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From: Jeff Liebermann on 9 Aug 2010 23:55
On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:00:16 -0400, ZnU <znu(a)fake.invalid> wrote:

<http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/13/yes-the-iphone-4-is-broken-no-the-iphone-4-is-not-broken/>

>The issue was real-world performance; the Engadget reports are more
>relevant.

Please excuse my amusement. It's usually someone complaining that
something doesn't work, where my test data shows that everything is
just fine. This is literally the first time it's been the other way
around. My test data shows it's broken, but nobody seems to be
complaining. Am I living in a mirror universe?

Also amusing, there may be another explanation why there are few
problem reports:
<http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/12/apple-deleting-mentions-of-consumer-reports-iphone-4-piece-on-f/>
I posted a rant on the topic on the iPhone 4 support forum:
<http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11978502>
and received a small number of useless remarks. As near as I can
tell, nobody cared and/or nobody understood. Oh well.

I have this problem. I like numbers, which is my "real world". As
your preference for anecdotal evidence suggests, you may have some
aversion to numbers. That's fine as customer satisfaction is
difficult to quantify numerically. I just find it odd that your
apparent definition of the "real world" is a world without numbers and
dominated by anecdotes.

I don't blame those commenting on the iPhone 4 for not supplying
numbers. AT&T or Apple removed the field test mode application from
the iPhone 4, so that's not possible. Still, one person found a way
to attach numbers to his testing. If you scroll to the bottom of the
Engadget article, you'll find the sole evidence of numbers as:

To test the severity of the 'death grip' issue we ran Speedtest.net
while in our office while holding the device in our left hand and
with the iPhone 4 sitting on a desk. With the death grip we
averaged 225.9 Kbps downloads and 17.1 Kbps uploads over 10 tests.
And just sitting on a desk we averaged 634.9 Kbps down and 49 Kbps
down(sic). Not good.

Since this is a republic, where every vote counts equally, we can
count the overwhelming number of favorable reports in the Engadget
article as outvoting this sole comment that included measurements. As
with government, the majority is sometimes wrong. The Engadget
article is several weeks old, somewhat before the press conference.
(Notice how I left out the dates and number of weeks in deference to
your apparent distaste for numbers).

I was able to play with an iPhone 4 today. I was in a restaurant
located about 200 meters from a local AT&T telco frame and cell site.
I could see the antennas through the window. I got 5 bars no matter
how I held the phone. I tried to bridge the infamous gap and
completely cover the phone with both hands, and still got 5 bars.
That's what you'll see in a strong signal area and that's what I
suspect a large number of the "nothing wrong" reports are seeing.



--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl(a)cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
From: ZnU on 10 Aug 2010 00:01
In article <4lpu56pr1ka0lutosjn9rnmlpiqmgaasq0(a)4ax.com>,
Jeff Liebermann <jeffl(a)cruzio.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:06:15 -0700, John Navas
> <spamfilter1(a)navasgroup.com> wrote:

[snip]

> What has changed since I was playing designer is the elimination of
> the prototype cycle. The devices are just too small and complexicated
> to assemble a prototype by hand. The designers therefore rely on CAD
> tools and simulations to design their devices on the computer, and
> then go directly to a small production run. That also shakes out some
> of the manufacturing bugs at the same. My guess(tm) is without these
> tools, the 2 year iPhone cycle would have been more like 2.5 years. If
> the design cycle is only 2 weeks long, what are they doing for the
> rest of the time. Optimization, cost cutting, bug fixing, meetings,
> production jigs and fixtures, documentation, FCC type certification,
> various safety approvals, packaging, distribution, warehousing, etc.

Apple is rather more obsessive than most companies. I seriously doubt
they banged out a design in two weeks and stuck with it. More likely,
they went through a bunch of revisions, with Jobs, Ive or other
influential decision-makers rejecting quite a few (and engineers
scrambling to deal with changes in form factor and materials) before
they settled on something.

Apple has the highest profits of any company in the cellular industry
and and releases exactly one phone a year; they can afford to invest a
bit more in polishing things.

[snip]

--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
From: ZnU on 10 Aug 2010 00:16
In article <f5f066h0hi0a2jtp5gkt6crh525ifjjvh8(a)4ax.com>,
Jeff Liebermann <jeffl(a)cruzio.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 09:55:18 -0700, John Navas
> <spamfilter1(a)navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
> >>While a Verizon iPhone can't be _sold_ prior to the expiration of
> >>the end of exclusivity (which is widely believed to be in 2011), it
> >>could certainly be advertised (which is pointed out in that
> >>article).
> >
> >Probably not without agreement by AT&T, which would seem unlikely.
>
> The FCC does not allow RF devices to "be offered for sale" prior to
> type certification. However, it does allow the usual press releases,
> product announcements, data sheets, and trade show exhibits. It's
> just that the phone can't sold via any of these.
>
> No clue on the AT&T agreement.
>
> I'm not so sure that AT&T really wants to keep the current contract.
> That's because they're apparently paying Apple full retail $600 price
> for the phones, while selling them to customers for about $200. The
> current guess by iSuppli is $178 to produce a 3GS. A two year
> contract term, with mandatory options (i.e. data plan), will make up
> the difference, but I'm sure they're not thrilled.

The unsubsidized price for the iPhone 4 is not unusually high for a
high-end smartphone, so I don't see how AT&T could expect a much better
deal from someone else.

The iSuppli numbers are solely for components; they don't reflect the
real cost to Apple. I'd guess Apple runs something like its usual
25-30% margins, putting the real cost of an iPhone, before profits, at
something like $420-450. Odds are nobody is going to be willing to go
much below $500 with costs like that.

> If I were Apple, I would offer AT&T a continued exclusive at an even
> higher price for the iPhone 4, or a major price break if Apple were
> allowed to sell it to the other vendors. Either way, Apple wins, and
> AT&T just sits there.

My guess is Apple wanted to have a Verizon version of the iPhone 4 at
launch, but offered AT&T exclusivity until January in exchange for
low-cost iPad data plans.

I suspect Apple is done making any deals that would allow exclusivity to
continue longer. They couldn't possibly get enough money out of AT&T to
offset both the lost sales and the long-term consequences of allowing
their competitors to gain considerable market share solely because their
devices are on more carriers. Plus, Apple appears to have been following
a very deliberate strategy of moving away from exclusive deals in
various markets -- I think the US and Germany are the only markets left
where the iPhone is only one one carrier.

--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
From: ZnU on 10 Aug 2010 00:24
In article <090820100943451581%nospam(a)nospam.invalid>,
nospam <nospam(a)nospam.invalid> wrote:

> In article <4c602cf3$0$22173$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net>, SMS
> <scharf.steven(a)geemail.com> wrote:
>
> > > bullshit. the earliest date is *not* known. nobody outside of
> > > apple and at&t knows when the exclusive ends or when a
> > > verizon/sprint/t-mobile iphone will appear.
> >
> > While a Verizon iPhone can't be _sold_ prior to the expiration of
> > the end of exclusivity (which is widely believed to be in 2011), it
> > could certainly be advertised (which is pointed out in that
> > article).
>
> what is widely believed is not necessarily what it is. as i said,
> nobody outside of apple and at&t know exactly what the deal is and
> depending on what you read, the exclusive is anywhere from 2-5 years.
> it could also have been renegotiated during that time (there's at
> least one rumour of that).
>
> at some point it will end (at&t has said as much) but nobody knows
> when that will be. however, the rumours are definitely heating up, so
> something's afoot.
>
> > The meteoric rise in sales of Android phones on other carriers is
> > no doubt of great concern to Apple, and they will not wait any
> > longer than absolutely necessary to launch iPhones on other
> > carriers (especially Verizon since and AT&T/Verizon Duopoly is
> > emerging in wireless as most growth in sales is on AT&T and
> > Verizon).
>
> i'm sure apple will be happy to include sprint and t-mobile users
> too, as well as sprint and t-mobile will be happy to carry it.
> there's little point in doing verizon and not doing sprint (same
> radio).

The issue there is that that Sprint is going with WiMax for 4G while
everyone else is going with LTE. It would probably annoy people if Apple
supported Sprint now but stopped in a year or two.

> > Will Verizon's data network crumble under the crush of iPhone data
> > like AT&T's did?
>
> it's handling android just fine, and by some reports, android users
> use *more* data than iphone users.
>
> what will be very interesting is how many at&t customers switch away
> from at&t once the iphone goes multi-carrier.

I probably will. I'm passing on an iPhone 4 upgrade specifically to
avoid having to extend my contract.

I think AT&T's statement that they don't expect much of a hit from this
is exceedingly optimistic. I admit my social circle is probably not
exactly representative, but literally more than half the people I know
1) have iPhones, 2) switched to AT&T specifically to get iPhones, and 3)
love their iPhones but aren't especially happy with AT&T.

--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
From: ZnU on 10 Aug 2010 00:41
In article <itg1661nn11cl9jg5r66hjnm915f6tm6hd(a)4ax.com>,
Jeff Liebermann <jeffl(a)cruzio.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:00:16 -0400, ZnU <znu(a)fake.invalid> wrote:
>
> <http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/13/yes-the-iphone-4-is-broken-no-the-iphone-4
> -is-not-broken/>
>
> >The issue was real-world performance; the Engadget reports are more
> >relevant.
>
> Please excuse my amusement. It's usually someone complaining that
> something doesn't work, where my test data shows that everything is
> just fine. This is literally the first time it's been the other way
> around. My test data shows it's broken, but nobody seems to be
> complaining. Am I living in a mirror universe?

My guess would be that your testing procedures are not fully
representative of real-world use in this instance and/or real-world
cellular performance is influenced by so many factors that whatever
difference you're measuring gets lost in the noise. See below.

> Also amusing, there may be another explanation why there are few
> problem reports:
> <http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/12/apple-deleting-mentions-of-consumer-report
> s-iphone-4-piece-on-f/>
> I posted a rant on the topic on the iPhone 4 support forum:
> <http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11978502>
> and received a small number of useless remarks. As near as I can
> tell, nobody cared and/or nobody understood. Oh well.

Apple has been doing this in its support forums forever. I'm not sure
why people think it's news every time it happens with respect to some
new subject.

> I have this problem. I like numbers, which is my "real world". As
> your preference for anecdotal evidence suggests, you may have some
> aversion to numbers. That's fine as customer satisfaction is
> difficult to quantify numerically. I just find it odd that your
> apparent definition of the "real world" is a world without numbers and
> dominated by anecdotes.
>
> I don't blame those commenting on the iPhone 4 for not supplying
> numbers. AT&T or Apple removed the field test mode application from
> the iPhone 4, so that's not possible. Still, one person found a way
> to attach numbers to his testing. If you scroll to the bottom of the
> Engadget article, you'll find the sole evidence of numbers as:
>
> To test the severity of the 'death grip' issue we ran Speedtest.net
> while in our office while holding the device in our left hand and
> with the iPhone 4 sitting on a desk. With the death grip we
> averaged 225.9 Kbps downloads and 17.1 Kbps uploads over 10 tests.
> And just sitting on a desk we averaged 634.9 Kbps down and 49 Kbps
> down(sic). Not good.

OK. Now:

1) How often are people really using the "death grip"?
2) How much worse is this than other phones?
3) What fraction of people use cases/bumpers and would have regardless
of whether this issue existed or not?
4) Does signal strength have to be within a specific range to produce
the issue? If so, what fraction of call activity takes place in
locations with those conditions?
5) Are there different conditions under which the iPhone 4's antenna
design performs _better_ than other designs?

You can't get from measured signal strength (or measured bandwidth) to
real-world performance without knowing the answers to these questions.
Which as far as I know, nobody does.

[snip]

--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
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