As demonstrated repeatedly in the past week, people don't have to think beyond, "I saw it on YouTube", so I wouldn't count on a lack of sillyness any time soon.
If you have to give your phone an intentional, awkward, and physically painful death grip in order to really trigger the problem, as noted by anandtech, exactly how much of a problem is it really? If your phone is giving you a signal in places you never had one before, dropping fewer calls, and providing substantially superior call quality, is the design flawed? Apple's unflawed designs must be unbelievably amazing! Maybe even magical!;^)
Umm... do you know of a company that does not state publicly that their products are great? Did I miss something when Google announced Froyo and Google TV where they stated that they products were just OK?
Make sure you read the whole article, though, because their conclusion is that the iPhone 4 has much better signal-to-noise ratio then previous iPhones, and that they experience fewer dropped calls with it, including not dropping calls in areas that always dropped before, and that in spite of this issue. At the same time they don't write the issue off either, stating that they could have avoided it all by applying a non-conductive coating to the antenna.
Here's a thought, though... maybe not having a conductive coating was simply a mistake, a manufacturing flaw with *some* of the first production run? They did make some 1.7 million phones, delivered over a 3 day period. Surely some of those are defective. Even 2% defective would be 34000 phones. That's potentially quite a few youtube videos. Anandtech's iPhone 4, all one of them, seems not to have such a coating, but is that true for all iPhone 4's? Maybe the people reporting that they don't have the problem aren't just in areas with strong signals? Maybe all the people saying that they see a drop, but it isn't much of one and has never gone to zero, maybe they aren't just in strong signal areas? Maybe these people's iPhone 4's have such a coating? Do I know the answer to that? Absolute not, and neither do you, yet you declare your claim to definitively be the case, that all iPhone 4's experience the same issue, but some simply aren't seeing it because they are in such strongly covered areas. Have you been on the AT&T network? I find it hard to believe that these people are always in very strongly covered areas. I'll take a wild guess that you are another one of the people bashing the iPhone 4, who doesn't have an iPhone 4. Am I right?
I'm curious how many iPhone 4 owners you know that experience a complete loss of signal when they do this? How many do you know that report getting signal in more places then they use to with their previous iPhone, as well as fewer dropped calls? Is there an issue? Sure. Is it as big a deal as all the people without an iPhone 4 make it out to be? Well, I'll find out for myself in a few weeks. If it is, the phone goes back. If it's not a big deal, I'll keep it, especially if it gives me a connection more consistently. There's two places on my train ride where I always lose signal completely for a short period with my 3GS. I'll know on my first train ride if this thing does the trick or not.
I just want to say that I really appreciate all the responses to this. It looks like people's experiences vary, though at the very least the problem is clearly there for some. Unfortunately It's not entirely clear if those who haven't had the problem simply haven't been in the right situation for it to occur. Maybe only in areas with a weak signal to start with as one person posted? Then again, the demo on YouTube showed it dropping from 5 bars to 0 bars, and back, so that wasn't a poor signal area at all, and then you wonder why everyone doesn't experience the problem everywhere. It's confusing. Hopefully it's a manufacturing defect with some iPhone 4's, but not all, and could be fixed by an exchange (presuming the manufacturing flaw is fixed), but I don't know. I'm not sure what to do about my order.:(
If you do, do you experience the antenna shorting signal drop to zero issue? I'm curious, because 99% of the messages I see about this issue, on all forums, are from people talking about the problem, but who do not make any mention of actually have an iPhone 4 nor even of knowing anyone who has the problem. Now, maybe in fact everyone who has an iPhone 4 has this issue, but I am having a hell of a time trying to figure that out. And I'm trying to figure that out because I've got an iPhone 4 on order and I'd like to know if I should keep it. Android fans declaring, definitively, perhaps spurred on by the speculation of a specialist who doesn't have an iPhone 4 either, that the iPhone 4 has a fatal flaw does not tell me one way or the other. iPhone 3GS, 3G and iPhone owners saying that the iPhone 4 has a fatal flaw tells me nothing. The only people I want to hear from are genuine iPhone 4 users. So... do you have the issue?
Why does this make the Retina Display simply hype, as opposed to something pretty impressive? I don't recall Motorola making any mention of their display's ppi. Apple has made a mention of it and made it clear what this brings to the table for the user - a display that produces images that look like print. What exactly should they have done? Not made it? Not mentioned it? So, yeah, Apple is a lot smarter then Motorola, and the Droid had previously bested the iPhone = 3GS's display ppi. Congrats on that.
Everyone that I know of who has an iPhone 4 is not experiencing the left-hand reception issue at all, no matter how they hold the phone, whether cased or not. Neither did they get a bunk screen. Yes, those problems are out there as evidenced by some blog posts. So are over 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders, let alone the ones bought on release day that weren't pre-orders. I think the total for release day is going to be pretty mind-boggling. Of course there are going to be issues with some of those phones. Apple has a great exchange policy. Take it to an Apple store and exchange a defective iPhone (or other Apple product) on the spot. But are these fatal flaws, shared by all? Definitely not. I have no idea how common they are, and neither do you.
You're comparing a mobile platform OS/market to a desktop/laptop OS/market. Apple uses a controlled approach to their mobile OS, but an open approach to their desktop OS, much more open then Microsoft's. In addition, in order to even get a foot into the mobile market, one that almost everyone said they would fail in, Apple had to make a deal with AT&T, and that's why we have only one provider in the US. In other countries that isn't the case, unless getting into those markets required a similar deal. Actually I tend to think that it's more then just that exclusivity deal - Verizon's network is not capable of allowing the voice and data networks to be used at the same time, and I don't believe that that is acceptable to Apple. They want the iPhone to work seamlessly, and so being on the phone and then finding out that you can't consult a site on the web, that's not the experience they want their users to have. So until Verizon has that capability, I don't think we'll see an iPhone on Verizon. I don't know where Sprint stands in this. I presume T-Mobile has this. I'm going to take a wild guess and say the first network that Apple expands to will be T-Mobile.
I read that the iPad might, possibly, maybe kill it's owner after 30 days of non-use. I know there haven't been any cases of iPhones, iPads or iPod touches attacking and killing their owners, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't fear it. Better safe then sorry!
In the case of Google's drive-by-shooting approach to privacy violations (recording data from wireless networks as they drive by), you can't stop using their vans since you weren't using them in the first place. In the case of Google scanning your email and using it to target ads at you, I don't recall ever being provided an option to disable that. I'm not sure that it's even possible. You agree, by using Gmail, to allow them to scan your email and use the content for their own purposes. I use gmail. It doesn't bother me, at least not until we find out that they are using it for nefarious purposes. I'll feel the same way about this GPS issue. It's worth noting, though, that apps *have* to request your permission before being given access to the GPS location and such. I don't believe that that is changing. What you are agreeing to is that if you give an app permission to use the GPS, then you accept that they may record that information and use it for their own purposes. So if you're using an app and you can't figure out what it wants GPS info for, you just deny it. I've done so on many an occasion.
It's pretty crappy when you have to switch to "virtual cursor" mode in order to interact with a site. That's really going to win users over. Perhaps not such a smart business decision to go with Flash and a write-once-deploy-everywhere strategy?
Sorry to hear that! I did get the upgrade and don't seem to have any of those issues. The only thing I saw was that my photos looked horrid, like super low resolution, but when I synced with my Mac at home (I installed the update at work), it reloaded them and then they were fine. I'm not sure why that happens, but there you go. You presumably wouldn't see this (temporary) issue if you installed the update from the same computer that you sync with.
So far I really like the update. At first I went completely nuts with folders, even having all but 2 things on my home screen being folders, until I realized that I'd rather have my most used apps out of folders and on the home screen. It looks much better now. I'm also really liking the task switching, but not that only a very few apps have been updated to take advantage of it so far. That will change over the coming weeks, but you have to wonder why they only started taking iOS4 app submissions last week or whenever it was.... Even without app-support for task switching, it's still handy for quickly going back to an app I was using before.
Oh, and now, with folders, bookmarklets, or whatever they are called, are actually useful! I've got a bookmarks folder for quick access to my most-used sites. That folder is on my home screen.
For the issue you've had, I'd suggest (first backing up and then) restoring. I suspect that will fix the problem.
Google uses secretive drive by shooting tactics for stealing information from everyone and recording locations, even people who don't use their services, and I think that's a lot cooler. I mean, who shows up first in a gangsta rap video? Apple or Google? Hmm... OK, maybe Apple.
Re:Something baffles me slightly
on
iOS 4 Releases Today
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The iPad's specs are better then any currently available iPhone or iPod touch, so I'm not sure what you're saying. Should Apple have released a less capable iPhone 4? If you're asking why they aren't releasing iOS 4 for the iPad today, yeah that's a decent question. I have to presume they'd have liked to have had iOS 4 out for the iPad today too, but for reasons unknown they aren't going to be able to do that today.
Re:The iPhone and finally walk and chew gum!
on
iOS 4 Releases Today
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· Score: 1, Offtopic
In Android 2.3 you will be able to type the word "can". As a bonus, you'll alsoget a cookie.
Yes, the cat does have my tongue
on
iOS 4 Releases Today
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· Score: 3, Informative
I've been checking for the update periodically all morning. I'm definitely looking forward to it, but not looking forward to their servers getting overloaded. Probably I should just forget about it and try to update tomorrow or Wednesday.
I'm 40+, and Kirby: An Epic Yarn is my most anticipated game of E3. Let's see, visual creativity that's off the charts, gameplay creativity that doesn't fall far behind (pulling the scenery like a curtain to change it? What's not to love?), 2D gaming goodness, and hell, who doesn't want to be a yarn Kirby? Well, except when there's a cat around.
Here's a thought: Google could try to convince people they should buy an Android phone, then Google can feed them AdMob ads to their hearts content. By the way, why hasn't Google opened their search platform up to 3rd party search engine advertising and, for that matter, 3rd party search results? Shouldn't they be forced to let Bing stick Bing search results and ads into their search results pages? Otherwise I cry foul - Google has a near monopoly in the search department, unlike Apple in the smartphone market, yet it does not give access to 3rd party search engines. Perhaps they should also be required to let 3rd parties scan gmail email messages. What right does Google have to say that only they can scan your email for fun and profit?
You have your answer right there -install an Android "engine" on your iPhone. It's been done, and Apple does nothing to stop it. Of course they don't make it easy, but neither does Ford make it easy to install a GM engine in their cars, and why would they? Anyway, do that and you can enjoy the glory of AdMob on your iPhone.
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As demonstrated repeatedly in the past week, people don't have to think beyond, "I saw it on YouTube", so I wouldn't count on a lack of sillyness any time soon.
If you have to give your phone an intentional, awkward, and physically painful death grip in order to really trigger the problem, as noted by anandtech, exactly how much of a problem is it really? If your phone is giving you a signal in places you never had one before, dropping fewer calls, and providing substantially superior call quality, is the design flawed? Apple's unflawed designs must be unbelievably amazing! Maybe even magical! ;^)
Umm... do you know of a company that does not state publicly that their products are great? Did I miss something when Google announced Froyo and Google TV where they stated that they products were just OK?
Make sure you read the whole article, though, because their conclusion is that the iPhone 4 has much better signal-to-noise ratio then previous iPhones, and that they experience fewer dropped calls with it, including not dropping calls in areas that always dropped before, and that in spite of this issue. At the same time they don't write the issue off either, stating that they could have avoided it all by applying a non-conductive coating to the antenna. Here's a thought, though... maybe not having a conductive coating was simply a mistake, a manufacturing flaw with *some* of the first production run? They did make some 1.7 million phones, delivered over a 3 day period. Surely some of those are defective. Even 2% defective would be 34000 phones. That's potentially quite a few youtube videos. Anandtech's iPhone 4, all one of them, seems not to have such a coating, but is that true for all iPhone 4's? Maybe the people reporting that they don't have the problem aren't just in areas with strong signals? Maybe all the people saying that they see a drop, but it isn't much of one and has never gone to zero, maybe they aren't just in strong signal areas? Maybe these people's iPhone 4's have such a coating? Do I know the answer to that? Absolute not, and neither do you, yet you declare your claim to definitively be the case, that all iPhone 4's experience the same issue, but some simply aren't seeing it because they are in such strongly covered areas. Have you been on the AT&T network? I find it hard to believe that these people are always in very strongly covered areas. I'll take a wild guess that you are another one of the people bashing the iPhone 4, who doesn't have an iPhone 4. Am I right?
I'm curious how many iPhone 4 owners you know that experience a complete loss of signal when they do this? How many do you know that report getting signal in more places then they use to with their previous iPhone, as well as fewer dropped calls? Is there an issue? Sure. Is it as big a deal as all the people without an iPhone 4 make it out to be? Well, I'll find out for myself in a few weeks. If it is, the phone goes back. If it's not a big deal, I'll keep it, especially if it gives me a connection more consistently. There's two places on my train ride where I always lose signal completely for a short period with my 3GS. I'll know on my first train ride if this thing does the trick or not.
I tend to think this issue is way overblown, but yeah, that's funny.
I just want to say that I really appreciate all the responses to this. It looks like people's experiences vary, though at the very least the problem is clearly there for some. Unfortunately It's not entirely clear if those who haven't had the problem simply haven't been in the right situation for it to occur. Maybe only in areas with a weak signal to start with as one person posted? Then again, the demo on YouTube showed it dropping from 5 bars to 0 bars, and back, so that wasn't a poor signal area at all, and then you wonder why everyone doesn't experience the problem everywhere. It's confusing. Hopefully it's a manufacturing defect with some iPhone 4's, but not all, and could be fixed by an exchange (presuming the manufacturing flaw is fixed), but I don't know. I'm not sure what to do about my order. :(
If you do, do you experience the antenna shorting signal drop to zero issue? I'm curious, because 99% of the messages I see about this issue, on all forums, are from people talking about the problem, but who do not make any mention of actually have an iPhone 4 nor even of knowing anyone who has the problem. Now, maybe in fact everyone who has an iPhone 4 has this issue, but I am having a hell of a time trying to figure that out. And I'm trying to figure that out because I've got an iPhone 4 on order and I'd like to know if I should keep it. Android fans declaring, definitively, perhaps spurred on by the speculation of a specialist who doesn't have an iPhone 4 either, that the iPhone 4 has a fatal flaw does not tell me one way or the other. iPhone 3GS, 3G and iPhone owners saying that the iPhone 4 has a fatal flaw tells me nothing. The only people I want to hear from are genuine iPhone 4 users. So... do you have the issue?
Why does this make the Retina Display simply hype, as opposed to something pretty impressive? I don't recall Motorola making any mention of their display's ppi. Apple has made a mention of it and made it clear what this brings to the table for the user - a display that produces images that look like print. What exactly should they have done? Not made it? Not mentioned it? So, yeah, Apple is a lot smarter then Motorola, and the Droid had previously bested the iPhone = 3GS's display ppi. Congrats on that.
Everyone that I know of who has an iPhone 4 is not experiencing the left-hand reception issue at all, no matter how they hold the phone, whether cased or not. Neither did they get a bunk screen. Yes, those problems are out there as evidenced by some blog posts. So are over 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders, let alone the ones bought on release day that weren't pre-orders. I think the total for release day is going to be pretty mind-boggling. Of course there are going to be issues with some of those phones. Apple has a great exchange policy. Take it to an Apple store and exchange a defective iPhone (or other Apple product) on the spot. But are these fatal flaws, shared by all? Definitely not. I have no idea how common they are, and neither do you.
You're comparing a mobile platform OS/market to a desktop/laptop OS/market. Apple uses a controlled approach to their mobile OS, but an open approach to their desktop OS, much more open then Microsoft's. In addition, in order to even get a foot into the mobile market, one that almost everyone said they would fail in, Apple had to make a deal with AT&T, and that's why we have only one provider in the US. In other countries that isn't the case, unless getting into those markets required a similar deal. Actually I tend to think that it's more then just that exclusivity deal - Verizon's network is not capable of allowing the voice and data networks to be used at the same time, and I don't believe that that is acceptable to Apple. They want the iPhone to work seamlessly, and so being on the phone and then finding out that you can't consult a site on the web, that's not the experience they want their users to have. So until Verizon has that capability, I don't think we'll see an iPhone on Verizon. I don't know where Sprint stands in this. I presume T-Mobile has this. I'm going to take a wild guess and say the first network that Apple expands to will be T-Mobile.
...receive your private data from Google.
... or is Bill Gates gone because Microsoft was tanking? Gettin' out when the gettin's good....
I read that the iPad might, possibly, maybe kill it's owner after 30 days of non-use. I know there haven't been any cases of iPhones, iPads or iPod touches attacking and killing their owners, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't fear it. Better safe then sorry!
In the case of Google's drive-by-shooting approach to privacy violations (recording data from wireless networks as they drive by), you can't stop using their vans since you weren't using them in the first place. In the case of Google scanning your email and using it to target ads at you, I don't recall ever being provided an option to disable that. I'm not sure that it's even possible. You agree, by using Gmail, to allow them to scan your email and use the content for their own purposes. I use gmail. It doesn't bother me, at least not until we find out that they are using it for nefarious purposes. I'll feel the same way about this GPS issue. It's worth noting, though, that apps *have* to request your permission before being given access to the GPS location and such. I don't believe that that is changing. What you are agreeing to is that if you give an app permission to use the GPS, then you accept that they may record that information and use it for their own purposes. So if you're using an app and you can't figure out what it wants GPS info for, you just deny it. I've done so on many an occasion.
It's pretty crappy when you have to switch to "virtual cursor" mode in order to interact with a site. That's really going to win users over. Perhaps not such a smart business decision to go with Flash and a write-once-deploy-everywhere strategy?
Sorry to hear that! I did get the upgrade and don't seem to have any of those issues. The only thing I saw was that my photos looked horrid, like super low resolution, but when I synced with my Mac at home (I installed the update at work), it reloaded them and then they were fine. I'm not sure why that happens, but there you go. You presumably wouldn't see this (temporary) issue if you installed the update from the same computer that you sync with.
So far I really like the update. At first I went completely nuts with folders, even having all but 2 things on my home screen being folders, until I realized that I'd rather have my most used apps out of folders and on the home screen. It looks much better now. I'm also really liking the task switching, but not that only a very few apps have been updated to take advantage of it so far. That will change over the coming weeks, but you have to wonder why they only started taking iOS4 app submissions last week or whenever it was.... Even without app-support for task switching, it's still handy for quickly going back to an app I was using before.
Oh, and now, with folders, bookmarklets, or whatever they are called, are actually useful! I've got a bookmarks folder for quick access to my most-used sites. That folder is on my home screen.
For the issue you've had, I'd suggest (first backing up and then) restoring. I suspect that will fix the problem.
Google uses secretive drive by shooting tactics for stealing information from everyone and recording locations, even people who don't use their services, and I think that's a lot cooler. I mean, who shows up first in a gangsta rap video? Apple or Google? Hmm... OK, maybe Apple.
The iPad's specs are better then any currently available iPhone or iPod touch, so I'm not sure what you're saying. Should Apple have released a less capable iPhone 4? If you're asking why they aren't releasing iOS 4 for the iPad today, yeah that's a decent question. I have to presume they'd have liked to have had iOS 4 out for the iPad today too, but for reasons unknown they aren't going to be able to do that today.
In Android 2.3 you will be able to type the word "can". As a bonus, you'll alsoget a cookie.
I've been checking for the update periodically all morning. I'm definitely looking forward to it, but not looking forward to their servers getting overloaded. Probably I should just forget about it and try to update tomorrow or Wednesday.
I'm 40+, and Kirby: An Epic Yarn is my most anticipated game of E3. Let's see, visual creativity that's off the charts, gameplay creativity that doesn't fall far behind (pulling the scenery like a curtain to change it? What's not to love?), 2D gaming goodness, and hell, who doesn't want to be a yarn Kirby? Well, except when there's a cat around.
When will a company step up to plate for those of us with xray vision? I'm so sick of checking my email while on the train and seeing underwear.
Here's a thought: Google could try to convince people they should buy an Android phone, then Google can feed them AdMob ads to their hearts content. By the way, why hasn't Google opened their search platform up to 3rd party search engine advertising and, for that matter, 3rd party search results? Shouldn't they be forced to let Bing stick Bing search results and ads into their search results pages? Otherwise I cry foul - Google has a near monopoly in the search department, unlike Apple in the smartphone market, yet it does not give access to 3rd party search engines. Perhaps they should also be required to let 3rd parties scan gmail email messages. What right does Google have to say that only they can scan your email for fun and profit?
You have your answer right there -install an Android "engine" on your iPhone. It's been done, and Apple does nothing to stop it. Of course they don't make it easy, but neither does Ford make it easy to install a GM engine in their cars, and why would they? Anyway, do that and you can enjoy the glory of AdMob on your iPhone.