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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.
if(bar_count3) barcount=3;
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Just force hold it next to your ear like the rest of us!
There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those that understand binary and those that do not.
If my 3GS wireless bar is anything to go by I find this fairly easy to believe. It shows anything between full to almost empty reception (not affecting speed) in my home. I've never quite figured out what was causing it.
This isn't a fix for the attenuation caused by touching part of the antenna, it's a fix for a longstanding software issue that makes it harder to manage. The issue's still there, and if you're seeing lower signal or slower speeds on your iPhone 4 than your previous iPhone, the patch won't fix that.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
If it's just about the bars, why didn't earlier iPhone versions have the same problem, then, if it's just that, and not the antenna design?
Goatse man works at Apple.
I mean, they had to pull that out of somewhere.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Uh, isn't this even worse? They were inflating the apparent signal strength all the time! I guess this is one of those perks a cellular carrier gets when they obtain exclusive rights to hardware.
So is Apple claiming it is also a superficial display problem when service is completely lost because of this hardware problem?
Better known as 318230.
Well, AT&T does say "More bars in more places"
that Marketing fixed the bug!
Did I just wake up in the future, because I can't stop myself from thinking of C.M. Kornbluth's The Marching Morons.
Fix it in software? It's supposed to correspond to antenna physics
There's a serious analysis here, with some extra commentary by OS News here.
"We need to do something QUICK! The media is raging on this issue! Even the general media!!! Even ads are mocking us!"
"We can design an isolation band to put on the phone, and market it as the next fashionable thing"
"people would rage it's not free and would cost too much to ship out to everyone.. any other idea's?"
"Recall! Redesign! WE HAVE NO CHOICE"
"TOO EXPENSIVE! and we just fired our antenna guys."
programmer: "I can write a tool to detect if they're lefties by usage stats..."
"... listening."
"And then adjust their reception display."
"What do you need?!"
"5 hookers, one masseuse, 2 days of coding and unlimited supply of skittles."
"GIVE THIS MAN WHAT HE NEEDS! Get to work! Good job."
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Apple is both right and wrong here. They're right in that the bar display has been misleading from the start. They're wrong in saying that was some accident. Of course they know about it. More bars makes your phone look good and to hell with giving the user a sane metric for phone reception.
They're right to say that the bare antenna in not a design flaw. They're wrong to conclude that this means it is not a problem. The only proper way out of this is free bumpers and dielectric coating over the antenna on future models. I know Apple likes to charge $30 for their $0.30 loop of rubber bumper case but this time, they could really be in trouble, so they need to suck it up and do what's right.
And if I see one single comment pimping the Android in this story, I'll have all you Android fans know that you have become what you hate. Why can't someone use a product they like for any reason at all? Is that not allowed anymore, or do we all have to care about the same things you care about and use the same phone that you use?
Apple is just trying to shift blame to AT&T for the disconnections.
Unless the phone intentionally drops calls on low signal, this will fix nothing.
*sigh*
First off I totally beleive this is possible. Very often my non-apple phones flicker between 4 bars and no bars.
But what is remarkable about this is that according to Pogue, apple designed the phone to find the "best" cell connection not the strongest. Apparently there is a difference. Naively I could appreciate that a tower that oscillates between 4 and 0 is worse than a steady 2.
Thus is it surprising that given they paid attention to that kind of detail they would get the actual formula wrong.
My guess is that the formula used to pick the cell tower is distinct from formula used to drive the display. Or they did something like add a variance bias to the mean to represent steady weak towers as having more bars.
In any event, assuming their explanation is correct, it does seem to jibe with their other public statements insisting that there is no actual problem, just a perceived one and that all cell phones do this to some extent.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It's well known that the iPhone has never reported reception as it should. So what, they fix this software bug and it becomes apparent to everyone that their AT&T reception sucks. So, is Apple trying to place the blame on AT&Ts shoddy service instead of taking the blame for designing a defective antenna? This is ludicrous.
It's sad, if it was any other manufacturer, people would return these defective phones in droves and there would be a massive recall. Because it's an iPhone people are willing to ignore these issues that should honestly result in a class action lawsuit to extend the return period from 30 days to 60 or 90 days with a free optional rubber bumper. This whole situation is absurd.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Nah, it was probably a rookie mistake like this:
....
If(receptionBars.Count = 1) {
}
I wonder if it took Apple's Three New Antenna Guys to find out that they fail at logarithms.
It's anything but simple.
It looks more like a clever way to disguise the problem and push the blame on the carrier by hiding behind poor coverage, nothing more.
It reminds me of Sony (I think it was them) who "fixed" one of their overheating laptop series by having users download a "patch" that would turn off the power management in Windows and make the fans go non-stop. It certainly stopped the overheating, but at the price of shortened fan life and a very noisy machine ...
An iPhone walks into a bar... oh wait it was a guy walks into a bar and leaves his iPhone
He probably had a similar problem to the iPhone when he left .... seeing two bars when there should only be one.
So, instead of solving the problem, they just downgraded the problem??? Sorry iPhone fans, but it looks like your phone cannot event manage something so simple and base as signal strength!!!!!!
Nonsense.. Apple has fixed the problem of the bars going down by recalculating the scale. This is perfectly acceptable. It's an elegant cost efficient and perfectly practical solution. I mean.. If a warning light is blinking, just take the bulb out. No more warning light, problem solved.. yes?
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Or a more accurate version.. “Upon investigation we discovered that we’d f—ked up the antenna design and were desperate to find a way out. So, ignoring the fact that the iPhone 4 actually drops calls and that covering the antenna with insulation such as a rubber bumper, tape or even nail varnish fixes the problem, we’ve come up with some guff about the displayed signal strength being wrong. So from now on, your iPhone 4 will only display 2 bars for signal strength no matter where you are, and if you have a problem with that I suggest you talk to your carrier. Hey, at least we didn’t have to shitcan our entire product line after only 42 days like Microsoft did with the KIN.. well, not yet”.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
How old is the original iPhone? How long do you expect companies to support old tech?
No, really. It's well known in the tech industry that tech gets old and stops being supported at a certain point. Typically, it's when that tech is sufficiently old that the market of users has dwindled below a certain point. If you look into things you'll probably find that the original iPhone is both quite old by smartphone standards and it's use in the market has dropped below a threshold where it's logical to continue providing support for it.
So, feel free to hate on Apple for moving on from the original iPhone but it's a practice that has occurred in the tech industry from, well, the very beginning and every company does it. Every. Single. Company.
So let me see if I'm following this correctly:
Public and Media: "OMFG! When I hold the iPhone in my left hand I lose half my bars!"
Apple: "No, no, no! It's not that at all! You shouldn't have had any bars to begin with! And in fact, NONE of the iPhones should have had bars!"
Anandtech posted a review of the iPhone 4 the other day and they have a break down of the signal strength in dBm compared to how many bars are displayed. The specific page is here.
Basically it looks like there is a huge range for what is considered five bars, and a small range for the remaining four bars.
Anandtech did some testing by enabling the now disabled fieldtest mode in IOS4 that allows you to see the actual signal strength in dBm and they managed to get -25dBm signal drops when gripping the phone. iPhone 3GS only suffered -15dBm drop and generally had much less signal attenuation when holding the phone optimally.
- Raynet --> .
It's Defective by Design (TM)
For once, Apple copied Microsoft.
Check the consumer protection legislation in your area. It probably has something along the lines of products needing to be fit for the purpose for which they were purchased for a reasonable length of time, taking into account the price paid.
There are two types of warranties: Legal and Conventional.
Conventional Warranty (limit your rights): We warrant foo for 1 year (no warranty on batteries, screens, keyboards, accessories, etc).
Legal Warranty: Fitness for purpose for which it was purchased, taking into account price paid, etc. In other words, you paid $3k for that big-screen tv and it croaked 1 day after your conventional 1-year warranty expired? You can still use the legal warranty via small claims court. They can't hide behind the limitations of the conventional warranty - the conventional warranty is in addition to the legal warranty (which makes extended warranties stupid purchases).
If you are going to bring up the anandtech study, you may also want to mention that the article states when signal quality is low the iPhone 4 is much better at keeping calls alive:
From my day of testing, I've determined that the iPhone 4 performs much better than the 3GS in situations where signal is very low, at -113 dBm (1 bar). Previously, dropping this low all but guaranteed that calls would drop, fail to be placed, and data would no longer be transacted at all. I can honestly say that I've never held onto so many calls and data simultaneously on 1 bar at -113 dBm as I have with the iPhone 4...In reality, reporting based on SNR makes a lot more sense, since I couldn't make calls drop driving around an entire day cupping the phone, despite being at -113 dBm (1 bar) most of the time.
I've not had dropped call issues from the iPhone4. That's not to say you will never have a dropped call, this is after all AT&T we're talking about here. But I have had much better results in making and keeping calls compared to the older phone, so people who are holding off buying an iPhone worried about dropped calls are doing themselves a disservice.
For me, tightly gripping has more of an impact on data speed than calls - and even then, it doesn't always affect data speed. But it's again a worthwhile upgrade, because the phone has better latency and so network use feels more responsive as per DaringFireball.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One of the first things I noticed on my 3GS was that the signal bars were wonky. Anyone with a 3GS in a fringe area knows the bars overstate signal strength tremendously and are essentially useless. -113 db on field test and its showing 4 or 5 bars. This speaks volumes about Apple's engineering, testing, and customer support processes.
I complained and was told that the field test app (*3001#12345#*) is not approved and reads wrong; the bars are correct and no one else has complained about this; its how I use the phone. Its my fault. Why don't I please go away?
I love my iPhone but I can't think of a company that pi**e* me off more than Apple.
I accepted the bogus readings because many phones have poor signal meters and it is what I have come to accept as the norm. I always thought that overstating signal strength was a deliberate ploy.
It does explain how Apple is calculating that I get 300 hrs of standby when all I can get are 36 (1.5 days). The phone's battery really isn't dead; it's how I hold it. It is a zen thing: the battery is and ..... is not.
I could have sworn that my hometown of Milwaukee had a copyright on "more bars in more places". Some blocks had a tavern on each corner. :p
Reply to That ||
The signal strength calculation algorithm is flawed until I touch the phone in a certain way. Then it's magically correct.
Thanks, Steve, but I don't think I'll be buying one of these....
The original iPhone, if you bought one of the first ones, is three years old. The 3G was introduced in July of 2008, so there are two-year-old original iPhones out there that were the best you could buy at the time they were purchased. I'm not certain how much longer Apple continued selling the original model after they introduced the 3G, but it's entirely possible and likely that they continued to sell it for a short while after the 3G was introduced.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that a "revolutionary, game-changing" piece of technology will continue to receive bug fixes for longer than two years. Buying a new iPhone every time your contract is up may be good for Apple, but it's also at odds with their "we're so green" sustainability pandering.
Sent from my iPhone
There is a reference to it here:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/28/nokia_pokes_at_iphone_4_death_grip_gets_called_on_it.html
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I think some comments were left out: "Upon investigation, we were [not at all] stunned to find that the formula [if (bars=2) then DisplayBars(4)] we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong [and unethical since it unfairly makes our product seem as if it has better reception than the others]"
Fits with my experience actually. I live slightly outside AT&T's coverage area. My 1st-gen iPhone often displays 3 or 4 bars sitting on my desk, but drops to 1 or 2 when I pick it up and make a call.
BESIDES it doesn't matter - a dropped call is a dropped call. If the iPhone 4 drops calls in areas where other phones (like the iPhone 3) worked perfectly, then the problem...
The iPhone4 does not drop calls in areas where other phones work perfectly. Instead of relying on your vast Apple Hater Rage to inform your opinion, why not try reading a carefully done study instead:
From my day of testing, I've determined that the iPhone 4 performs much better than the 3GS in situations where signal is very low, at -113 dBm (1 bar). Previously, dropping this low all but guaranteed that calls would drop, fail to be placed, and data would no longer be transacted at all. I can honestly say that I've never held onto so many calls and data simultaneously on 1 bar at -113 dBm as I have with the iPhone 4...In reality, reporting based on SNR makes a lot more sense, since I couldn't make calls drop driving around an entire day cupping the phone, despite being at -113 dBm (1 bar) most of the time.
The reality is that the iPhone 4 is BETTER at making and receiving calls. This is my own experience, and of the other people I know who have the phone - and also borne out by actual testing.
As Apple said, if people think there is a problem they can just return the phones, no questions asked. But I don't think Apple will see many takers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How exactly do YOU hold your phone? I just naturally picked up my Droid and held it up to my ear and I pick it up with my left hand with my thumb extended along the length of the left-hand side of the phone and two or three fingers wrapped around the back holding the right hand side of the phone.
Yes, that's how I pick up my iPhone too. That causes no issues in everyday use. Yes, even though you are slightly touching the metal band it two places.
What does start to cause issues, is if you then squeeze REALLY hard and wrap your fingers around the front more. Then you are blocking the signal a lot more. Then you can sometimes (not all the time) create the bridge across the antennas that reduces signal quality.
Thus the term, death grip.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Can Slashdot users just fucking stop being parodies of themselves for even a little while?
I read through all the messages and came up with this: The Slashdot users complaining here about the iPhone 4 don't even fucking have one. You turds.
Same on other topics, not just the iPhone.
The worst of the bunch? The Slashdot users who write things like, "I'm offended and will never [x] for the rest of my life." As if.
To all the folks unhappy with both the performance of the new iPhone and Apple's response, please heed the advise in this portion of the press release:
"As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund."
Seriously. Please.
All this ridiculous, over-the-top, self-righteous indignation and emotional hand-wringing over a gadget not meeting your expectations is just pathetic.
Apple has taken a stand on this issue. They say it works as designed and claim the reception is better than their previous model. You think they're full of shit? Great. Quit posting whiney, indignant messages on the internet and return the goddam thing.
If the problem is half as bad as all the stories make it out to be, Apple will be flooded with returns and that will have a much greater effect that millions of lines of internet bitching.
Disclosure: I'm a satisfied owner of several Apple products. I don't own an iPhone and have no plans to purchase one. My wife and I have free-with-subscription LG phones on Verizon. Oh, and guess what? If I hold the phone by the bottom, signal degrades. If I hold it that way in an area with poor cell coverage, service is lost entirely. You think if I submit my sob story to Slashdot, Gizmodo, CNET, CNN, etc. they will make it front page news?
Steve Jobs's Fix: cut off users' hands. They are clearly defective.
So, what? Are they going to assign more bars to higher db levels? You cannot fix such a major hardware snafu with a simple software change. You, sure as shit, can cover one up, but not fix it.
Standing Wave Ratio is a measure of how much of the signal that you trying to fire out of an antenna is being reflected back.
A low SWR is an indication that most of your transmitting power is actually being delivered to your antenna.
I find it so hard to believe that anyone would have designed a hand held radio that lets the antenna come in contact with the human that's holding it.
Its bad enough to have capacitive coupling (Where the plastic casing is thin enough to allow the signal to be transfered to the user).
If you think about it most hand held radios (walky-talkies) have their antenna's in the end of a stick. Its only as phones have become small that this stick has become small too and as such produces concentrated RF emissions right next to your head. As a result manufacturers mostly place the gsm antenna at the bottom of the phone.
Most antennas have a hot end (usually the tip) its high voltage low current and a cold end (usually the base) low voltage high current.
Is it purely down to detuning or just a plane short circuit?
I've seen demo's on youtube that show an actual call being dropped, no amount of s-meter recalibration is going to fix that.
It would be interesting to see if the part of the side antenna that is (so say) shorting is the hot end or the cold end. If its the hot end then the problem may well be caused by the bluetooth or wifi radio actually swamping the gsm radio receiver. This could be fixed in software by detecting that the phone is being held (somehow) and turning off the wifi or bluetooth whilst in a call. This could be made to come into play only in a poor signal area.
(sorry to those of you in the know. Being a HTC user I'm not sure which side the wifi / bluetooth is on)
If its the cold end that is shorting then the best answer is a bumper. I'm sure it won't take long for these to be appearing very cheaply in ebay.
Does it matter if the parent might be wrong?
Every phone I've ever owned, from cheap-o flip phones, to multiple Blackberries, to multiple HTC/WinMo phones, has been able to accurately tell me the quality of my signal, in real time via the "bar" type display. Based on that I would surmise that programmatically translating raw signal into "bars" has long been a solved problem.
So....
a) Apple programmers can't even build a bike shed.
b) Apple programmers have been intentionally obfuscating signal strength from iPhone users.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I use a different brand of phone on AT&T's network. I am not an AT&T fanboy.
I have held my phone is every conceivable position to try and recreate this problem.
Nothing more than 1 bar lost.
I use a 3G smartphone.
If I sell you a pile a shit, it will smell like shit. If the solution only modifies your sense of smell, is it still shit? YEAH!! It's still shit!!
Comcast, Ford, Bank of America, et al, try the same tactic.
WAKE THE FUCK UP, AMERICA!!!
No wonder we're the laughing-stock of the planet.
This (and many other examples) makes me sad to be human.
-k
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"