While I agree with Myers in principle about Kurtzweil's claims, there is one point where I disagree fundamentally:
The genome is not the program; it's the data.
If we are going to insist on using a computer metaphor, then the genome is BOTH the program and the data.
There are other metaphors we could choose; the society metaphor, the Rube Goldberg machine metaphor, the library metaphor... we could go on. The problem is that the genome is nothing like any of these so they are all misleading in some way... People who put too much faith in the metaphors tend to make wild (and sometimes silly) assumptions.
BTW, I didn't read Kurtzweil's book, so I cannot say for sure, but I suspect that he's not saying that we can represent the human brain in a million lines of code, but rather we can represent a meta-representation in a million lines of code. It's this meta-representation that could 'evolve' into a brain simulation, given the right inputs. It's still a load of 'bafflegab', but maybe not quite as insane as it seems. After all, if our genome (which is essentially a meta-representation) can do it, why not this meta-representation?
The truely astounding thing about Kurtzweil's conclusion is that he bothered to stop at the brain. I mean, just following his logic, we could represent or meta-represent an entire human being in only 2 million lines of code. C'mon Ray - dream big!
Stephen Hawking has been hawking this idea for several years. This is not newsworthy.
As smart as Stephen Hawking is, this is not really a good idea. Assuming that we can overcome a boatload of technical problems (too numerous to list here). The probablility for human survival is still much greater on this planet than out there in the universe at large.
Our money would be much better spent working out the technical solutions to prevention collisions with Near Earth Objects, dealing with climate change, preventing pandemics, and dealing with all of the other problems that Mr. Hawking thinks we should run away from.
Well, they are 'instructed' to say "less likely", but not everyone that works in an Apple store gets the moniker "genius". Also, they are in sales. Sales people lie. It's another fact of life...
I don't live in a perfect world. In this world, the one I live in, security is a problem in every single facet of computing. There are no perfect security solutions. No computing system is completely safe. This is a fact of life.
Of course Apple just keeps telling their users they are secure.
I'm pretty sure Apple never made this claim. In fact, if Apple were trying to make this claim, they wouldn't feel the need to issue regular security updates.
BTW, it's too early to point a finger at Apple. The exploit may, in fact, be in Adobe's code. And before you flame me to tell me that Apple writes all their own PDF code, I caution you against making assumptions about who writes what. It is likely that Apple uses Adobe's Open Source Media Framework to develop their plugins.
No, it was initially based on our ability to measure. This measurement uncertainty has certain implications (or, at least, seems to). It's these implications that have led some theorist to draw conclusions about the way things are based on the way they appear...
Of course, not everyone agrees with Bohr's interpretation. Feynman was one of the first to speak up... well, at least one of the first to speak up and be heard (Feynman was no slouch). These days it's Lee Smolin and the quantum gravity crowd that are denouncing the importance of the uncertainty principle.
Actually, they are saying that the whole idea of particles and wave functions as "things" is just wrong. We should be thinking of these observable and measurable phenomena as holographic manifestations of things we are unable to perceive in only 4 dimensions...
The uncertainty principle originally made statements about what can be known about position and velocity. You cannot measure both position and velocity simultaneously above a certain degree of accuracy. The more accurate your measure of velocity, the less you know about position, and visa versa. Since most purists will hold this up as the true test of any theory wanting to refute the uncertainty principle, the theorists felt the need to suggest that this, theoretically could be invalidated, as well. Hence the mention of momentum.
The fly in the ointment seems to be this part of the theory:
...maximally entangling a particle with a quantum memory, meaning all states and all degrees of freedom in the particle would be tied to all of the quantum memory's states.
I'm not sure how many states and degrees of freedom would be required. The total is infinite for both, but perhaps these can be limited to ranges. Still the size of the quantum memory would be huge, I think. Also, there is the non-trivial trick of entangling the particle's states and degrees of freedom with the quantum memory states...
I don't think Heisenberg will be turning over in his grave very soon...
I have no idea what PhoneProtect is, but I assure you that it's not something I purchased.
So, let's look at this from a different perspective. I have a Samsung Mythic that failed while under warranty. AT&T told me to return my phone to their warranty department not Samsung's. AT&T replaced my phone the next day, not Samsung. The replacement came through AT&T's warranty department, not through Samsung's warranty department.
Now I'm pretty sure that AT&T returned my dead phone to Samsung under warranty, but all of this happened after my warranty was serviced by AT&T. Whatever warranty activity that took place after AT&T serviced me; it was a transaction that happened between AT&T and Samsung. I was out of the loop.
Since the Samsung OEM warranty clearly states that it cannot be transferred, and I was not in the warranty loop with Samsung... how do you suppose that all works?
I do understand. And I understand your misunderstanding. A service contact, in the context of Magnuson-Moss and in the context of how I mean it, means a warranty offered to you NOT by the equipment manufacturer but a third party. In this case, your warranty is from AT&T's warranty service provider NOT Apple (not even AT&T). It's exactly the same as if you bought an extended warranty. Exactly. You sign over your rights to your Apple (manufacturer's) warranty when you agree to the AT&T terms and conditions. This is a requirement of your "wireless plan" (notice I didn't say "service contract") with AT&T.
Assuming you buy your iPhone through AT&T... your warranty will not be provided through Apple, it's provided through AT&T's warranty service provider. In the terms of service agreement that you enter into with AT&T you give up your right to the manufacture's warranty. Here's the relevant clause copied directly from the standard AT&T terms and conditions:
We receive and a customer hereby assigns all rights and benefits of any manufacturer's warranty or other ancillary coverage relating to any Registered item.
So, in other words, your warranty is part of a service contract and exempted from Magnuson-Moss.
Maybe not for most phones, but it clearly does for Apple because there's no unlock code - the only way to jailbreak an iPhone is to re-flash the firmware, which essentially changes the product.
The warranty provided to you on your phone is part of a service contract. Magnuson-Moss explicitly exempts service contracts. So in other words, no it does not apply.
The problem is that it's almost impossible for the user to determine the root cause of the problem. Is the display not working because of a software issue or a hardware issue? If it's a harware issue, is it due to bad software that caused an early life wearout mechanism?
Apple and/or AT&T are not obligated to perform the service to diagnose this problem once an unauthorized software/os configuration is installed on the device. The reason that they are not obligated is because you agreed to this constraint with your service contract.
Being legal to jailbreak your phone is not the same thing as the provider being obligated to honor a contract you broke in the first place. Magnuson-Moss exempts service contracts.
Most people don't actually own their phones. Sure, you may pay $199 for that new iPhone, but the cost of that phone is much higher. The reason you only have to pay $199 is because much of the cost is subsidized by your carrier subscription. Along with that subscription you agreed to certain contractural obligations. Once you jailbreak, you also break that contract.
So yes, you have the right to jailbreak, but don't expect the rights granted by your service contract to still apply... including warranty.
Well, I may get dinged for responding to someone branded as a troll, but here goes...
So, either you ARE a troll or you are uninformed or you are working with a peculiar definition of the word paucity.
I use Mac, PC, and linux on a daily basis, so I think my opinion is fairly objective. I agree that there is a lot more software for the PC, but there IS still a lot of 3rd party software for Mac. More importantly, by-and-large, the Mac stuff tends to be higher quality. Here is what I observe (just my personal experience, your milage may vary):
I load software onto my PC at a rate of about 3-to-1 over my Mac
I delete more than 90% of the PC software that I load because it's crap
I keep about 80% of the software that I load on my Mac
Consequently, when I tally it all up, my Mac has a lot more 3rd party software on it than my PC. Ironically, as I just perused my installed apps on my PC I noticed that quite a few are there to duplicate capabilities that are in-built on my Mac (perl, cygwin, vnc server, X-client, iTunes, Safari, QuickTime, WinZip, emacs editor, FreeCommander, a virtual desktop manager, etc.).
And what I wouldn't give for a Windows version of AppleScript, Automator, Taco HTML, or GeekTool...
Seriously, anyone who thinks that the Mac OS is somehow starving for good quality, 3rd party apps is simply out of touch.
BTW, back in 1984 when the Mac OS had MacPaint and MacWrite... Windows had what??? Oh yeah, there was no Windows yet. Windows Paint and Windows Write (super clever product names, BTW) didn't come out until almost 2 years later...
Apple's margins on their computers is the highest in the industry
This may be technically correct with respect to the hardware, but Apple subsidizes their OS and application development costs with some of that margin. When you buy a Mac, you get the hardware plus OSX, iTunes, Time Machine, Mail, iChat, Safari, Front Row, GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, etc....
Now you might be inclined to think that this is true of any PC you buy, but I think if you look at the software that's in the boxes and compare you will see that Apple provides much more commercial quality software than the typical PC you might buy. That software cost money to develop and a large portion of that money comes from hardware sales.
Not trying to beat you up - merely pointing out that you are comparing Apples and oranges... so-to-speak.
The only reason that people hate complex passwords is that they are hard to remember. However, rather than dumbing down your password, just invent a simple strategy. For instance, let's say you like poetry. Choose a poem that you like, for instance Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. Then choose your favorite line or stanza, for instance "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood". Now take the first character of each word and concatenate them: "Trdiayw". Now most password enforcers want some special characters including numbers, so you can add a few to get something like: "Trdiayw10-".
This is a reasonably complex password that is really easy to remember, but it's unlikely that this kind of password will show up in a dictionary. And because it's based on a key phrase, I find it really easy to type (I don't even have to think about it). Don't like poetry? Choose lines from your favorite books, or famous quotes, or lines from your favorite songs, etc..
Well, I was going to accuse you of misinterpreting Wikipedia... but decided not to jump to conclusions... Now...
OK, let's pretend that my point was what you originally thought - that I was trying to say that the iPhone antenna problem is a non problem. That wasn't my point, but let's pretend so that I can explain how my example fails the Wikipedia definition of anecdotal evidence.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you were not trying to apply the first definition. In other words, you were not concerned about the veracity of my account. If this assumption is false, then I have no defense. Likewise neither does Consumer Reports because you have no way of verifying that they actually conducted experiments and accurately reported their results.
Moving on to definition 2. You might be assuming that the conclusion does not follow from the evidence or that there was an insufficient amount of evidence. However, I said that these were engineers who were trying to make their calls drop. The sample size was 20 iPhones and 20 testers, which is significantly larger than the Consumer Reports experiments. Perhaps your issue is that you don't think this study is scientific, but in fact you don't have any knowledge of the experiments conducted and whether these experiments are valid. I'm guessing, BTW, that this statement is true of your knowledge of the Consumer Reports experiments. I understand that you intuitively trust the engineers at Consumer Reports, but I have already provided a link to a comment from an expert in the field that suggests that their experiments are, in fact, not really worthy of your trust. Nevertheless, none of this meets the Wikipedia definition of "anecdotal evidence".
I'm guessing that your real problem is that you trust measurements of field strength over the not very scientific sounding evidence of users NOT dropping calls. This does not make my example anecdotal, but I can empathize with your concerns. However, I must point out that, as a user, you have no real perception of field strength and no intuitive understanding of how field strength relates to call quality. You do, however, have a fairly intuitive perception of call quality in the event of a dropped call. So I suggest that the "study" I related is actually more representative of the average user's perception of call quality... which is all that really matters.
BTW, you are probably still not in agreement with the above statements, but as an electrical engineer I can tell you that the parameters that Consumer Reports measured do not tell the whole story. It's as if (to use a car analogy) they looked at the wind resistance profile of a car and made claims about it's overall gas milage.
- - - -
With respect to the Ars Technica link, I'm not sure what your point of sharing it was??? I hope you are not using this guy's "hunch" (his word, not mine) as evidence to support your case.
Also, I think he's asking the wrong question. To the layman, not familiar with the idiosyncrasies of RF, it seems natural to expect a black or white answer. However, there are an infinite number of possible test cases and the best anyone can do with an RF design is try a bunch of scenarios and optimize the trade-offs. The question he should want to ask is this: Did Apple evaluate both insulated and non insulated solutions and choose the non insulated solution because it provides the best overall performance?
Apple cannot answer this question. If they say "no" then they look stupid for overlooking the obvious. If they say "yes" then they will look disingenuous because everyone has already made up their mind about the facts and they will assume that Apple is lying. No win.
Also, there has been suggestions that Apple knew about this issue and did nothing about it because they favored style over function. This is a ridiculous claim. I can think of half a dozen inexpensive manufacturing solutions that would be as effective as a bumper but not noticeably change the look of the device. So, I can only assume that either Apple was clueless (I find this hard to believe) or Apple chose the most optimal overall engineering solution that (unfortunately) turned into a public relations nightmare.
Well, if your theory is right, I know how Apple can make a killing on the 5th generation iPhone. One solid, slick, black slab of oleophobic glass. All the fanbois will buy them and swear that it's lots better than their old iPhone 4s...
Well, since you were clearly confused about the conclusion I was drawing, perhaps you are incorrect about whether my "evidence" was anecdotal. And technically, you're still wrong with your definition of anecdotal, but I won't quibble about that.
My point was that most users are likely to perceive better performance from iPhone 4 than older iPhones and possibly other phones in general.
You don't like my evidence, so maybe you'll believe the folks over at AnandTech.
True, their conclusion was that the iPhone's reception would be better (under certain conditions) if the antennae were insulated, but they still found the phone's overall reception exceptional compared to iPhone 3GS. Oh and they confirmed what I said about all smartphones having these sorts of problems.
I searched high and low, but could not find any of these other studies you mention... Oh I found a bunch of here-say and anecdotal studies, but these you've already deemed unacceptable.
Also, maybe you shouldn't place too much faith in the Consumer Reports study - it's quite possible that their study was flawed.
I never said that there was no problem. I said that all phones seem to have a problem. I have not seen any evidence that the iPhone 4 problems are any worse... and yes, I did read the Consumer Reports article that said that they tested several other phones... what they failed to mention is how thorough they were at testing all the various configurations of user interaction and carrier strength...
Being an electrical engineer with considerable experience in the field, I know how impossible such tests are, so yes - I tend to discount it when Consumer Reports tries to make it sound like this is some exclusively iPhone 4 problem.
BTW, please look up the definition of anecdotal. You seem to be confused. What I described is more than an anecdote. What I described was a number of engineers (all electrical engineers, BTW) who conducted various user mode experiments to try and replicate the problem. That is hardly anecdotal.
Slashdot Mirror
... or morbid curiosity ... or Orwellian power trips...
While I agree with Myers in principle about Kurtzweil's claims, there is one point where I disagree fundamentally:
The genome is not the program; it's the data.
If we are going to insist on using a computer metaphor, then the genome is BOTH the program and the data.
There are other metaphors we could choose; the society metaphor, the Rube Goldberg machine metaphor, the library metaphor... we could go on. The problem is that the genome is nothing like any of these so they are all misleading in some way... People who put too much faith in the metaphors tend to make wild (and sometimes silly) assumptions.
BTW, I didn't read Kurtzweil's book, so I cannot say for sure, but I suspect that he's not saying that we can represent the human brain in a million lines of code, but rather we can represent a meta-representation in a million lines of code. It's this meta-representation that could 'evolve' into a brain simulation, given the right inputs. It's still a load of 'bafflegab', but maybe not quite as insane as it seems. After all, if our genome (which is essentially a meta-representation) can do it, why not this meta-representation?
The truely astounding thing about Kurtzweil's conclusion is that he bothered to stop at the brain. I mean, just following his logic, we could represent or meta-represent an entire human being in only 2 million lines of code. C'mon Ray - dream big!
Stephen Hawking has been hawking this idea for several years. This is not newsworthy.
As smart as Stephen Hawking is, this is not really a good idea. Assuming that we can overcome a boatload of technical problems (too numerous to list here). The probablility for human survival is still much greater on this planet than out there in the universe at large.
Our money would be much better spent working out the technical solutions to prevention collisions with Near Earth Objects, dealing with climate change, preventing pandemics, and dealing with all of the other problems that Mr. Hawking thinks we should run away from.
I should have said "some sales people lie"...
Well, they are 'instructed' to say "less likely", but not everyone that works in an Apple store gets the moniker "genius". Also, they are in sales. Sales people lie. It's another fact of life...
I don't live in a perfect world. In this world, the one I live in, security is a problem in every single facet of computing. There are no perfect security solutions. No computing system is completely safe. This is a fact of life.
Of course Apple just keeps telling their users they are secure.
I'm pretty sure Apple never made this claim. In fact, if Apple were trying to make this claim, they wouldn't feel the need to issue regular security updates.
BTW, it's too early to point a finger at Apple. The exploit may, in fact, be in Adobe's code. And before you flame me to tell me that Apple writes all their own PDF code, I caution you against making assumptions about who writes what. It is likely that Apple uses Adobe's Open Source Media Framework to develop their plugins.
No, it was initially based on our ability to measure. This measurement uncertainty has certain implications (or, at least, seems to). It's these implications that have led some theorist to draw conclusions about the way things are based on the way they appear...
Of course, not everyone agrees with Bohr's interpretation. Feynman was one of the first to speak up... well, at least one of the first to speak up and be heard (Feynman was no slouch). These days it's Lee Smolin and the quantum gravity crowd that are denouncing the importance of the uncertainty principle.
Actually, they are saying that the whole idea of particles and wave functions as "things" is just wrong. We should be thinking of these observable and measurable phenomena as holographic manifestations of things we are unable to perceive in only 4 dimensions...
I've always heard how the availability of games for the Mac has always been a weak spot. Now I see what they've been talking about...
The uncertainty principle originally made statements about what can be known about position and velocity. You cannot measure both position and velocity simultaneously above a certain degree of accuracy. The more accurate your measure of velocity, the less you know about position, and visa versa. Since most purists will hold this up as the true test of any theory wanting to refute the uncertainty principle, the theorists felt the need to suggest that this, theoretically could be invalidated, as well. Hence the mention of momentum.
The fly in the ointment seems to be this part of the theory:
...maximally entangling a particle with a quantum memory, meaning all states and all degrees of freedom in the particle would be tied to all of the quantum memory's states.
I'm not sure how many states and degrees of freedom would be required. The total is infinite for both, but perhaps these can be limited to ranges. Still the size of the quantum memory would be huge, I think. Also, there is the non-trivial trick of entangling the particle's states and degrees of freedom with the quantum memory states...
I don't think Heisenberg will be turning over in his grave very soon...
I have no idea what PhoneProtect is, but I assure you that it's not something I purchased.
So, let's look at this from a different perspective. I have a Samsung Mythic that failed while under warranty. AT&T told me to return my phone to their warranty department not Samsung's. AT&T replaced my phone the next day, not Samsung. The replacement came through AT&T's warranty department, not through Samsung's warranty department.
Now I'm pretty sure that AT&T returned my dead phone to Samsung under warranty, but all of this happened after my warranty was serviced by AT&T. Whatever warranty activity that took place after AT&T serviced me; it was a transaction that happened between AT&T and Samsung. I was out of the loop.
Since the Samsung OEM warranty clearly states that it cannot be transferred, and I was not in the warranty loop with Samsung... how do you suppose that all works?
I do understand. And I understand your misunderstanding. A service contact, in the context of Magnuson-Moss and in the context of how I mean it, means a warranty offered to you NOT by the equipment manufacturer but a third party. In this case, your warranty is from AT&T's warranty service provider NOT Apple (not even AT&T). It's exactly the same as if you bought an extended warranty. Exactly. You sign over your rights to your Apple (manufacturer's) warranty when you agree to the AT&T terms and conditions. This is a requirement of your "wireless plan" (notice I didn't say "service contract") with AT&T.
Assuming you buy your iPhone through AT&T... your warranty will not be provided through Apple, it's provided through AT&T's warranty service provider. In the terms of service agreement that you enter into with AT&T you give up your right to the manufacture's warranty. Here's the relevant clause copied directly from the standard AT&T terms and conditions:
We receive and a customer hereby assigns all rights and benefits of any manufacturer's warranty or other ancillary coverage relating to any Registered item.
So, in other words, your warranty is part of a service contract and exempted from Magnuson-Moss.
Maybe not for most phones, but it clearly does for Apple because there's no unlock code - the only way to jailbreak an iPhone is to re-flash the firmware, which essentially changes the product.
Further, the burden of proof for the limitations is on the manufacturer...
People keep making this claim, but I can't find this actually stated in the code. Maybe you could direct me to the applicable clause?
The warranty provided to you on your phone is part of a service contract. Magnuson-Moss explicitly exempts service contracts. So in other words, no it does not apply.
The problem is that it's almost impossible for the user to determine the root cause of the problem. Is the display not working because of a software issue or a hardware issue? If it's a harware issue, is it due to bad software that caused an early life wearout mechanism?
Apple and/or AT&T are not obligated to perform the service to diagnose this problem once an unauthorized software/os configuration is installed on the device. The reason that they are not obligated is because you agreed to this constraint with your service contract.
Being legal to jailbreak your phone is not the same thing as the provider being obligated to honor a contract you broke in the first place. Magnuson-Moss exempts service contracts.
you own it. you can mod it.
Most people don't actually own their phones. Sure, you may pay $199 for that new iPhone, but the cost of that phone is much higher. The reason you only have to pay $199 is because much of the cost is subsidized by your carrier subscription. Along with that subscription you agreed to certain contractural obligations. Once you jailbreak, you also break that contract.
So yes, you have the right to jailbreak, but don't expect the rights granted by your service contract to still apply... including warranty.
Well, I may get dinged for responding to someone branded as a troll, but here goes...
So, either you ARE a troll or you are uninformed or you are working with a peculiar definition of the word paucity.
I use Mac, PC, and linux on a daily basis, so I think my opinion is fairly objective. I agree that there is a lot more software for the PC, but there IS still a lot of 3rd party software for Mac. More importantly, by-and-large, the Mac stuff tends to be higher quality. Here is what I observe (just my personal experience, your milage may vary):
Consequently, when I tally it all up, my Mac has a lot more 3rd party software on it than my PC. Ironically, as I just perused my installed apps on my PC I noticed that quite a few are there to duplicate capabilities that are in-built on my Mac (perl, cygwin, vnc server, X-client, iTunes, Safari, QuickTime, WinZip, emacs editor, FreeCommander, a virtual desktop manager, etc.).
And what I wouldn't give for a Windows version of AppleScript, Automator, Taco HTML, or GeekTool...
Seriously, anyone who thinks that the Mac OS is somehow starving for good quality, 3rd party apps is simply out of touch.
BTW, back in 1984 when the Mac OS had MacPaint and MacWrite... Windows had what??? Oh yeah, there was no Windows yet. Windows Paint and Windows Write (super clever product names, BTW) didn't come out until almost 2 years later...
Apple's margins on their computers is the highest in the industry
This may be technically correct with respect to the hardware, but Apple subsidizes their OS and application development costs with some of that margin. When you buy a Mac, you get the hardware plus OSX, iTunes, Time Machine, Mail, iChat, Safari, Front Row, GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, etc....
Now you might be inclined to think that this is true of any PC you buy, but I think if you look at the software that's in the boxes and compare you will see that Apple provides much more commercial quality software than the typical PC you might buy. That software cost money to develop and a large portion of that money comes from hardware sales.
Not trying to beat you up - merely pointing out that you are comparing Apples and oranges... so-to-speak.
The only reason that people hate complex passwords is that they are hard to remember. However, rather than dumbing down your password, just invent a simple strategy. For instance, let's say you like poetry. Choose a poem that you like, for instance Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. Then choose your favorite line or stanza, for instance "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood". Now take the first character of each word and concatenate them: "Trdiayw". Now most password enforcers want some special characters including numbers, so you can add a few to get something like: "Trdiayw10-".
This is a reasonably complex password that is really easy to remember, but it's unlikely that this kind of password will show up in a dictionary. And because it's based on a key phrase, I find it really easy to type (I don't even have to think about it). Don't like poetry? Choose lines from your favorite books, or famous quotes, or lines from your favorite songs, etc..
Well, I was going to accuse you of misinterpreting Wikipedia... but decided not to jump to conclusions... Now...
OK, let's pretend that my point was what you originally thought - that I was trying to say that the iPhone antenna problem is a non problem. That wasn't my point, but let's pretend so that I can explain how my example fails the Wikipedia definition of anecdotal evidence.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you were not trying to apply the first definition. In other words, you were not concerned about the veracity of my account. If this assumption is false, then I have no defense. Likewise neither does Consumer Reports because you have no way of verifying that they actually conducted experiments and accurately reported their results.
Moving on to definition 2. You might be assuming that the conclusion does not follow from the evidence or that there was an insufficient amount of evidence. However, I said that these were engineers who were trying to make their calls drop. The sample size was 20 iPhones and 20 testers, which is significantly larger than the Consumer Reports experiments. Perhaps your issue is that you don't think this study is scientific, but in fact you don't have any knowledge of the experiments conducted and whether these experiments are valid. I'm guessing, BTW, that this statement is true of your knowledge of the Consumer Reports experiments. I understand that you intuitively trust the engineers at Consumer Reports, but I have already provided a link to a comment from an expert in the field that suggests that their experiments are, in fact, not really worthy of your trust. Nevertheless, none of this meets the Wikipedia definition of "anecdotal evidence".
I'm guessing that your real problem is that you trust measurements of field strength over the not very scientific sounding evidence of users NOT dropping calls. This does not make my example anecdotal, but I can empathize with your concerns. However, I must point out that, as a user, you have no real perception of field strength and no intuitive understanding of how field strength relates to call quality. You do, however, have a fairly intuitive perception of call quality in the event of a dropped call. So I suggest that the "study" I related is actually more representative of the average user's perception of call quality... which is all that really matters.
BTW, you are probably still not in agreement with the above statements, but as an electrical engineer I can tell you that the parameters that Consumer Reports measured do not tell the whole story. It's as if (to use a car analogy) they looked at the wind resistance profile of a car and made claims about it's overall gas milage.
- - - -
With respect to the Ars Technica link, I'm not sure what your point of sharing it was??? I hope you are not using this guy's "hunch" (his word, not mine) as evidence to support your case.
Also, I think he's asking the wrong question. To the layman, not familiar with the idiosyncrasies of RF, it seems natural to expect a black or white answer. However, there are an infinite number of possible test cases and the best anyone can do with an RF design is try a bunch of scenarios and optimize the trade-offs. The question he should want to ask is this: Did Apple evaluate both insulated and non insulated solutions and choose the non insulated solution because it provides the best overall performance?
Apple cannot answer this question. If they say "no" then they look stupid for overlooking the obvious. If they say "yes" then they will look disingenuous because everyone has already made up their mind about the facts and they will assume that Apple is lying. No win.
Also, there has been suggestions that Apple knew about this issue and did nothing about it because they favored style over function. This is a ridiculous claim. I can think of half a dozen inexpensive manufacturing solutions that would be as effective as a bumper but not noticeably change the look of the device. So, I can only assume that either Apple was clueless (I find this hard to believe) or Apple chose the most optimal overall engineering solution that (unfortunately) turned into a public relations nightmare.
Well, if your theory is right, I know how Apple can make a killing on the 5th generation iPhone. One solid, slick, black slab of oleophobic glass. All the fanbois will buy them and swear that it's lots better than their old iPhone 4s...
Well, since you were clearly confused about the conclusion I was drawing, perhaps you are incorrect about whether my "evidence" was anecdotal. And technically, you're still wrong with your definition of anecdotal, but I won't quibble about that.
My point was that most users are likely to perceive better performance from iPhone 4 than older iPhones and possibly other phones in general.
You don't like my evidence, so maybe you'll believe the folks over at AnandTech.
True, their conclusion was that the iPhone's reception would be better (under certain conditions) if the antennae were insulated, but they still found the phone's overall reception exceptional compared to iPhone 3GS. Oh and they confirmed what I said about all smartphones having these sorts of problems.
I searched high and low, but could not find any of these other studies you mention... Oh I found a bunch of here-say and anecdotal studies, but these you've already deemed unacceptable.
Also, maybe you shouldn't place too much faith in the Consumer Reports study - it's quite possible that their study was flawed.
Dude. Chill.
I never said that there was no problem. I said that all phones seem to have a problem. I have not seen any evidence that the iPhone 4 problems are any worse... and yes, I did read the Consumer Reports article that said that they tested several other phones... what they failed to mention is how thorough they were at testing all the various configurations of user interaction and carrier strength...
Being an electrical engineer with considerable experience in the field, I know how impossible such tests are, so yes - I tend to discount it when Consumer Reports tries to make it sound like this is some exclusively iPhone 4 problem.
BTW, please look up the definition of anecdotal. You seem to be confused. What I described is more than an anecdote. What I described was a number of engineers (all electrical engineers, BTW) who conducted various user mode experiments to try and replicate the problem. That is hardly anecdotal.