-broadcasting crap off the Internet? This thing is the very definition of internet echo chamber...
...but there's a difference between "optimises antenna performance" and the phone being useless if you touch it here.
And for those of us who actually own an iPhone 4, it's hardly useless even if you touch it "here".
And if you do have an iPhone 4 and it is useless if you touch it "here" then take it back and get another one! $hit happens - luckily Apple is one of the most liberal companies in repairing or replacing electronics that I have ever dealt with. Heck, they have swapped out stuff for me that wasn't even under warranty - I didn't ask, I just wanted to see what it would take to get it repaired.
That's why I find comments like yours and the "they just don't want a bricked phone" so disingenuous. You don't have over 90% customer satisfaction ratings - ON A CONTINUAL BASIS - by screwing over and not taking care of your customers!
Flipping trolls - I can't believe I'm still being sucked into this thread...
You don't have over 90% customer satisfaction ratings - ON A CONTINUAL BASIS - by screwing over and not taking care of your customers!
A lot of people just don't know any better. For instance, there are plenty of people here who would rate Apple highly if Apple replaced their poorly-designed iPhone 4s, but that doesn't negate the fact that Apple had a poorly-designed phone in the first place.
I'm pretty sure that once all iPhone users upgrade to the latest version of iOS, which is version 4.0, that they will all have the same features, which includes the gyroscope capability. It would be an example of fragmentation as solipsism would say, but that could never be true in this situation.
Upgrading old phones virtually guarantees seamless feature parity across all iPhone versions.
Gizmodo won't let you post any thing but agreeable comments to their stories. Just to help you guys understand what insane yellow journalism this is, I'm posting the comment that provoked Gizmodo editors to ban me from Gizmodo.
Quote:
Congratulations, Gizmodo, you wagged the dog. Anyone that ever payed attention before noticed that all cell phones exhibit the behavior you have sensationalized. All of them, every cell phone ever manufactured by anyone will show diminished reception when you touch it, hold it a certain way. This is physics, and science, and thanks so much for showing how gullible Americans are.
Ever since Gizmodo committed a felony buying stolen property, they've been attempting to smear Apple. I don't really care, they will fail, and will likely fold as a result of their idiotic war. What troubles me is they shirking their responsibilities as journalists (and I use the loosest possible sense of that word so as not to insult actual journalists) and actually reporting FALSE INFORMATION.
1. Take a regular multimeter and measure the resistance between the sides of the gap. Guess what, it's already very small, almost a short. Apparently, the resistance of the electrical circuit is already very low, much lower than your hand.
2. No, the capacitive touch screen does not require your fingers to be conductive. Take any thin plastic film, or tape, and touch the screen through it.
You see, somehow I think that Apple engineers understand the issue just a little bit better than all the backseat drivers on this forum.
Okay, i guess I misunderstood how capacitive touchscreens work.
Re: point #1, what you're saying about the resistance between antennas may be true but how do you explain that bridging the antenna gap with skin is, for most people, the only reliable way to reproduce this problem? I understand that people argue about how to repro this problem but I have seen dozens or maybe hundreds of reports that when the gap is covered with scotch tape, a piece of paper, fingernail lacquer, or a rubber/plastic case, then the problem disappears. Basically even the thinnest layer of insulation is enough to solve the problem so I HAVE to assume that the electrical conductivity of human skin is playing a role.
I am surprised that none of these reviewers found this flaw in their reviews. Do they never hold the phone in their left hand at all when doing a review?
Did you do that before or after you read or heard about it on the Internet? Because on my 3GS with iOS 4 it did the same thing, but I never noticed, and I doubt the majority of people posting about it would have noticed if they hadn't read about it somewhere else, tried it and then it became a "major problem".
Perception becomes reality
The cellular anntenna is only the strip on the bottom of the phone (notice the gap in the band on either side?). The upper antenna is for wi-fi and Bleatooth.
I'm tired of reading clueless crap from people who don't know what they're talking about. People are having real problems, respect them or expect to be told you're ignorant.
Can you please run the SpeedTest utility like I did above? My wireless speeds drop dramatically when holding it normally (aka Death Grip).
Try it gripping the bottom portion tightly WITHOUT touching the WiFi+BT antenna thus not creating this phantom "short circuit" Ireland and others are claiming is undeniably the reason for this "design flaw".
edit: Running some more tests... I placed my iPhone on it's side with left edge up, and place my finger on the WiFi+BT antenna not bridging the gap with my conductive fingers. Out of three tests I get an average of 2,546ms ping, 1,146kbps download, 1,070kbps upload. If I then bridge the gap creating this "short circuit" I then, out of three tests, get an average of 430ms ping, 1,134kbps downloads, and 1,124kbps uploads. I'd estimate there is about 4x as much contact with my finger in the 2nd test. How exactly is this, without a fraction of doubt, a design flaw from integrating the antennas into the frame if it's not affecting every iPhone 4?
Comments
You make it sound as if people are covering the antenna on purpose just to complain.
Many are, unfortunately.
This is my first post and I just registered to say that I don't try to cover the antenna, I just pick the phone with my hand like I've normally done with my previous iPhone and the signal goes away.
Did you do that before or after you read or heard about it on the Internet? Because on my 3GS with iOS 4 it did the same thing, but I never noticed, and I doubt the majority of people posting about it would have noticed if they hadn't read about it somewhere else, tried it and then it became a "major problem".
Perception becomes reality
This certainly is a design flaw because how are you not supposed to cover the antenna if the antena is surrounding the entire phone?.
The cellular anntenna is only the strip on the bottom of the phone (notice the gap in the band on either side?). The upper antenna is for wi-fi and Bleatooth.
Agreed, I have no issues with mine, I can replicate the no bars syndrome but even when it is showing no bars i can still make and receive calls no problem, so let's see what Apple come up with for a fix before we write off the new gorgeous flawless iPhone4
I have the no signal issue. I just ran a test with my son's 3G. I called him when I had 4 bars from 4G. then I held the phone until the bars started to go down and it dropped the call. It said call failed. I tried having him call me and when I had full bars the call went through as normally would. But if I help the phone in my hand normally with my whole hand them my calls get dropped. It didn't matter if it was an incoming or outgoing call it was dropped. I tried to make calls when it said "No Service" to test if it was just reporting it incorrectly...but "No service" means .....no service. it would not go through.
That is my situation with my new 4G....yours may differ. Later today I am going back to the Apple Store and try to get it replaced. Maybe a new phone will alleviated the problem.
I will report back later what my experiences are with that process.
People just want to be assured they won't be stuck with a useless brick. Do you get that? Geez.
Sheesh indeed. No wonder Tivo was so resistant to putting in a free space indicator and Apple is traditionally resistant to spitting out tech details on the iDevices. If the problem hadn't been so over-blown in the blogosphere and then stupidly "reported" by the main stream media, how many people would have really noticed an actual impact on their real world usage? I can say without a doubt that the iPhone 4 is leaps and bounds better than my 3Gs - I was starting to get a rash of dropped and failed calls and it was really beginning to tick me off. I've had none of that with the iPhone 4. Indeed, I've had calls survive dead zones where my 3Gs would drop out routinely.
So to go so far as "useless brick" is WAY to the extreme hyperbole side of things
I walked around to the iPhone displays (12 of them) and held each phone deliberately trying to cause the problem. I held the phone in my left hand with the seam directly in my palm. I held each phone there for about a minute, sometimes less if the issue arose faster than that. [b]I did not make any calls
So let me get this straight - instead of making a test call, you decided on whether you should or should not buy a phone by looking at a essentially meaningless meter on the display?
And people wonder why Apple exercises extreme minimalism? Talk about focusing on something that doesn't even matter!
Sheesh indeed. No wonder Tivo was so resistant to putting in a free space indicator and Apple is traditionally resistant to spitting out tech details on the iDevices. If the problem hadn't been so over-blown in the blogosphere and then stupidly "reported" by the main stream media, how many people would have really noticed an actual impact on their real world usage? I can say without a doubt that the iPhone 4 is leaps and bounds better than my 3Gs - I was starting to get a rash of dropped and failed calls and it was really beginning to tick me off. I've had none of that with the iPhone 4. Indeed, I've had calls survive dead zones where my 3Gs would drop out routinely.
So to go so far as "useless brick" is WAY to the extreme hyperbole side of things
Can you please run the SpeedTest utility like I did above? My wireless speeds drop dramatically when holding it normally (aka Death Grip).
It's on the front page of The Daily Telegraph here in the UK - a well respected national broadsheet.
Did they do their own fact checking (i.e. by actually testing) or are they just re-broadcasting crap off the Internet? This thing is the very definition of internet echo chamber...
...but there's a difference between "optimises antenna performance" and the phone being useless if you touch it here.
And for those of us who actually own an iPhone 4, it's hardly useless even if you touch it "here".
And if you do have an iPhone 4 and it is useless if you touch it "here" then take it back and get another one! $hit happens - luckily Apple is one of the most liberal companies in repairing or replacing electronics that I have ever dealt with. Heck, they have swapped out stuff for me that wasn't even under warranty - I didn't ask, I just wanted to see what it would take to get it repaired.
That's why I find comments like yours and the "they just don't want a bricked phone" so disingenuous. You don't have over 90% customer satisfaction ratings - ON A CONTINUAL BASIS - by screwing over and not taking care of your customers!
Flipping trolls - I can't believe I'm still being sucked into this thread...
People who queue overnight are going expect the product to be perfect. They will complain very loudly if it isn't.
And they will still be guilty of their own overblown and unrealistic expectations. Hula Hoop anyone?
The only difference is they now have forums like this to express their over inflated senses of self-entitlement
Can you please run the SpeedTest utility like I did above? My wireless speeds drop dramatically when holding it normally (aka Death Grip).
There's no sense arguing with trolls like DocNo42. They'll just keep up their tireless act regardless.
But how are you going to use the gyroscope feature or noise cancellation technology of iOS 4.0 if you downgrade??
The 3G has neither.
You don't have over 90% customer satisfaction ratings - ON A CONTINUAL BASIS - by screwing over and not taking care of your customers!
A lot of people just don't know any better. For instance, there are plenty of people here who would rate Apple highly if Apple replaced their poorly-designed iPhone 4s, but that doesn't negate the fact that Apple had a poorly-designed phone in the first place.
It's not only the 4 or the 3Gs that has this issue.
My 3G has exhibited this issue both yesterday and this morning.
Looks like I will be performing a baseband preserving jailbreak update on my wife's 3G to keep an unlockable iPhone for my trips outside of the US.
The 3G has neither.
I'm pretty sure that once all iPhone users upgrade to the latest version of iOS, which is version 4.0, that they will all have the same features, which includes the gyroscope capability. It would be an example of fragmentation as solipsism would say, but that could never be true in this situation.
Upgrading old phones virtually guarantees seamless feature parity across all iPhone versions.
Congratulations, Gizmodo, you wagged the dog. Anyone that ever payed attention before noticed that all cell phones exhibit the behavior you have sensationalized. All of them, every cell phone ever manufactured by anyone will show diminished reception when you touch it, hold it a certain way. This is physics, and science, and thanks so much for showing how gullible Americans are.
Ever since Gizmodo committed a felony buying stolen property, they've been attempting to smear Apple. I don't really care, they will fail, and will likely fold as a result of their idiotic war. What troubles me is they shirking their responsibilities as journalists (and I use the loosest possible sense of that word so as not to insult actual journalists) and actually reporting FALSE INFORMATION.
"We only approve the comments that we love." http://gawker.com/commentfaq/
Gizmodo, you are excrement.
Yeah, flawless. I dont sit here and bitch about little "issues" which are really non-issues. Mine has worked well beyond my expectations.
mine has no problems too.
Clearly, you don't understand it at all
1. Take a regular multimeter and measure the resistance between the sides of the gap. Guess what, it's already very small, almost a short. Apparently, the resistance of the electrical circuit is already very low, much lower than your hand.
2. No, the capacitive touch screen does not require your fingers to be conductive. Take any thin plastic film, or tape, and touch the screen through it.
You see, somehow I think that Apple engineers understand the issue just a little bit better than all the backseat drivers on this forum.
Okay, i guess I misunderstood how capacitive touchscreens work.
Re: point #1, what you're saying about the resistance between antennas may be true but how do you explain that bridging the antenna gap with skin is, for most people, the only reliable way to reproduce this problem? I understand that people argue about how to repro this problem but I have seen dozens or maybe hundreds of reports that when the gap is covered with scotch tape, a piece of paper, fingernail lacquer, or a rubber/plastic case, then the problem disappears. Basically even the thinnest layer of insulation is enough to solve the problem so I HAVE to assume that the electrical conductivity of human skin is playing a role.
Many are, unfortunately.
Did you do that before or after you read or heard about it on the Internet? Because on my 3GS with iOS 4 it did the same thing, but I never noticed, and I doubt the majority of people posting about it would have noticed if they hadn't read about it somewhere else, tried it and then it became a "major problem".
Perception becomes reality
The cellular anntenna is only the strip on the bottom of the phone (notice the gap in the band on either side?). The upper antenna is for wi-fi and Bleatooth.
I'm tired of reading clueless crap from people who don't know what they're talking about. People are having real problems, respect them or expect to be told you're ignorant.
Can you please run the SpeedTest utility like I did above? My wireless speeds drop dramatically when holding it normally (aka Death Grip).
Try it gripping the bottom portion tightly WITHOUT touching the WiFi+BT antenna thus not creating this phantom "short circuit" Ireland and others are claiming is undeniably the reason for this "design flaw".
edit: Running some more tests... I placed my iPhone on it's side with left edge up, and place my finger on the WiFi+BT antenna not bridging the gap with my conductive fingers. Out of three tests I get an average of 2,546ms ping, 1,146kbps download, 1,070kbps upload. If I then bridge the gap creating this "short circuit" I then, out of three tests, get an average of 430ms ping, 1,134kbps downloads, and 1,124kbps uploads. I'd estimate there is about 4x as much contact with my finger in the 2nd test. How exactly is this, without a fraction of doubt, a design flaw from integrating the antennas into the frame if it's not affecting every iPhone 4?