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Apple To Issue a 'Fix' For iPhone 4 Reception Perception
Lisandro and several other readers let us know that Apple has just released a statement addressing the signal issues a lot of users are having with their iPhone 4. They claim to have discovered the cause for the drop in bars, which is "both simple and surprising" — a wrong formula used to calculate how many bars are displayed for a given signal strength. "Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. ... we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place. ... We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G." Wired notes that there is still a signal drop when the iPhone 4 is gripped in particular ways.
I think they're claiming that the apparent drop in signal strength looks so severe because the signal is very weak in the first place, but not displayed as such. Most cellphone users are used to the idea that if the phone shows one bar, you need to move to somewhere better and that the orientation of the phone might matter. It doesn't fix the bridging issue, but it does explain why it seemed so severe to some people.
Virtually all phone have this issue. When you introduce an object that can affect radio transmission, it can alter and degrade reception. A human hand can affect radio transmission. This affects all iPhones, Android phones, and probably every cell phone on the market. It affects the iPhone 4 _more_ than a lot of other phones, but other phones _are_ affected similarly.
I wish I had upvotes for this AC.
Similes are like metaphors
I've seen worse programming wrong. So what they say is certainly believable... even reasonable. Is it true? I can't know.
Your understanding of how Antennas work can only be counter with : Shut Up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It will go away (well, decrease dramatically) if people buy a case. I agree, the product should have been designed better but there is a solution for people who are having issues with it. While _some_ degradation of signal is to be expected (I doubt there's a phone on the market that is unaffected by a hand holding it), the level of degradation that the iPhone 4 is reported to suffer is quite high (I'd guess the highest of all successful phones on the market). But, if someone is having issues with the degradation, there is a solution - buy a case. Odds are that will solve the problem and help one protect their phone from bumps and bangs.
you just publicly proclaim yourself to be better than all others.
Care to point out where I or anyone else did any such thing? You guys came with guns blazing to fight an army of straw men, apparently.
Similes are like metaphors