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From: John Navas on 4 Jul 2010 14:32
By Joel Evans "The Mobile Gadgeteer� | July 4, 2010, 10:41am PDT

A couple of days ago Apple sent an open letter to iPhone 4 owners. The
letter was in response to earlier reports of iPhone users having
reception issues when holding the iPhone 4 the wrong way.

If you�re not familiar with the reception issues, Sam Diaz does a great
job recapping the whole timeline. The crazy part about the latest round,
though, is that instead of Apple admitting to a hardware flaw, the
company is now saying that it has been misreporting signal strength
since the original iPhone.

So, what does all of this really mean? For starters, I can�t help but
think that Apple was just caught doing something slimy. I remember when
I was using the first generation iPhone and had reception issues in
areas where my other phones were working great. At the time, Apple was
blaming AT&T but my other AT&T phones were performing perfectly in that
same area where I was dropping calls. Then Apple issued an update which
fixed the reception issues, or so it claimed. It seemed that I had more
bars �in more places�, but that I still didn�t have the solid coverage I
should have been experiencing, given all of the bars I was seeing.

Now we�ll see an update to the iPhone (all generations) that will
properly report the signal strength. The reason for the misreporting all
of these years is apparently a bad formula used to calculate how many
bars of signal strength to display. So, one software fix and we�ll all
see the proper representation of bars. The scary part of all of this,
though, is that now instead of people reporting that they saw their bars
drop from 5 to 0 when holding their iPhone 4, we�ll be hearing how the
phone hardly gets any bars at all.

I think the end result will be Apple and AT&T both being at fault. Apple
with a design flaw, though they�ll never admit it, and AT&T with
coverage issues. So, we�ll be back to the world blaming AT&T�s network,
and the focus will move off of Apple once again.

I still can�t help but think that Apple pushed out an update long ago,
for the original iPhone, that the company knew was misreporting the
signal strength. Now that everyone is complaining, they figure they�ll
adjust it to report the true representation of the signal strength, and
then deal with the aftermath.

In the end the iPhone customer loses. The iPhone 4 will have to be held
a certain way, and now iPhone users around the world will suddenly see
just how poor their cellular signal really is.

MORE:
<http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-gadgeteer/is-apple-covering-up-the-real-problem-with-its-iphone/3546>
From: who where on 4 Jul 2010 23:12
On Sun, 04 Jul 2010 11:32:40 -0700, John Navas
<spamfilter1(a)navasgroup.com> wrote:

>By Joel Evans "The Mobile Gadgeteer� | July 4, 2010, 10:41am PDT
>
>A couple of days ago Apple sent an open letter to iPhone 4 owners. The
>letter was in response to earlier reports of iPhone users having
>reception issues when holding the iPhone 4 the wrong way.
>
>If you�re not familiar with the reception issues, Sam Diaz does a great
>job recapping the whole timeline. The crazy part about the latest round,
>though, is that instead of Apple admitting to a hardware flaw, the
>company is now saying that it has been misreporting signal strength
>since the original iPhone.
>
>So, what does all of this really mean? For starters, I can�t help but
>think that Apple was just caught doing something slimy. I remember when
>I was using the first generation iPhone and had reception issues in
>areas where my other phones were working great. At the time, Apple was
>blaming AT&T but my other AT&T phones were performing perfectly in that
>same area where I was dropping calls. Then Apple issued an update which
>fixed the reception issues, or so it claimed. It seemed that I had more
>bars �in more places�, but that I still didn�t have the solid coverage I
>should have been experiencing, given all of the bars I was seeing.
>
>Now we�ll see an update to the iPhone (all generations) that will
>properly report the signal strength. The reason for the misreporting all
>of these years is apparently a bad formula used to calculate how many
>bars of signal strength to display. So, one software fix and we�ll all
>see the proper representation of bars. The scary part of all of this,
>though, is that now instead of people reporting that they saw their bars
>drop from 5 to 0 when holding their iPhone 4, we�ll be hearing how the
>phone hardly gets any bars at all.
>
>I think the end result will be Apple and AT&T both being at fault. Apple
>with a design flaw, though they�ll never admit it, and AT&T with
>coverage issues. So, we�ll be back to the world blaming AT&T�s network,
>and the focus will move off of Apple once again.
>
>I still can�t help but think that Apple pushed out an update long ago,
>for the original iPhone, that the company knew was misreporting the
>signal strength. Now that everyone is complaining, they figure they�ll
>adjust it to report the true representation of the signal strength, and
>then deal with the aftermath.
>
>In the end the iPhone customer loses. The iPhone 4 will have to be held
>a certain way, and now iPhone users around the world will suddenly see
>just how poor their cellular signal really is.
>
>MORE:
><http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-gadgeteer/is-apple-covering-up-the-real-problem-with-its-iphone/3546>

Changing the formula may change the number of bars displayed, but ...
it doesn't explain in any way why holding it kills the signal. It's
an antenna problem sure and simple, and denial will only dig them a
deeper hole.
From: nospam on 4 Jul 2010 23:19
In article <dbj2369c7cvfd27s8ihsuaevom9sn5smbn(a)4ax.com>, who where
<noone(a)home.net> wrote:

> Changing the formula may change the number of bars displayed, but ...
> it doesn't explain in any way why holding it kills the signal. It's
> an antenna problem sure and simple, and denial will only dig them a
> deeper hole.

that doesn't explain why some users find it works better than with
other phones.
From: poldy on 4 Jul 2010 23:48
In article <dbj2369c7cvfd27s8ihsuaevom9sn5smbn(a)4ax.com>,
who where <noone(a)home.net> wrote:

> Changing the formula may change the number of bars displayed, but ...
> it doesn't explain in any way why holding it kills the signal. It's
> an antenna problem sure and simple, and denial will only dig them a
> deeper hole.

"1) The iPhone 4 is not nearly as hypersensitive to "hand" effects as I
was being led to believe from the media buzz.

2) The iPhone 4 seems to be as sensitive to hand effects as the
Primordial iPhone."


http://www.antennasys.com/antennasys-blog/
From: DevilsPGD on 5 Jul 2010 01:29
In message <dbj2369c7cvfd27s8ihsuaevom9sn5smbn(a)4ax.com> who where
<noone(a)home.net> was claimed to have wrote:

>Changing the formula may change the number of bars displayed, but ...
>it doesn't explain in any way why holding it kills the signal.

Sure it does. You can drop the signal slightly on most phones if you
find and cover the antenna. The drop is usually fairly insignificant
unless you're in an area with already extremely limited signal strength.
In Apple's case, from this explanation, it sounds like people who are
reporting a 3-4 bar drop are only seeing a drop of a few dB, but it's
enough to push the signal strength meter from displaying a highly
overrated signal in the first place.

Put another way, the steps to reproduce this problem usually start with
finding another phone that has an accurate signal indicator and moving
to an area of low signal.

>It's an antenna problem sure and simple, and denial will only
>dig them a deeper hole.

It absolutely sounds like an engineering problem, but the effect of the
problem is being skewed by the poor accuracy in the signal strength
indicator.

Compare this to Vista's file copy issue, users screamed and yelled about
how slow Vista was at copying files when it was actually faster than XP
in most cases, the underlying problem was that Vista didn't look like it
started copying until several seconds in, and because Vista held the
user at 99%. Reflowing the status indicators to flow more smoothly
solved the complaints. Perception is everything (and nowhere is this
more true than Apple)

Does covering the antennas cause a signal drop? It appears the answer
is "Absolutely, yes", and that's something that shouldn't have gotten
out of the RF engineering lab.

However, given the fact that the iPhone 4 appears to have better
sensitivity (and an all around better radio) than previous versions,
users might be willing to accept a 1 bar drop when holding it certain
ways, given that regardless of how they held a 3GS it would drop off
sooner.

Since using a bumper helps, this is almost definitely a solvable problem
(again, engineering should have caught this), either by covering the
antennas with something, relocating them to a better location on the
phone, or adding a second antenna and allowing the radio to use either
depending on which has a better signal since it's unlikely most users
could accidentally cover both the bottom corner of the phone and
somewhere along the top in a natural (comfortable) grip.

Is there a problem? Absolutely. But is it the show stopper that some
media outlets might have you believe? I'm betting not.

All of the above having been said, I was already planning on waiting
until the official iPhone 4 release on my mobile provider before buying,
and at this point I'm holding off until this issue is resolved before
even considering ordering one.
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