I agree that the iPhone is more locked down, but you exaggerate. I'm able to load all the music I want from any source I want onto my iPhone. Ripped CDs, amazon downloads, emusic, etc. Perhaps you meant you can load them from the phone, and I'll give you that. It's one downside to the iPhone - no amazon downloads store on the phone, etc. Still, you can download them on your computer and sync them over (or drag and drop if you prefer not to use syncing). Ditto for ringtones, though admittedly if you aren't on a Mac I think you have to use some 3rd party tool to convert them. I've got the sounds of pinball machines as my ringtones - they were free and not downloaded from Apple. I use Garageband on my Mac to convert them, but there's other tools out there for the Mac and for Windows, at the least.
Also while the App Store is "locked down", web apps are not, and they can do a lot more then you might think. See that Google Voice app, the name of which is escaping me at the moment, for example. Lastly you can jailbreak if you want other native app sources. Apple doesn't condone jailbreaking, but the option is there if you want to get dirty and right now it's easier then ever (I am jailbroken now. It's a messy place, but definitely has some nice stuff.) But that's not the main point here. My main point is that you've gone off the deep end with your claim that you can't play any music or ringtones except those provided by Apple.
Actually where you've really gone off the deep end is in the implication that buying an iPhone (or Android phone) determines what other consumers will buy. The iPhone is great if it's what's right for you and an Android phone is great if it's what right for you. Ditto for Blackberry, etc. The only thing you determine by your choice is how much money each company makes. I don't really care. I just want the phone I want. For me that was an iPhone.
I've been waiting for them to release the Magic Trackpad - it's about damn time! Order placed. If you've used a recent Apple MacBook trackpad, you know why this is a great product. Or at least it should be. I hope it proves to be everything I expect.
The only thing I will say about this is that I'm a "technical user", but my iPhone has never been jailbroken. For the most part I'm very happy with the stock iOS 4 with add-on apps. It does pretty much everything I want. While I could jailbreak it and get that other 1%, or whatever, of things I'd like to do, they aren't that important to me. Maybe something more compelling will be created for jailbroken phones, but so far, for me, it's all in the gee-whiz category, and thus not worth the trouble, especially since iOS 4 added the key things I was envious of (and I'm very happy with the "limited" multitasking in iOS 4 - it does everything I want.) Mind you, I've got an old 3GS sitting on my shelf now, and I keep meaning to jailbreak it just to play around with it, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
... however, two key places I either get no coverage at all (at my desk at work) or get a weak signal (at home). In practice this hasn't been a huge problem because I don't really use my iPhone that much for calls (I didn't use my previous non-iPhone for calls much either, mostly just the "should I pick up a pizza?" variety of calls). Also, at home it works fine as long as you're careful not to go into certain corners of the house.:) But I mostly use it for data. So at work I've got WiFi and at home I've got WiFi. At work I also have a phone and at home I have a phone, and anyone I would want calling me knows those numbers (as well as some I'd rather didn't, sadly). Outside of these locations coverage is generally good, which is not to say perfect. Overall it works well and is fast (not WiFi fast, but it's decently fast), especially with my iPhone 4 which, in spite of "Where have our subscribers gone?" publications like Consumer Reports, gets a signal in more places and gets a much more reliable signal in more places, then my previous iPhone. But, hey, facts such as that don't matter much when you're competing with blogs - the noisiest one gets the page hits.
... I will gladly take a handout, in whatever form.
Today I was in a restaurant I go to every week. For the first time ever I actually had a signal in the restaurant. My 3GS never once got a signal here. I didn't try holding my iPhone with my left hand, but I don't doubt I would have lost the signal had I done so, because it was only 1 bar. I was able to browse the web (a bit slowly) and even play a 48 kbps AAC+ audio stream while doing so.
So, sure, pick it up with my left hand or otherwise bridge the gap and I'm sure I'd have had had no signal, but then that's exactly what I had before regardless of how I held it or didn't hold it with the 3GS - no signal. The iPhone 4 gave me a signal as long as I was careful not to bridge the gap. I don't see how you can view that as worse. Maybe if worse = better, then it was indeed worse.
If you read other recent posts of mine you'll see that I've had similar experiences all over the place. My iPhone 4 picks up a signal in more places, and the signal is usable and reliable in more places. It is a better phone.
Now... I will be happy if they announce a fix, perhaps requiring a recall. If they are going to make the phone even better, I'm all for that. Also I'll be happy if they say we get a $30 credit at the Apple store too. Sounds good to me. I'll also be fine if they just say that people are reporting that they are happy with the phone, because I am very happy with mine. Actually, no, I'll be disappointed, because who doesn't want a handout?
They will demonstrate how the iPhone 4 gets and keeps a signal better then any past iPhone, but will still offer a store credit of $30 to all iPhone 4 purchasers, which they can use to purchase the bumper case of their choice, or a 3rd party case, or use it on something completely different. Also they will announce an extension of the return window, so people can have more time to decide if the iPhone 4 works for them.
Or they may do the above mentioned demo, but also say that they are going to start applying a coating to the antenna anyway, and will offer a free exchange for anyone who wishes to do that. Behind the scenes they will cut the costs of this replacement plan by using the returned iPhones as replacement for others (obviously after applying whatever change it is they would be making, and then going through the usual refurbishment process).
Whatever they do, the one thing I'm positive they will do is demonstrate how the iPhone 4 performs better as-is, because it does perform better as-is in my experience. There is an issue with attentuation and it can be pretty dramatic, but overall the phone still outperforms my 3GS's reception and signal quality, including, and especially, when the signal is weak.
There's another reason why they may be being silent - because they know that this issue is not what it's being made out to be, that nothing they can say right now will change things in a positive way, and that with time, good word of mouth will counter the bad press.
As someone who's done quite a bit more then just take it out of the box and then immediately return it, I think I'm infinitely more qualified then anyone else to comment on how the iPhone 4 is performing for me in practice, and it is performing very well. Better then the iPhone 3GS I had before it, and better then the other AT&T phone we have now (a cheap Motorola pay-as-you-go) as well as better then the Sony-Erricson phone I had on T-Mobile way back when. AT&T itself, they aren't perfect, and this phone is not perfect, but it is far, far better then so many people who don't have the phone try to make it out to be, and you can keep talking out of your asses, but eventually the fact that people are happy with their iPhone 4's and with it's 3G reliability, quality and performance is going to do the rhetoric in.
The only company that needs to issue a recall, is Consumer Reports, of their review, for their shoddy testing that failed to make any comparison of how the iPhone 4 compares with other AT&T phones with regard to how it performs on a daily basis with real world use.
I like how you are "pretty sure" it's people who stood in line for hours and ended up with a non-working phone. Are you also "pretty sure" that people are returning their iPhone 4's in droves? Maybe you're pretty sure that Steve Jobs shoots kittens out of a cannon too? If so, I say kick that fucker in the nuts next time you see him. Just be pretty sure it's really him.
You are having problems with dropped calls, and more so then your previous iPhone? Do you have an iPhone 4? Who are these people who are having problems with dropped calls beyond what they experience with any other AT&T phone? The example I gave was how the 3GS struggled with the connection at that location, and to a pretty ridiculous degree, yet my iPhone 4 doesn't struggle with it at all, in fact it does great. Now this is just the biggest example. Elsewhere I'm also seeing improvements, though usually more subtly. Certainly not worse, and at least a little better in most cases. In fact in my home it still struggles, and that sucks, but it is not due to the iPhone 4. None of our AT&T phones work well there. I ought to pick up a "microcell", but haven't yet. Mostly we use our home phone at home, so I haven't bothered, and of course for data at home I'm using WiFi.
Why do I feel like I'm talking to a wall in all this? Or maybe it's a giant mass of sound absorbing goop. I don't know what it is, but few seem to paying attention.
I can't make that comparison because I don't have another phone, other then a cheap Motorola pay-as-you-go phone on AT&T, which the iPhone 3GS always did better then, and the iPhone 4 does even better in comparison to it, but that's not really helping the discussion much. Neither is having you and others saying that the iPhone 4 is a colossal failure when you haven't used one, certainly not on a daily basis. I don't know about you, but I think I'm just a slight bit more qualified then you to comment on how my iPhone 4 performs in the real world for me. But then I suppose you must feel that you are more qualified, because you sure like to go on and on about it.
You didn't even read what I just wrote. I hold my phone almost always left handed, and that miraculously better case I just espoused about, I am holding it left handed. Also I have larger hands and it is quite odd feeling to try to hold without cradling the bottom left corner. What I was saying is that there is a signal drop, but even with that signal drop the phone performs really well. And should I lose signal completely, which only so far has happened in places where the signals was problematic on the 3GS as well? I can switch to my right hand be back in business. The performance and reliability was terrible in this location with my 3GS regardless of how I held it (no, that wasn't the norm for the 3GS, I'm giving you a worst case scenario, and how the iPhone 4 improved it). Probably if I stood on my head and spun pie plates it still would have been terrible with the 3GS, though i didn't think to try that. With the iPhone 4 it works flawlessly! So is the antenna broken or not? I guess if "flawed" means "it works better", then yes, it's flawed.
... that my iPhone 4 is outperforming my 3GS, in terms of 3G connection quality and reliability, sometimes to pretty miraculous degree, such as at the train station I wait at every work day, where my 3GS's signal would jump up and down and go away and come back and even when it was showing 5 bars the performance was horrendous. With the iPhone 4 I can in fact reproduce the signal drop when held in my left hand, going pretty dramatically from 4 bars to only 1, but even at 1 bar the performance is outstanding and for the first time ever I've got a 100% reliable and fast connection here. I can stream audio and browse the web and it's fast, even at 1 bar. At 4 bars if not left handed.
So I'm not downplaying the drop in signal strength issue, as that is there when you hold it left handed (and I do usually), but that in practice it performs better, even a lot better, then my iPhone 3GS. So is the antenna flawed or not? I would say that it is flawed, but only from a PR standpoint. It's a public relations disaster, brought only by people who don't have an iPhone 4 and who seem to have a vendetta against Apple for not making a phone that they want, and due to magazines like Consumers Reports, who aren't seeing the forest for the trees. They are focusing solely on that there is a drop, and ignoring how it performs in practice. You need to just use the phone and see how it works for you, and most, I suspect, once they stop staring at the signal strength gauge, are going to find that it does better then their previous phone, even by a wide margin. The iPhone 4 is a great phone. Yes, you should put a case on it, as that will reduce the signal drop issue, but that issue is not nearly as big of an issue as it is being made out to be. It's not a non-issue, it just not the main thing you should be concerned about. You should be concerned about how it performs in practice, and the iPhone 4 excels there.
Slashdotters get even more entrenched in their belief that the Toyota "sudden acceleration" issue was real, even in the face of the conclusions drawn by the NHTSA that it was due to entirely to driver error.
By the way, cause what popular magazine declared that people should stop buying certain models of Toyotas until Toyota "fixed the sudden acceleration problem". That would be Consumers Reports. Sound familiar?
Ok, but how about this one: what if there are lots of CR article threads in the Apple Discussion forums, some quite lengthy and utterly unmissable by allegedly censoring forum mods? Is that not censorship? No... wait... I mean is that not the blog effect going wild again?
Or maybe they aren't censoring a damn thing? Have you looked at the Apple Discussion forums? You'll find many CR articles, many lengthy and thus unmissable, certainly unmissable by allegedly censoring mods. When are people going to start using their brains instead of just going with the flow, going with the news they want to hear?
Err, but there are plenty of discussions ongoing in their Apple discussion forums about the CR article, many lengthy. Perhaps, maybe, possible, this claim that they are censoring their forums is just plain wrong? No, that won't do. People want the news they want, and they'll get it, truth be damned.
I can't tell what was allegedly deleted and why, but there are plenty of discussions going on about the CR article on the apple discussion forums, and some are lengthy, so it's not like they could have missed them. All these attacks on Apple are really starting to feel coordinated. I suppose, though, it's just the blog effect. One gets hold of a story and then they all start going with it, not a single one doing any fact checking or any other kind of even remotely thoughtful investigation. The next "blog story" comes about and the cycle repeats.
My iPhone 4 is performing great, much better then implied by the CR article. You're all (and CR was) stuck on the left-hand signal drop itself, and not seeing that it's still performing better then past iPhones. Is it a flawed antenna design, or does it improve things? My experience is that, in practice, even when I'm not paying attention to the signal strength gauge nor my handedness (I do usually hold it left handed), that it has performed better then my 3GS did. And with a case, which many will use, and/or when held right-handed, or just by "minding the gap", even the left-hand issue is pretty much eliminated. Not that that any of this matters to any of you, I suspect. Oh well.
Why was the message I'm replying to marked as Troll? The anti-apple bias here is pretty amazing. SuperKendall was stating his experience, which hasn't jibed with the CU article, and that makes him/her a troll? I have had the same experience as SuperKendall. I get better reception with my iPhone 4 then I did with my 3GS.
I *can* reproduce the signal drop when held left hand, but the question is how does it perform in the real world, not how much does the signal strength drop when held left handed. For me, I find that overall I get a signal in places that I didn't before and I have yet to have any issues with losing the signal completely in anywhere but locations where I had problems with my previous phone too. And within those areas it still seems to work better the my previous iPhone.
I think the problem with the CU article and, of course all these people who don't have an iPhone 4, is that it's getting hung up on the drop in signal, and failing to see that the signal was better to begin with and that the phone performs better with even a weak signal then the past iPhone 3GS. So is the antenna design actually a failure? From a performance standpoint I have to conclude that the answer is no. From a PR standpoint, it's a colossal disaster. I guess Apple figured people would notice that the phone works better, but that's not what people have focused on.
This is yet another ludicrous attack on Apple. The problem here is not that "rogue apps" have stolen your itunes account and credit card number, it is that these rogue developers have stolen itunes accounts/credit cards or purchased same from some other source and are using these to purchase their apps and make money, both from the purchases and the rising up in the charts. So, please, please just stop with this. Why do you idiots want to kill Apple? If it's because they don't make a phone that you like, well, that is really f-ing pathetic.
I find it a bit difficult to believe that the sensitivity of the proximity sensor can't be adjusted via a firmware update. Now, maybe I'm wrong on this and some armchair expert (or, and preferably, a real one) could chime in with some real insight, but at this point I know not to read without skepticism any post or article about iPhone 4 issues, whether from Apple PR, anti-Apple PR, or independent sources.
I'm sporting a sassy Google Sportcoat, stylish, ruffled sleeve button down Google shirt, and smart pair of Google slacks, purchased, I might add, on Google. I saw the ad for it on my iPhone. Or at least I did. Now I get some shit about crap I don't want. None of it don't say Google on it. Damn phone is headin for a class action. Shit. Soon I'll by flying Google Air, and at substantial discount, by purchasing tickets via Google - I know because I price checked it there. They've even got Google Snacks for all passengers. Shit's the Google.
Did you even read what he posted and what the anandtech article said? Even when the signal was low, even due to bridging the gap, calls were not dropped. As you said, you have a Droid. You do not have an iPhone 4. Why are you going on about this when you have absolutely no friggin idea what you are talking about? The good news is you have plenty of friggin company in these friggin and other friggin forums. I wish you'd all just friggin shut up, though. You seem to be trying to bring down Apple because... because why? Because they aren't making a phone that you like? That's pretty friggin pathetic.
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I agree that the iPhone is more locked down, but you exaggerate. I'm able to load all the music I want from any source I want onto my iPhone. Ripped CDs, amazon downloads, emusic, etc. Perhaps you meant you can load them from the phone, and I'll give you that. It's one downside to the iPhone - no amazon downloads store on the phone, etc. Still, you can download them on your computer and sync them over (or drag and drop if you prefer not to use syncing). Ditto for ringtones, though admittedly if you aren't on a Mac I think you have to use some 3rd party tool to convert them. I've got the sounds of pinball machines as my ringtones - they were free and not downloaded from Apple. I use Garageband on my Mac to convert them, but there's other tools out there for the Mac and for Windows, at the least.
Also while the App Store is "locked down", web apps are not, and they can do a lot more then you might think. See that Google Voice app, the name of which is escaping me at the moment, for example. Lastly you can jailbreak if you want other native app sources. Apple doesn't condone jailbreaking, but the option is there if you want to get dirty and right now it's easier then ever (I am jailbroken now. It's a messy place, but definitely has some nice stuff.) But that's not the main point here. My main point is that you've gone off the deep end with your claim that you can't play any music or ringtones except those provided by Apple.
Actually where you've really gone off the deep end is in the implication that buying an iPhone (or Android phone) determines what other consumers will buy. The iPhone is great if it's what's right for you and an Android phone is great if it's what right for you. Ditto for Blackberry, etc. The only thing you determine by your choice is how much money each company makes. I don't really care. I just want the phone I want. For me that was an iPhone.
Millions of Android users can't be wrong!
I've been waiting for them to release the Magic Trackpad - it's about damn time! Order placed. If you've used a recent Apple MacBook trackpad, you know why this is a great product. Or at least it should be. I hope it proves to be everything I expect.
The only thing I will say about this is that I'm a "technical user", but my iPhone has never been jailbroken. For the most part I'm very happy with the stock iOS 4 with add-on apps. It does pretty much everything I want. While I could jailbreak it and get that other 1%, or whatever, of things I'd like to do, they aren't that important to me. Maybe something more compelling will be created for jailbroken phones, but so far, for me, it's all in the gee-whiz category, and thus not worth the trouble, especially since iOS 4 added the key things I was envious of (and I'm very happy with the "limited" multitasking in iOS 4 - it does everything I want.) Mind you, I've got an old 3GS sitting on my shelf now, and I keep meaning to jailbreak it just to play around with it, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
... however, two key places I either get no coverage at all (at my desk at work) or get a weak signal (at home). In practice this hasn't been a huge problem because I don't really use my iPhone that much for calls (I didn't use my previous non-iPhone for calls much either, mostly just the "should I pick up a pizza?" variety of calls). Also, at home it works fine as long as you're careful not to go into certain corners of the house. :) But I mostly use it for data. So at work I've got WiFi and at home I've got WiFi. At work I also have a phone and at home I have a phone, and anyone I would want calling me knows those numbers (as well as some I'd rather didn't, sadly). Outside of these locations coverage is generally good, which is not to say perfect. Overall it works well and is fast (not WiFi fast, but it's decently fast), especially with my iPhone 4 which, in spite of "Where have our subscribers gone?" publications like Consumer Reports, gets a signal in more places and gets a much more reliable signal in more places, then my previous iPhone. But, hey, facts such as that don't matter much when you're competing with blogs - the noisiest one gets the page hits.
... I will gladly take a handout, in whatever form.
Today I was in a restaurant I go to every week. For the first time ever I actually had a signal in the restaurant. My 3GS never once got a signal here. I didn't try holding my iPhone with my left hand, but I don't doubt I would have lost the signal had I done so, because it was only 1 bar. I was able to browse the web (a bit slowly) and even play a 48 kbps AAC+ audio stream while doing so.
So, sure, pick it up with my left hand or otherwise bridge the gap and I'm sure I'd have had had no signal, but then that's exactly what I had before regardless of how I held it or didn't hold it with the 3GS - no signal. The iPhone 4 gave me a signal as long as I was careful not to bridge the gap. I don't see how you can view that as worse. Maybe if worse = better, then it was indeed worse.
If you read other recent posts of mine you'll see that I've had similar experiences all over the place. My iPhone 4 picks up a signal in more places, and the signal is usable and reliable in more places. It is a better phone.
Now... I will be happy if they announce a fix, perhaps requiring a recall. If they are going to make the phone even better, I'm all for that. Also I'll be happy if they say we get a $30 credit at the Apple store too. Sounds good to me. I'll also be fine if they just say that people are reporting that they are happy with the phone, because I am very happy with mine. Actually, no, I'll be disappointed, because who doesn't want a handout?
They will demonstrate how the iPhone 4 gets and keeps a signal better then any past iPhone, but will still offer a store credit of $30 to all iPhone 4 purchasers, which they can use to purchase the bumper case of their choice, or a 3rd party case, or use it on something completely different. Also they will announce an extension of the return window, so people can have more time to decide if the iPhone 4 works for them.
Or they may do the above mentioned demo, but also say that they are going to start applying a coating to the antenna anyway, and will offer a free exchange for anyone who wishes to do that. Behind the scenes they will cut the costs of this replacement plan by using the returned iPhones as replacement for others (obviously after applying whatever change it is they would be making, and then going through the usual refurbishment process).
Whatever they do, the one thing I'm positive they will do is demonstrate how the iPhone 4 performs better as-is, because it does perform better as-is in my experience. There is an issue with attentuation and it can be pretty dramatic, but overall the phone still outperforms my 3GS's reception and signal quality, including, and especially, when the signal is weak.
There's another reason why they may be being silent - because they know that this issue is not what it's being made out to be, that nothing they can say right now will change things in a positive way, and that with time, good word of mouth will counter the bad press.
As someone who's done quite a bit more then just take it out of the box and then immediately return it, I think I'm infinitely more qualified then anyone else to comment on how the iPhone 4 is performing for me in practice, and it is performing very well. Better then the iPhone 3GS I had before it, and better then the other AT&T phone we have now (a cheap Motorola pay-as-you-go) as well as better then the Sony-Erricson phone I had on T-Mobile way back when. AT&T itself, they aren't perfect, and this phone is not perfect, but it is far, far better then so many people who don't have the phone try to make it out to be, and you can keep talking out of your asses, but eventually the fact that people are happy with their iPhone 4's and with it's 3G reliability, quality and performance is going to do the rhetoric in.
The only company that needs to issue a recall, is Consumer Reports, of their review, for their shoddy testing that failed to make any comparison of how the iPhone 4 compares with other AT&T phones with regard to how it performs on a daily basis with real world use.
I like how you are "pretty sure" it's people who stood in line for hours and ended up with a non-working phone. Are you also "pretty sure" that people are returning their iPhone 4's in droves? Maybe you're pretty sure that Steve Jobs shoots kittens out of a cannon too? If so, I say kick that fucker in the nuts next time you see him. Just be pretty sure it's really him.
You are having problems with dropped calls, and more so then your previous iPhone? Do you have an iPhone 4? Who are these people who are having problems with dropped calls beyond what they experience with any other AT&T phone? The example I gave was how the 3GS struggled with the connection at that location, and to a pretty ridiculous degree, yet my iPhone 4 doesn't struggle with it at all, in fact it does great. Now this is just the biggest example. Elsewhere I'm also seeing improvements, though usually more subtly. Certainly not worse, and at least a little better in most cases. In fact in my home it still struggles, and that sucks, but it is not due to the iPhone 4. None of our AT&T phones work well there. I ought to pick up a "microcell", but haven't yet. Mostly we use our home phone at home, so I haven't bothered, and of course for data at home I'm using WiFi.
Why do I feel like I'm talking to a wall in all this? Or maybe it's a giant mass of sound absorbing goop. I don't know what it is, but few seem to paying attention.
I can't make that comparison because I don't have another phone, other then a cheap Motorola pay-as-you-go phone on AT&T, which the iPhone 3GS always did better then, and the iPhone 4 does even better in comparison to it, but that's not really helping the discussion much. Neither is having you and others saying that the iPhone 4 is a colossal failure when you haven't used one, certainly not on a daily basis. I don't know about you, but I think I'm just a slight bit more qualified then you to comment on how my iPhone 4 performs in the real world for me. But then I suppose you must feel that you are more qualified, because you sure like to go on and on about it.
You didn't even read what I just wrote. I hold my phone almost always left handed, and that miraculously better case I just espoused about, I am holding it left handed. Also I have larger hands and it is quite odd feeling to try to hold without cradling the bottom left corner. What I was saying is that there is a signal drop, but even with that signal drop the phone performs really well. And should I lose signal completely, which only so far has happened in places where the signals was problematic on the 3GS as well? I can switch to my right hand be back in business. The performance and reliability was terrible in this location with my 3GS regardless of how I held it (no, that wasn't the norm for the 3GS, I'm giving you a worst case scenario, and how the iPhone 4 improved it). Probably if I stood on my head and spun pie plates it still would have been terrible with the 3GS, though i didn't think to try that. With the iPhone 4 it works flawlessly! So is the antenna broken or not? I guess if "flawed" means "it works better", then yes, it's flawed.
... that my iPhone 4 is outperforming my 3GS, in terms of 3G connection quality and reliability, sometimes to pretty miraculous degree, such as at the train station I wait at every work day, where my 3GS's signal would jump up and down and go away and come back and even when it was showing 5 bars the performance was horrendous. With the iPhone 4 I can in fact reproduce the signal drop when held in my left hand, going pretty dramatically from 4 bars to only 1, but even at 1 bar the performance is outstanding and for the first time ever I've got a 100% reliable and fast connection here. I can stream audio and browse the web and it's fast, even at 1 bar. At 4 bars if not left handed.
So I'm not downplaying the drop in signal strength issue, as that is there when you hold it left handed (and I do usually), but that in practice it performs better, even a lot better, then my iPhone 3GS. So is the antenna flawed or not? I would say that it is flawed, but only from a PR standpoint. It's a public relations disaster, brought only by people who don't have an iPhone 4 and who seem to have a vendetta against Apple for not making a phone that they want, and due to magazines like Consumers Reports, who aren't seeing the forest for the trees. They are focusing solely on that there is a drop, and ignoring how it performs in practice. You need to just use the phone and see how it works for you, and most, I suspect, once they stop staring at the signal strength gauge, are going to find that it does better then their previous phone, even by a wide margin. The iPhone 4 is a great phone. Yes, you should put a case on it, as that will reduce the signal drop issue, but that issue is not nearly as big of an issue as it is being made out to be. It's not a non-issue, it just not the main thing you should be concerned about. You should be concerned about how it performs in practice, and the iPhone 4 excels there.
Slashdotters get even more entrenched in their belief that the Toyota "sudden acceleration" issue was real, even in the face of the conclusions drawn by the NHTSA that it was due to entirely to driver error.
By the way, cause what popular magazine declared that people should stop buying certain models of Toyotas until Toyota "fixed the sudden acceleration problem". That would be Consumers Reports. Sound familiar?
And not in "Internet" either.
Ok, but how about this one: what if there are lots of CR article threads in the Apple Discussion forums, some quite lengthy and utterly unmissable by allegedly censoring forum mods? Is that not censorship? No... wait... I mean is that not the blog effect going wild again?
Or maybe they aren't censoring a damn thing? Have you looked at the Apple Discussion forums? You'll find many CR articles, many lengthy and thus unmissable, certainly unmissable by allegedly censoring mods. When are people going to start using their brains instead of just going with the flow, going with the news they want to hear?
Err, but there are plenty of discussions ongoing in their Apple discussion forums about the CR article, many lengthy. Perhaps, maybe, possible, this claim that they are censoring their forums is just plain wrong? No, that won't do. People want the news they want, and they'll get it, truth be damned.
I can't tell what was allegedly deleted and why, but there are plenty of discussions going on about the CR article on the apple discussion forums, and some are lengthy, so it's not like they could have missed them. All these attacks on Apple are really starting to feel coordinated. I suppose, though, it's just the blog effect. One gets hold of a story and then they all start going with it, not a single one doing any fact checking or any other kind of even remotely thoughtful investigation. The next "blog story" comes about and the cycle repeats.
My iPhone 4 is performing great, much better then implied by the CR article. You're all (and CR was) stuck on the left-hand signal drop itself, and not seeing that it's still performing better then past iPhones. Is it a flawed antenna design, or does it improve things? My experience is that, in practice, even when I'm not paying attention to the signal strength gauge nor my handedness (I do usually hold it left handed), that it has performed better then my 3GS did. And with a case, which many will use, and/or when held right-handed, or just by "minding the gap", even the left-hand issue is pretty much eliminated. Not that that any of this matters to any of you, I suspect. Oh well.
Why was the message I'm replying to marked as Troll? The anti-apple bias here is pretty amazing. SuperKendall was stating his experience, which hasn't jibed with the CU article, and that makes him/her a troll? I have had the same experience as SuperKendall. I get better reception with my iPhone 4 then I did with my 3GS. I *can* reproduce the signal drop when held left hand, but the question is how does it perform in the real world, not how much does the signal strength drop when held left handed. For me, I find that overall I get a signal in places that I didn't before and I have yet to have any issues with losing the signal completely in anywhere but locations where I had problems with my previous phone too. And within those areas it still seems to work better the my previous iPhone. I think the problem with the CU article and, of course all these people who don't have an iPhone 4, is that it's getting hung up on the drop in signal, and failing to see that the signal was better to begin with and that the phone performs better with even a weak signal then the past iPhone 3GS. So is the antenna design actually a failure? From a performance standpoint I have to conclude that the answer is no. From a PR standpoint, it's a colossal disaster. I guess Apple figured people would notice that the phone works better, but that's not what people have focused on.
This is yet another ludicrous attack on Apple. The problem here is not that "rogue apps" have stolen your itunes account and credit card number, it is that these rogue developers have stolen itunes accounts/credit cards or purchased same from some other source and are using these to purchase their apps and make money, both from the purchases and the rising up in the charts. So, please, please just stop with this. Why do you idiots want to kill Apple? If it's because they don't make a phone that you like, well, that is really f-ing pathetic.
I find it a bit difficult to believe that the sensitivity of the proximity sensor can't be adjusted via a firmware update. Now, maybe I'm wrong on this and some armchair expert (or, and preferably, a real one) could chime in with some real insight, but at this point I know not to read without skepticism any post or article about iPhone 4 issues, whether from Apple PR, anti-Apple PR, or independent sources.
I'm sporting a sassy Google Sportcoat, stylish, ruffled sleeve button down Google shirt, and smart pair of Google slacks, purchased, I might add, on Google. I saw the ad for it on my iPhone. Or at least I did. Now I get some shit about crap I don't want. None of it don't say Google on it. Damn phone is headin for a class action. Shit. Soon I'll by flying Google Air, and at substantial discount, by purchasing tickets via Google - I know because I price checked it there. They've even got Google Snacks for all passengers. Shit's the Google.
Did you even read what he posted and what the anandtech article said? Even when the signal was low, even due to bridging the gap, calls were not dropped. As you said, you have a Droid. You do not have an iPhone 4. Why are you going on about this when you have absolutely no friggin idea what you are talking about? The good news is you have plenty of friggin company in these friggin and other friggin forums. I wish you'd all just friggin shut up, though. You seem to be trying to bring down Apple because... because why? Because they aren't making a phone that you like? That's pretty friggin pathetic.
Ditto. Hell, I see that IN MY HOUSE.