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Experts Explain iPhone 4 Antenna Problem
CWmike writes "Reports of call and data signal strength problems in the new iPhone 4 have a basis in fact, a hardware expert said Thursday. Later in the day, Apple acknowledged that holding the iPhone 4 may result in a diminished signal that could make it difficult to make and maintain calls or retain a data connection. 'Gripping any 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,' Apple said in a statement issued to several media outlets, including PC Magazine, which had run tests earlier Thursday. '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.' Scores of new iPhone owners confirmed the reception problem in a string of more than 360 messages posted to a thread on Apple's iPhone 4 support forum."
A blog post from an antenna design company explains that the reception problems are probably the direct result of phone design adapting to FCC requirements.
Next thing you know, holding a cell phone with the thumb and forefinger by the top right corner will become the fashionable way for any of the cognoscenti to hold their phones. Those of us who cradle them in the old fashioned way will be "not of the Body of Jobs", and mocked and ostracized.
John
How will wrapping the phone in a case and then holding it the same way as before fix the problem?
I suspect they placed the antenna there to minimize the amount of RF energy exposure to the brain but now you'll have to be careful about how you hold it.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
for those slashdot customers experiencing loss of signal and poor quality, we recommend exiting the basement and removing your storm trooper helmet to place calls.
Good people go to bed earlier.
who would rather be part of a group then have a properly working device.
Sad really.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
1) Stand on one leg, preferably facing the cell tower. 2) Use your other leg to form a crude counterpoise for the iPhone4's various antennas. Also, experiments in dry/low-humidity regions which lead to dry/chapped hands may also contribute to your success making and holding a call. What other company could get away with producing a product like this and succeed?
All of a sudden Apple offers a case for the iPhone themselves, in the form a rubber band that runs around the phone, which not only protects the phone when dropped, but also isolates the user from the antennas. This case is exactly the cure you need for the antenna-problem.
Could it be possible that the rubber band was actually a part of the original design of this phone, but later made optional in order to rake in more cash? If so, I really think Apple should hand out free cases to people experiencing these problems.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
"For best results, levitate one inch from your ears."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
...but designing a phone such that holding it normally means you touch and thereby detune the antennas is super bad, only to be topped by then claiming this is normal. WTF Apple.
Doesn't a bunch of AT&T advertising speak about how you can talk and do other tasks on the iPhone at the same time? I'm right-handed and I would naturally hold a touch-based device in my left hand in that case, but a lot of post-launch press left me with the (false?) impression that if you were right-handed you don't have so much to worry about.
Not sure which hand I'd use for face to face video calling (queue the jokes ;))
Possible solutions include:
I guess there are some extremely complex technical or aesthetic or regulatory reasons why each of these isn't going to work but I'd like to know what they are.
The phone was designed by Apple, and they are the ones to blame for this. They have made a mockery of themselves and everyone that bought into the iPhone 4 hype, and destroyed their reputation by telling the customers "I'ts not me, it's you."
Thats what you get for making you engineers hide the product in public by dressing it in an iphone 3 case during QA. Oops!
Steve Jobs is the new Gordon Brown. His arrogance has pushed the price of Mac outside the reach of ordinary people. Now he's blaming everyone else for his mistakes. The ridiculous thing is the guy is a genius but starting to make Microsoft look good. He's obsessed and losing touch. Without the happy tax of iTunes he'd be as sunk as Gordon Brown when the banks screwed up.
Steve Jobs needs to get real before he sinks Apple. People just want to do stuff and feel part of things but Apple's Stalinistic like taxed to the hilt walled garden is a real turn off. Dangle the bait and slap people enough times and support turns to hate. It might not be right or fair but that's where it's heading.
If Steve Jobs doesn't bring prices down or release OS X for the PC platform it will prove Warren Buffet was right. Steve Jobs is just arrogant and greedy. It's a real shame he's up his own ass like that but if this carries on I sniff another boardroom coup. Maybe it's time he retired now before he ends in failure.
Worse reception than the iPhone3 - check.
Still tied to the worst US carrier - check.
But hey, facetime is so awesome it overcomes all this...
Realtime video calls which exceed the definition of the human retina? - cheC&&^& >>>>>CARRIER LOST
Of course, apple could have easily designed the phone with with a some plastic along the side, but this would go against their aesthetic "vision". Anyone who has used an Apple mouse (*any* Apple mouse) knows that ergonomics takes a back-seat to physical appearance. Always.
They all want to flood the Net with their obligatory iPhone 'reviews' and 'reactions' claiming:
"It's amazing!"
"A must upgrade for all existing iPhone owning Hipster Douchebags!"
"Magical!"
"Teh best thing evah!!!"
while the actual piece of crap iPhone 4 is:
Ugly
Defectively designed
Runs an outdated OS
No wonder Google kicked Apple and the iPhone into 3rd place in sales and Android is now selling at roughly 50-60 million phones a year.
I have one - haven't seen any problem in real-world use although I can make a bar disappear by covering the bottom of the phone. Pandora continues to stream just fine. I'm guessing many phone manufacturers hide the issue by making the signal strength indicator update more slowly or in a non-linear fashion or something... Non-issue really, but the rabid Android contingent needs something to make them feel better about the 6 hour battery life of the EVO. Let's be real - ALL smartphones have some issue or another that can be called out. The new iPhone is a pretty damn great piece of kit regardless.
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment/4/2010/06/cb961cf310b63bfb04ae7b75059f37f5/original.jpg
Saw a great post on reddit earlier today where a user goes through a bunch of Apple's own advertising to see how they've shown the phone being held.
Sturgeon was an optimist.
The requirements at issue here are FCC SAR (specific absorption rate) requirements created to limit body tissue exposure to electromagnetic radiation. I can't help but notice the enthusiasm for pointing out the effects of these regulations on sacrosanct geek toys.
When fuel efficiency regulations lead to fragile, injury prone vehicles nothing is mentioned. When some new EPA rule is certain to chase another slice of our industry to China no one appears concerned. Let misguided fears about non-ionizing radiation degrade the performance of the latest Jesus phone though...
If you're going to put individual judgment at the mercy of your well intentioned bureaucrats to get your way over others don't be surprised if others don't score some points on your ass the same way. That's the world you've built for all of us.
This guy is an expert in antenna design from Aalborg University, and predicted this two weeks ago.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Moral of the story: Don't cover your dog food in rich beef gravy and liberal amounts pepper.
They already had the phone inside the case in previous generations, the external antenna does improve the signal. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. A light non-conductive coating would work perfectly well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What boggles my mind the most is how these absolutely obvious flaws got past whatever quality assurance and quality control Apple might have in place.
It's completely absurd to think that they didn't foresee this happening, or even encounter it during testing. I mean, this is a mobile phone failing at its most basic and critical function. Mobile phones have been around for decades now, so there's no reason why any manufacturer should be coming up with a product that can't reliably make phone calls!
I generally like Apple products, but this is an epic fail on Apple's part.
To add insult to injury, Apple expects one to purchase their $29.00 rubber protective band that is produced in a third world country for about $.03. What a deal!
A blog post from an antenna design company explains that the reception problems are probably the direct result of phone design adapting to FCC requirements.
Because it has nothing to do with their decision to place the antennae on the exterior of the device.
Fuck Yeah Side Talking!
Don't you have someone you'd die for?
And it may have been dismissed. Apple is very much about form over all else. The most important thing to them is how something looks. Features and function get subverted to that end. They've had other devices with problems due to their designs. Time Capsules are an example. They have a bad habit of failing after a year and a half or so, way more than you'd expect. Reason is the internal power adapter. It puts too much heat in the small case and causes failures. The smart thing would have been to have it external, but that would ruin the look.
So Apple may have known this was a problem and said "Fuck it, people can just hold it as not to touch the antennas. We don't want to hurt the looks."
Clearly they meant for you to hold the iphone while wearing rubber gloves. Must not mark the perfect design with *fingerprints* after all.
This is a device meant to be LOOKED AT, clearly. It's far to precious to actually USE.
...then why is it that this is the first time so many people are experiencing this problem?
:(){
It's just like drinking a latte.
So now rather than having a case for your phone be an accessory, they... are indirectly making you go and purchase one. I mean, not exactly as strong as wording as that, but... if that's how you hold your phone, especially if you're a lefty or something, you kinda need one. Yay accessory sales.
It just occurs to me, though, that if buying a case for it is the way to go about fixing the problem, couldn't they have just... buried the antenna inside the device's actual case? Or put more body around it? Oh, of course not, then the device wouldn't look as lovely. I guess form truly no longer follows function.
The first and 2nd gen iPhones had the highest dropped call rates in recent history but it didn't stop people from using them. If apple announced their next phone would be constructed purely from dog poo, for environmental reasons of course, people would still line up around the block to be the first to own one.
The media need to grow some stones and call out Apple and these Apple fanatics.
But how would that help their advertising revenues?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Something that affects 50% of customers is a non-issue? Despite your claim, you are, in fact, a "fanboi."
I have seen some iphones in the wild around here. Grand total of zero of them were cased in something. I would argue you're an exception that reinforces the rule.
Honestly, I can't remember seeing any phone in casing for about 5-7 years now. They just are ergonomic enough now and don't scratch and get damaged anywhere near as easily. Of course you have belt cases, etc, but you take the phone out of those when you use it.
For the record, it's not this problem that's being described, but the shorting of the antenna to design flaw. But putting a hand on exposed antenna ALWAYS reduces signal quality. That's the main reason why no one takes antennas out of the outer shell of the phone if they can help it.
The Nexus One does this. An old Nokia 6230 from the old days does this. There's plenty of snapshots people are making which demonstrate exactly the same effect on loads of devices out there. Every phone - even those with extending antennas - does this to some extent. You don't even have to be in direct contact - RF at these frequencies doesn't work like that. The 'bars' thing is bullshit anyway. Most phones are faking them up to make it less obvious.
The only difference here is Steve erred by pointing out exactly where the antenna lives. Everyone's aware of what they're touching, whereas in other phones they didn't notice the difference because they weren't looking for it.
... that lets us know that this is because Apple has determined that this is an incorrect way to hold the phone?
Their ergonomic department has found that the ergonomics are wrong, so they are actually doing you a favour by requiring you to hold the phone in a certain way.
It's actually to your benefit, and phones that don't have this, err, feature, are bad for you. /ducks
Regards.
It is an iPhone. What 20th Century Neanderthal uses it to make phone calls? That is so second millennium! If you use it to make iChatty video calls, you can avoid the antenna problems using WiFi and enjoy screwing AT&T out of billing you for voice minutes. That is the Apple Way.
I'm no fanboi, but seriously, how many people don't use a case for their iPhone? Probably 50% of my friends own one, and I can't think of a single one who goes "naked". This is a non-issue.
Your "non-issue" decree is thoughtless. I use a leather sleeve case like this one http://store.apple.com/uk/product/TT756ZM/A and so for me this iPhone 4 design defect is a very real problem. Apple should do the decent thing, admit their stupid mistake and provide a real solution - such as giving customers Apple iPhone 4 bumper cases, which they already recommend as a workaround, free of charge (instead of charging $30 a piece).
I haven't seen a full teardown of a finished unit, but the iPhone 4 keynote appeared to show that there are two antennae, and the steel band is made from two parts, not three. One of the black stripes appears to be to preserve visual symmetry on the bottom of the phone.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
How is scratching a coating bonded to the metal going to give your skin any way to make contact. You'd literally have to scrape off a section large enough to enable contact. If you're that determined to take off the coating, just buy one of the current phones... :-)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
granted I don't own an Iphone4 but a piece of tape to extend the distance between the antennae should work. Your skin isn't that conductive and its only because the gap between the antennae is so small.
Oh, I guess that's funny in a Slashdot sorta way, but I'm not the first person to notice that conventions of programmers, like Java One, or BSDCon or various hacker and security geek conferences are seas of glowing Apple logos, the past few years. I know that among the programmers I know, it's actually the best programmers (the ones that I would recruit for any project on any platform with any language) who are nearly all on Mac OS X. Maintenance programmers tend to stick with the platform they work on during the day (usually Windows), but even some of those have switched to the Mac at home.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I think the reason they may not have found this in testing, is because it seems that you have to have slightly sweaty hands to trigger the problem. Just after running through an airport I was able to replicate the speed drop, but sitting on the plane a little later I could not see a network speed drop no matter how tightly I gripped the edges.
The tested mostly in winter, now it's summer - leading more people to have this problem.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
really has nothing to do with it?
I've spent more than two years working as an Apple Tech (sic) and I tell ya' the designs are crap. Everything is looks, nothing is for functionality, durability or value.
Apple sells the thickest chocolate coating out there, and still it's just turds inside. The thicker coating is just to hide the fact that the turds are even fouler than those of Packard Bell...
No, I'm not an Apple tech anymore. Meteorology and Computer Science prove to be a better way to spend your time. And yes, I'm getting rid of my Apple shit. Never had an iPhone of iPad. Never will.
This signature is DRM protected. By the DMCA, you are not allowed to counteract or oppose to it.
I've been working with s device that has four antenna patches, a system to monitor the received signal strength from each, the transmitted SWR, and based upon these inputs, select the best antenna to use. Its not a cell phone, per se, but it operates on GSM systems and cannot be installed in a controlled environment (much like not being able to predict how a user will grab a phone).
Have gnu, will travel.
So, half your iPhone user sample owns a case, yet you can think of none who use their iPhone without a case. Do the non-case-owning half borrow a case from the case-owning half whenever they want to take their phone out for a walk, or what? Nearly every iPhone user that I know goes commando. Oh, wait. They don't use an iPhone case, either.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
You are a fanboy if not just because of your spelling of "fanboi". As well as the the term for a PHONE being "naked". That's just weird. The fact of the matter is, the phone DOES NOT WORK as advertised. If it does not work in its out of factory state without some sort of device like a case, it is defective. I would be pissed off if I bought something that needed a case or something to work the way it is supposed to. It must be hard for you to see the forest from the trees with Steve's magical wand firmly wedged up your bum.
"You already know how to hold it."
I wonder what will happen when people start wearing their wool sweaters and generate enough static electricity to light a bulb - or maybe just fry the internals of their iPhone4 when they touch the antenna?
Oh, you have no idea. Clearly you never had a Motorola StarTac. Dropped calls like you drop the soap in the prison of your raging fanboi mind. (Others may wish to know that it dropped calls as often as several times during a ten minute call.)
Contrast that with a full year of using the first generation iPhone (including much time in Washington DC, one of the most problematic areas, due to population density, and in remote areas of Nebraska, Iowa, Montana, and Wyoming, as well as other more populous areas including Houston Texas and Stamford Connecticut.) I had only a handful of dropped calls.
Nearly all of those were at a particular location in Washington DC where AT&T couldn't get the towers adjusted properly (they actually came to the site more than once to make measurements) because too many towers were visible to the phone from that location, and the tower with the strongest signal had the most traffic. I reported this issue, first to AT&T, then through Apple's developer program, describing the problem clearly and giving them the contact information for the AT&T engineer that I worked with. It took a couple years, but guess what? iPhone 4 and iOS 4 have design changes to improve performance in that exact situation, by being smarter about which tower to join. This issue turned out to be fairly common in dense population areas, and I had friends who had what appeared to be similar problems with Verizon. (Getting to this point with AT&T took an amazing amount of persistence by the way, but I was able to speak with the engineer.)
The only other pattern that I observed was dropping calls at a particular place on a freeway, where the phone failed to switch between cell towers, which it normally did fine, except in this particular location (every single time).
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
would a high-quality range of gloves be available to isolate one's hand from earthing the unit?
remember - they are all steve's phones - he just let's us use them from time to time.
now - where is my medication.
I mean I'm glad Apple tells me how to use my cell phone, I've been doing it wrong all this time. Thank you Apple!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Agreed. The Apple Magic Mouse is the least annoying mouse I've ever used. I still prefer the trackpad on a MacBook Pro, however.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I seem to be finding this grammatical error more often these days, where people mean 'ensure', and say 'insure'. FTFA:
if you left the antenna at the top, the user was now pressing it into their head, insuring lots of tissue heating
That makes it sound like a good thing. You'll be getting money if your tissue heats up, right?
Just about every cell phone in current production has the antenna located at the bottom. This insures that the radiating portion of the antenna is furthest from the head.
I can't work this one out. It looks like they added an extra 'that', and maybe 'is' should be replaced by ', which is'.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
The steel body of the DeLorean automobile had to be coated with a transparent shellac in order to eliminate what would otherwise be dangerous reflectivity when driving the car in bright sunlight. Coating the outside antenna surface with a similar shellac would prevent skin contact with the antenna, and make the phone look even more spectacular.
That's the Job's way. Thin is in.
is an advanced capability they need time to figure out how to implement well. iPhone 5 will fix it.
'Gripping any 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,'
Covering my N95 with both hands doesn't result in any attenuation of its antenna performance.
The problem was duplicated in a 3GS after the upgrade to iOS4, meaning the problem appears to be software related, not hardware related. A rumored 4.0.1 updates is being forcast for Monday that will supposedly address the issue. That said, I haven't noticed any dropped calls, or any 'no service', but I have seen signal drop by 1-2 bars. Putting any case on it also resolves it.
Had they explained the antenna designed to a ham radio operator, first thing out of their mouths would have been, it won't work if you hold it in your hands LOL. Facepalm by Apple.
even the great leader jobs himself had all sorts of wlan/wcdma problems at the keynote. and hilariously he made a ridiculous excuse of there being too many wlan aps!!1 so lets get this straight jobs: every other wlan device is working but not your iphone! and the bloggers are to blame for it, eh?
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Two-handed fun macher.
Wow, cmdrtaco is using his unlimited modpoints.
FUCK APPLE. (here, waste one more, Apple bitches).
Moderators, if you're trawling for non-negative comments concerning Apple products, so you can slap a Troll mod down, you need to get out of your parents' basement once in a while and get some fresh air. My comment ("the least annoying mouse I've ever used") to people who understand the English language better than most Slashdot native speakers should be considered, "Damning with feint praise" and rated "Funny".
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Slip a condom on that iPhone before you use it; honestly people - safe sex begins with safe phone calls to arrange the booty call.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
I enjoy many apple products. However, they do not shit rainbows and butterflies. I am aware that they, like every other company on the face of the planet, from time to time, produce an inferior product. Your welcome to your personal shit-fest about apple, but really, if your that butt hurt about the existence of the company, then go cry in a corner you emo prick.
/rant
goodbye karma....
I want you to consider how shitty the home computing world would be if Microsoft never had ANY market competition. Imagine for a second how shit-tacular whatever OS we would be using would be if there were no competition between Apple and Microsoft. They are polar opposites in many ways, and wether they admit it or not, they strive to out do one another in the OS department. Without competition, the OS world would be a disgusting wasteland.
Apple is damn sure not a golden god on a unicorn with butterfly wings like some idiots make them out to be, but your fanatical 'anti apple' stance is just as moronic.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
... to include an external antenna connector and let the third party market offer a wide variety of antennas?
If people want to use the internal antenna and get the radio performance that goes along with it, fine. But there are many people who would cheerfully put up with a clip-on antenna to get coverage in fringe areas.
IMHO, antennas have been a long-neglected component of cell phones. When people try to use a phone whose antenna is not only inside the car but also inside the phone, I am surprised it works at all.
From my days in ham radio, I remember it was difficult to use a UHF hand-held in the car -- unless the stub antenna was replaced with a cable to an external (outside the car) antenna. Then it worked well.
My first mobile phone was on the old analog system (AMPS). The phone was permanently installed in the car, with the antenna mounted in a hole that was drilled in the trunk. Although the service was pricey, it was far more reliable than today's hand-helds on digital cellular networks. Although some of the performance came from having 30x the transmit power of a hand-held, the system was equally solid on transmit and receive.
When I "upgraded" to a hand-held, I found myself unable to make a call in the same places where the old AMPS system worked flawlessly. As an experiment, I tried using a Bluetooth headset. I opened the car sunroof and held the phone above the roof while talking on the headset. It worked great, but not recommended while driving! Having a passenger hold the phone solves the safety problem, although rain remains a challenge.
My current car has a cell phone Bluetooth package that includes built-in microphones and utilizes the car's audio system. The location of the phone inside the car determines its performance. On the dashboard, it's very good. Sitting in my pocket, not so much.
Back to the iPhone: As much as Apple is famous for their clean designs, they are equally famous for underestimating design challenges that should be met head-on rather than finessed. There is simply no place inside the phone where you can put an antenna without the possibility of the user's body blocking the signal.
It's not 2009 anymore...
It's worse than you imagine. It's not 50%, but affects 100% of all cell phone users, not just iPhone 4. Apple is gonna have one hellova recall.
The Admin and the Engineer
The thing is, as I said the performance is actually really good - until you trigger the short. So I can see why they did it, but it is odd this flaw was not revealed even in casual testing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't think this was missed at all. It's like any of the other "defects" that have showed up in Apple products. I'm tempted to believe that Apple knew quite well about this, but decided to go with it anyway because a) fixing it would involve removing some of the "sleek" factor and b) they knew that there would be such mass hysteria over acquiring the new product that it wouldn't matter - at first. It's all about taking calculated risks.
That having been said, it's precisely this attitude that destroyed my fan loyalty several years ago- I simply got tired of being bent over by Apple's marketing prowess. I still buy an Apple product every now and then, but the days of drooling all over myself at the mere mention of a new Apple product are LONG gone.
Testing? What's that? The last time I saw real, exhaustive, "Let's Make This Bullet-Proof," "Gentlemen, You Will Not Fail" testing, Bruce Willis had yet to kill his first terrorist.
Testing costs money and is no longer an option. If it fails, you can charge more to fix it.
What are your customers gonna do? "Vote with their wallet?" :-)
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
if I wasn't banned from modding and you were less hostile, I'd mod you up ;)
Their description of the problem, suggested solution to the problem, and claim that this is the same issue that occurs with other phones contradict themselves. Bumpers do not change where you hold your phone; you are still covering the same area with your hand.
I'm not by any means an engineer in the relevant field but I do understand simple logic. The only reason a bumper could possibly fix the problem with all other things being left unchanged is because this is an issue of where your skin makes contact with the antenna.
I don't understand how anyone can suggest a case will fix the problem while at the same time try and pass it off as if the problem is caused by you covering up the antenna. With a bumper you're adding more layers. If anything it should stay the same or get worse - not better.
Stop sucking up to Apple.
When this 3 days late "news" first reached the front page of Slashdot, the title was not "Experts Explain iPhone 4 Antenna Problem", it was much more offensive to Apple's dismal focus on functionality, 6 hours later it was edited to a damage control bandaid.
I am seeing the same pathetic attempts to downplay this rookie mistakes over other consumer focused 'tech' sites. It's sad to see Slashdot singing the same tune.
After all, having multiple antennas is a standard solution for signal problems.
But it is now apparent that they were too cheap to do this.
Kim0+, a physicist having worked with cellular phone infrastructure.
I like how you insinuate that MacOS and Windows are competitors and not two completely different products sold to two completely different demographics.
Apple does not compete with Microsoft.
I'm pretty sure that's why they designed the bumper accessories to be the way they are. They turned a product defect into a way to sell an overpriced accessory to fix their devices shortcomings - and it's working! The Jobsian management style never ceases to amaze me with its outcomes.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
I am aware that they, like every other company on the face of the planet, from time to time, produce an inferior product.
Tell that to the 50,000 magazines that reserve a front page for Apple every time Mr. Jobs sneezes.
And how could they NOT have predicted how sweaty the eager fanbois' hands would be when they finally get hold of the latest version?
I would have thought sweaty palms would a constant problem affecting Apple's products far more than other gadgets over the past years... You never heard about such problems with the Zune, for example.
This picture really says everything that needs to be said:
http://i.imgur.com/zAJ0y.jpg
>I still buy an Apple product every now and then, but the days of drooling all over myself at the mere mention of a new Apple product are LONG gone.
sigh. I actually wish all our customers were like you. -steve
Here is the proof!
I use a Sanya 4930, which is a Phone and Nothing but a Phone. It includes an External Antena and has higher output then these new "So Called" phones. Where I live my single Cell Tower is 60 Miles/100Km from my home. The competitors are within 15 miles and yet, the other day, someone using a competitor, with L.o.S of the cell tower lost signal in front of the building. Me, Still hade 5 bars even not having L.o.S on a tower that's 60Miles/100Km away.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
You're holding it wrong. You have to grip it by the husk.
I wonder: will this cause more skin cancer? Since you have direct contact.
When I first found out about what the bands where I thought to myself... self.. thats going to totally kill your signal... Once upon a time I used to work for a wireless ISP and found that when putting up antennas.. if you touched it (ie.. wrapped your hand around an OMNI or put a few fingers on a YAGI you would literally kill the signal.. Sure am glad I don't early adopt. I still have another 1.5 years of my contract left on my 3G.. I'll wait and hope they don't f**k it up when I need it.
By now you’ve all heard reports that the iPhone 4 has a “terrible design flaw” that makes it useless for calls once you pick it up. Well, ok, I’m exaggerating a bit but you’d be forgiven for thinking that with the way this story has spread like wild fire. Now, I don’t doubt that some people are having an issue with this, but I’m amazed at the way this story was reported and the way it was picked up by the mainstream news media. First of all, Gizmodo were pushing this big time on Thursday, along with any other story they could find to paint the iPhone in a bad light (including, surprise surprise, you drop it and it breaks). Big surprise. From there other blogs started picking up on it and then it reached the mainstream media. What amazes me about this is that, first of all, most of the people reviewing the phone never noticed an issue with it and that most reviewers had noticed improved reception.
Secondly, as has already been pointed out, the same thing happens to existing phones. When Apple said this in their email they were set upon by bloggers for being dismissive of the “fatal design flaw” but they’re telling the truth. I tried it with my iPhone 3G and it does the exact same thing. Hold it in the bottom left corner and the signal drops. I’ve had my phone for over 2 years and I never noticed this issue until someone pointed it out and I tried to replicate it. But what I find really telling about the reporting on this is that virtually none of the mainstream media reports into this did any research or looked even remotely into the issue. They just reported on the Gizmodo story coupled with a few anecdotes from viewers or readers who were having reception issues. I’m not trying to down play the problems of those who are having problems, what I’m annoyed about is the complete and utter lack of perspective. For a start, a little bit of research would have found out that the Nexus one had the exact same issue when it was launched. But where was the outrage there? Where was the massive controversy about the Nexus being “flawed”? Why wasn’t this pushed as the main story by Gizmodo for several days? It certainly never reached the mainstream media, and yet according to the people experiencing the issue, it’s pretty much the same.
The problem is now that regardless of the extent of the reception issue, it will forever be seen as the “design flaw” of the iPhone. Anyone who tries to point out that other phones do in fact experience this are immediately branded as fanboys. It’s amazing how people are so eager to buy any controversy that involves Apple that they loose all sense of reason or balance. It’s gotten so bad lately that I’ve almost given up blogging about Apple and the mac, two subjects close to my heart. It seems that people are only interested in expressing phoney outrage at some inconsequential thing Apple does and creating giant controversies out of insignificant issues (I’m not talking about the iPhone 4 reception issue here before people start giving out about that I’m saying it’s an insignificant issue – although for many people apparently it is). It’s amazing to me how there has developed this complete disconnect between the impression you get about Apple from reading technology sites and publications, and the reality on the ground. The tech press (particularly tech blogs*) has lately been overwhelmingly negative about the Cupertino company, and yet contrast that with hundreds of thousands of people queuing for an iPhone 4. We’re given the impression that the iPhone is a terrible platform for developers and that its atrocious policies mean developers are abandoning it in droves for Android, and yet contrast that with WWDC selling out in 8 days.
I think the root of the problem, or at least part of it is the way a story spreads. It often starts on a blog when someone publishes their opinion on something
The Admin and the Engineer
They're going to get returns in the UK at least as a phone which you cannot hold is clearly `not fit for the purpose intended` under the Sale Of Goods Act.
Except mostly, you can hold it. I'm not sure how many people are actually affected by this, as I never would have even noticed without the stories - and as I said sometimes I can't even reproduce this if I try. In normal every day holding it's mostly not affected (for instance I've not had a dropped call because of this).
And overall, even with occasional issues this brings up - overall, the reception is still a lot better than it was with the older phones. So most people will just see a net gain and call it good.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Notice this problem only happens to some and not all users? Those affected are not going to able to join Jobs on the Arks when 2012 gets here!
By a user on XDA.
All you gota do is look at the iphone to know that style has overcome functionality nowadays.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6750027&postcount=9
Well that and probably waiting a few months for the reviews to come back about any serious bugs, as well as waiting for revised models to be released. First rush is always bad, even on new car models.
How'd you like Them Apples
Thus giving Apple hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free media advertising, and selling far more devices than they would have otherwise.
Great plan, idiot. This is why you aren't in charge of anything media-related.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Steve Jobs: Just Don't Hold the iPhone 4 That Way http://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-4-reception-bumpers-iphone4-iphone,news-7218.html
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that all the engineers who tested this were using a special case designed to make the iPhone 4 look like something else. While the primary purpose of the case was disguise, it would have also masked this problem from testing.
...the truth is that neither Mac OS nor Windows would be half as good if not for BeOS. A lot of the technologies we now take for granted first appeared in a desktop OS with BeOS (e.g. journaled file system).
The two companies do strive to out-do each other, but even with Microsoft's recent (largely failed) expansion into the Portable Media Player market, there's very little direct competition between the two. Apple is a computer hardware company. Microsoft is a software company. MacOS is, at this point, too much of a *nix clone to be credited as a driving force in OS technology, and Microsoft is hardly responsible for extant PC hardware design.
News-flash: We ARE using shit-tacular OSes.
Besides which, if one or the other company was just to disappear, do we really think that Jobs or Gates/Ballmer wouldn't still find some other focus for their strong competitive streaks?