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

[Christopher1]

tokenz has a point on this. The AT&T problems (playing Devil's Advocate here) seem to be coming from the phones, but could also be from this misrepresentation of signal, so that people think that they are getting a 'better' signal than they actually are/were.

 

[watcha]

Who got shouted down last week for telling people that this was a software issue, and not a hardware issue?

Yours truly.

 

[Ciuy]

hahahahahahhaha FAIL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[speedemon]

[citation][nom]pocketdrummer[/nom]You basically just told us what he already said.[/citation]


Isn't that what the site is all about now?

 

[guzz46]

Who got shouted down last week for telling people that this was a software issue, and not a hardware issue?

Yours truly.

Thats what apples spin doctors want you to believe, why are they talking about bumpers if its just a software issue? all the software update is going to do is change the signal bars

 

[johnlove]

Would it solve the issue if Apple apologizes and give a free bumper case of every iphone 4?

 

[climber]

Can you believe apple said it did something wrong or inaccurately? They must have been scared.

 

[Vermil]

[citation][nom]icepick314[/nom]I can hold my crapass Motorola prepaid phone from Net10 anyway I want and have no problem with its signal level...[/citation]
"problem"? Maybe not, but how you hold your phone certainly affects your signal level, regardless how the software reports it to you. There's no "problem" with the signal level on the iPhone4 either. It still has better reception, regardless how the software reports the levels, ...and at the same time a kickass battery life! Only problem with iPhone4 is AT&T. ...and money.

 

[Guest]

What if the software update will only tell you lies. Like, there are no more reception drop but the actual signal is losing. Just like Jobs/Apple are saying there are no problems etc etc. This is really funny most of the time hardware problems should resolve into hardware update. LOL.

 

[watcha]

'Thats what apples spin doctors want you to believe, why are they talking about bumpers if its just a software issue? all the software update is going to do is change the signal bars'

You have to bear in mind - it is possible to fix a software issue by changing the hardware. If you press 'call' on a phone and it turns the phone screen upside-down, there are two solutions:

1 - Prevent the user pressing 'call' (eg a bumper)
2 - Fix the software

So that is a software issue with both a physical and a software fix. Obviously in this case, preventing the user pressing the button would be silly - but to prevent the user coming into contact with the aerial would be a fix if the software was responding in the wrong way to that touch.

 

[ksampanna]

We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula

That's a lot of dropped calls from within these weeks

 

[guzz46]

You have to bear in mind - it is possible to fix a software issue by changing the hardware. If you press 'call' on a phone and it turns the phone screen upside-down, there are two solutions:

1 - Prevent the user pressing 'call' (eg a bumper)
2 - Fix the software

So that is a software issue with both a physical and a software fix. Obviously in this case, preventing the user pressing the button would be silly - but to prevent the user coming into contact with the aerial would be a fix if the software was responding in the wrong way to that touch.

That would be true if the only problem was loss of signal bars not loss of reception but people have reported such things as slower speed tests and not being able to get a call out. Apple said the update was only to use the correct formula for its signal bars, nothing else. Its like having a car with bad gas mileage, changing the fuel gauge to read more accurate isn't going to increase fuel mileage.

 

[bsbsbsbs]

Told you so!!!

Nothing but a software issue!

I will say though it's a pretty catastrophic mistake on Apples behalf. And to think this formula has been in place for years. I and many others that I know with iPhones have always questioned the "actual" reception we have and our suspicions have comes true.

 

[tokenz]

[citation][nom]Hellbound[/nom]I'm surprised their not blaming Bush..[/citation]

Why blame Bush, He was a good puppet while he was in the whitehouse

 

[beayn]

@watcha I should have read this article sooner, it would have saved a few posts in the other article by ending the argument with solid evidence.

This basically proves there is real signal loss due to the positioning of the antenna and how you hold the phone, and it's more than an average phone in the amount of 24db when squeezed and -19.8db when held naturally (Read the full article at Anand).

Ananadtech is bypassing the "BARS" formula that is designed to show more signal strength than there is, eliminating the whole issue of this being "fixed" in software and nullifying your entire argument. The only thing they are "fixing" is the fact that it drops MANY bars when you hold it and your signal is not at full, but it will still drop a significant amount.

It also still means that calls could be dropped if your signal was not at full and you held the phone a certain way. If it drops 19.8db when holding it, then you could theoretically lose your call anywhere below -93.2db

He says nothing about "hand interference" that can be specifically identified and fixed as you argued while claiming I had no knowledge of electronics and antennas.

The real fix is giving free bumpers to everyone, not just reducing the number of bars it displays using their broken formula that was designed to pretend it had more signal strength than it did.

 

[gwolfman]

I'm glad we have Ananad around to fix Apple's problems... not to mention JMicron's

 

[old_newbie]

This is what happened with my iphone3G when I brought it! It was showing what I believe to be the correct reception in my area, which was like 2 bars (at most) in my house. My calls drop repeatedly. Then when I updated the OS to 3.0 suddenly it showed I had the max 5 bars...but I still had the same crappy reception.

What kills me with the Iphone 4 is that they touted the antenna strip as a phone feature! So they wont ever admit to it being a bad design.

So I guess now we know that Iphone 4 "leak" wasnt actually a leak. That Apple employee left that phone in the bar...on purpose!

 

[Guest]

Apple should recognize their failure and start fixing this problem...sometimes this companies have so much pressure when they have a new product coming out...that they do whatever they have to in other to come out with the new product within the given time...I can understand that...but the ugly thruth is that signal is not the only problem for the new iphone4, it drops the calls for at least four time when you are talking...also..while u are talking the phone is doing whatever..speake goes on...facetime goes on ...sometimes u cant get the e-mails...THE NEW IPHONE IS TOTALLY A MESS....Apple fanatics i am sorry to say this but you should wait for apple to fix this problem to get the new phone