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.

Comments

Danish professor predicted this

[Namarrgon]

This guy is an expert in antenna design from Aalborg University, and predicted this two weeks ago.

Re:Cue the fanbois

[Anonymous Coward]

So how come this problem was not identified during the system test of the device?

Because - you'll really love this - they put it in an iphone 3 case when they were supposed to be testing it so as to keep the super shiny design secret. Really. The product they were testing wasn't the product they were planning to launch. Bunch. Of. Cowboys.

Re:Cases

[Gary W. Longsine]

I was initially skeptical that this might be software related, but recent rumors have a plausible software theory. The new iOS 4 has a new algorithm for picking the tower and channel that the phone uses, when it can see more than one. It appears that this mechanism may have a defect which is triggered by attenuating the signal (such as by bridging the two antennae with salty skin). This appears to cause the phone to decide to attempt switching channels. The speculation is that the timing is off, and the phone sometimes reports "no signal" rather than deciding to switch or stay put.

Death Grip hysteria may end Monday with iOS 4.01

The issue described is plausible, and fits some of the observations.

• Some folk can reproduce this problem, basically at will (one of the magazine review sites).
• Other folk are unable to reproduce this problem, at all (another reviewer at the NYT).
• At least some folk who can reproduce this issue are doing so in areas where reception was previously known to be marginal (including one of my developers at his house).
• The problem may have been harder to diagnose during Apple's testing, due to pre-release testing taking place inside insulated cases, thus the problem would be triggered less often, and not in associate with anything special that the user would notice (holding the phone in a certain way). The frequency of dropped calls might have been within the "normal" range for the AT&T network, given the small sample size of a few hundred test users. (Apple's off site testing includes hundreds of people, but that's actually a pretty small sample size, compared to the 600,000 people using the phone today.)

It will be interesting to see if a software patch emerges within a few days or even weeks, and cures this issue. If it does, I'll think back to several cell phones I had previously, which had problems that I could and did reproduce, and reported clearly to the vendors (both network and cell maker) and for which no patches were forthcoming, ever, during the life of the phone. Regular software updates for iPhone are a damn sight better than the old way, where the answer to any problem was "buy the new version of the phone you just bought a month ago".

Re:The media need to call Apple out.

[Jarik C-Bol]

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.

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. /rant goodbye karma....