This is What's Wrong With iPhone 4's Reception

[theuerkorn]

I think it shows that there may have been some fudging with all iPhones regarding the displayed bars (after all AT&T has "more bars", and now we know it's exactly two).

HOWEVER, it's true that my iPhone4 picks up a signal better than my 3G even when held right next to each other (normal grip). Further, the speedtest.net app revealed an odd difference: The iPhone4 scores over 2 Mbps down and over 1 Mbps upload, while the 3G clocks in at 1 - 1.8 Mbps down and 0.2 Mbps upload.

So whatever this is, Apple's handling was bad, but the iPhone4 is good so far and I don't even have a case yet (waiting for the Incipio DRX to become available).

 

[jerreece]

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength.

Yes, because AT&T knows all about signal strength and quality....

 

[cjl]

[citation][nom]groveborn[/nom]How come this is software related?When using bumper seems to fix this problem, so... still software?Foxikk, if you read the entire article, you may discover that it's because the software is already reporting that the signal is much higher than it actually is. Therefore, when you reduce the existing low signal just a couple of db's lower, it jumps down to about where it belonged in the first place, perhaps losing half a bar or less in reality. I'm surprised stuff like this doesn't happen more. Imagine if instead of falling, it jumped up. That would make as much sense.[/citation]
Half a bar? The signal drops by 24dB. That is enormous. No other phone tested had a drop anywhere close to that. It's true that the signal strength reporting was somewhat questionable as well, but there's no doubt that there is also an issue with the signal attenuation when the phone is held in certain ways.

 

[derrickwmartin]

Apple is the Anti-Christ.

They make something then fail to give proper support for their own product. Big fail on their part..

 

[Guest]

I am curious, how many of you actually uses an iPhone?

 

[gimpy1]

Steve Jobs is right. It is a software problem. I know this because the same thing happened to me and my bathroom scale. I updated it's firmware to correct the display, and I found that I hadn't gained weight after all.

 

[thearm]

Applesoft

 

[rockola]

groveborn, with all due respect (really!), you should look up "dB."

 

[tokenz]

[citation][nom]jerreece[/nom]Yes, because AT&T knows all about signal strength and quality....[/citation]

Hell At&t might, It could have been all the inflated iphone signals that made att look like crap. Think about it. Millions of people had a phone that got crap for signal, However it showed full strength the whole time.

 

[sliem]

More magic from the God.

 

[Hellbound]

I'm surprised their not blaming Bush..

 

[tokenz]

i love this. Apple puts out a phone with crappy reception. But makes users think that it is a good phone, by making it look like it has reception. Everyone complains about dropped calls, Tarnishes AT&T's reputation, (which doesnt take much, they do have crappy coverage). Then when you make a phone with decent reception you forget to change software that shows the bars. So you say it was a software bug. When in reality it was gross misconduct on Apples part just to inflate sales. If I was AT&T I would really be thinking about apple as a partner. If AT&T dropped them they could go where tmobile, (not likely) Verizon (better speed up the cdma handset development) Any way it would cost apple billions and maybe teach Jobs to be a little humbler.

 

[kayvonjoon]

Steve jobs isn't the only one who tells lies , his phone does too!

 

[rsud]

So does anyone have any evidence that there is an acutal reception problem? Forget what the bars show, is there a problem placing and holding calls?

 

[SevenVirtues]

Just to clear up - this doesn't solve the problem, this is just a firmware update to hide the issue from the consumer.

The problem cannot be fixed by software updates as this is a hardware issue.

 

[SevenVirtues]

[citation][nom]rsud[/nom]So does anyone have any evidence that there is an acutal reception problem? Forget what the bars show, is there a problem placing and holding calls?[/citation]

Yes.

 

[SevenVirtues]

Here is a very good article on the subject:
http/gizmodo.com/5577812/why-apples-iphone-4-update-wont-fix-your-reception-problem

 

[sirmorluk]

Prairie Village

 

[sirmorluk]

WTF? Prarie Village? Thumbs down that into oblivion. What I meat to paste was:
Does the Kobayahsi Maru scenario ring a bell?

 

[lamorpa]

One word: Spin