iPhone 4 Loses Reception When You Hold It By The Antenna Band?

[diogen]

Hilarious!
There is an error in calculating how many bars are shown!
Apple: iPhone 4 reception problem is a software issue, fix coming in 'a few weeks' -- Engadget

To use an analogy: if you are hungry, just get in front of you a picture of a nice meal and everything will be honky-dory again! Magic, you know...

"Think Different!" it is...

Diogen.

 

[stimpson]

That is pretty funny.

 

[Hall]

When I first read about this about a week ago, I tested with my HTC Eris. Not to defend Apple, but how I hold the phone can cause the dBm level to fluctuate by 20+ dBm. I've never dropped a call (that I know of) because of this, of course...

 

[diogen]

Same here.
How you hold it does affect the signal strength regardless of brand/model of the phone.
That is science, as opposed to magic.

I recall the fanboy-line from the moment the first iPhone went on sale: My iPhone always shows at least 4 bars where other sometimes half as many!
Now we know what type of BS it's based on.

I'd really interested how many believe in this "magic' explanation

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong

Diogen.

 

[mike123abc]

An interesting side effect of this will probably be that people will blame AT&T more than Apple. Essentially Apple has been covering up poor AT&T coverage by showing more signal than there is. Call dropping, but I have full strength will be replaced by, I never can get a good signal...

 

[stonecold]

No the iphone 4 just has poor antenna design.

AT&T over all not the greatest on tower upgrades and coverage but where I live they have dont alot of upgrades over the past 5 years. We use att at work ( not my dtv job ) anyway managment employees get to pick out there cells as we dont like to force people into a a single phone platform. There are alot of iphones including my collection of iphones. In my office signal from everyones phone runs about -53 to about -61 DB depending on the phone. Which is considered full bars by every phone maker.

In my impromptu test

we tried to make a call while hold ing the phones in a couple of different comfortable ways

Blackberry 8520 no issue signal did not change much less then -5db different from on the desk to in my hand

Similar experience with an HTC Aria that a underling got just the other day... my iphone 3gs had a s same -5db drop when my hand but also had lower signal then the others.

Until I put the sim in to my new iphone 4. on the desk the idle signal reading was about the same -78DB but as soon as I grabed ait like i hold all the other phone thumb on one side three fingers on the other the phone the signal droped out completely.


Apple screwed up and software is not going to fix that.

 

[TheForce]

stonecold- you are right on that! But this issue is not limited to the iphone4. I also tested my TP2 and I can kill the signal bars too by touching around the top of the phone where the antenna inside it located. The iphone4 mistakenly put the new antenna around the perimeter and this makes it's location more vulnerable.
As antennas go, it's the capacitance of a persons hand that detunes the antenna circuit. I'm afraid, the iphone4 will be short lived and need a quick redesign to locate that antenna back inside or supply a rubber case with each phone to isolate the hand from the antenna. This shouldn't be an issue as most iphone users I know use some sort of case anyway. My daughter does and so do the rest of the family that have them.

The software redesign is a separate issue. Leo LaPorte read a notice he received from Apple describing what Apple was planning to do, among other things they said they planned to make the height of the bars taller to compensate for having to reduce the number of bars displayed when they correct the error in the software. I just busted out laughing when he said that. I wonder, Has Steve Jobs fired all his engineers and replaced them with just marketing people? It sure sounds like it. His marketing people should have named the iphone4 "The Lisa2"

 

[navychop]

Dating yourself again. . I'll bet not many of us remember the Lisa. And fewer will remember the 3" floppy from Zenith.

 

[mike123abc]

Well I stopped by an Apple store today, and got their bumper. I figured it would not hurt.

 

[tomcrown1]

Well I stopped by an Apple store today, and got their bumper. I figured it would not hurt.

Did you have to pay for the bumper? Apple should be giving these away for free since it seems that they knew about the problem all the time and hope to make some handsome profit from the bumper.

 

[diogen]

Something resembling a scientific explanation without reality distortion fields and other Apple magic sh!t
Apple’s Clean Hands May Have Dirtied iPhone 4 Signal | Epicenter*| Wired.com

This problem will be difficult to reproduce in Apple’s labs because the engineers are required to wash their hands before touching devices, which also strips off the natural hand electrolytes that are ever-present in the field on a hot day.
..............
Apple needs to hire some chemists.

Diogen.

 

[meStevo]

Haven't read the article, but enough people should have had test units (that didn't leave them in bars) to notice this you'd think... not just clean handed engineers.

 

[mike123abc]

Haven't read the article, but enough people should have had test units (that didn't leave them in bars) to notice this you'd think... not just clean handed engineers.

The one in the bar was in a special case that made it look like an iPhone 3Gs. Other in the field may have also been in the special cases.

 

[TheForce]

Well I stopped by an Apple store today, and got their bumper. I figured it would not hurt.

Smart man! People who buy these iphone4's need to understand they come with a need to carry extra baggage. I recall Scott showing me his battery case because he didn't want to be caught mid day with a dead battery. Now we need to buy the antenna isolation case, called the Apple Bumper.

I think Apple needs to give RF engineers more say in the design of their phones and return to the pull out antenna we had years ago. Antennas need to be in the clear and this will give us much better signal coverage.

 

[digiblur]

I think Apple needs to give RF engineers more say in the design of their phones and return to the pull out antenna we had years ago. Antennas need to be in the clear and this will give us much better signal coverage.

I miss those! Too bad someone started it then the fad caught on. There's those times you need that extra signal to pull you out the weeds and a nice pull out antenna could do the job. They could easily hide those in any smartphone. But of course we won't see them since they will be frowned upon.

 

[diogen]

http://gizmodo.com/5581253/there-fixed



Diogen.

 

[TheForce]

I miss those! Too bad someone started it then the fad caught on. There's those times you need that extra signal to pull you out the weeds and a nice pull out antenna could do the job. They could easily hide those in any smartphone. But of course we won't see them since they will be frowned upon.

Because at Apple, artistic design and marketing trumps engineering. All it would take is to widen the phone about .2 inches and the room for an antenna holster tube would be available. That extra width would infuriate the art designers at Apple.
There are rumors that at Apple, if an engineer disagrees with any art designer, he is shut up.
Having said that I do believe that regardless of motivation, the design of the outside antenna wrap was short sighted and poorly thought out from an RF perspective, especially for a device that must be held. Likely it is superior as long as you don't touch it. LOL!

 

[mike123abc]

The antenna design is fine, if they coated it with a transparent layer that insulated it from sweaty palms. There really is not a reason they could have had both artistic and engineering designs satisfied.

 

[TheForce]

mike- you are making one of the classic mistakes in your view of an antenna. They work in RF not DC nor low frequency AC. A thin insulator will be all that is required for DC. RF has a property that other types of electricity does not. "Skin effect" While a thin layer of insulating coating will certainly improve the detuning of the antenna, the greater the thickness of that layer the better. Skin effect is a property that allows a field of electric current to radiate in the air around the antenna conductor even when coated with an insulating dielectric material. Even being close to the conductor will be a problem affecting it's performance and the resonance of the antenna circuit.
For these devices the best design would be for the phone body to be metal and be a ground plane that you could touch with little effect but the antenna should be in the clear as far away from your body as possible. The little gozmodo image above satisfies that design but fails in the convenience and appearance. That is why a retractable antenna may be the best compromise.

 

[diogen]

There is an error in calculating how many bars are shown!

The OS update 4.1 is out.
It fixes the signal strength bar issue!
Now, if the cell signal is sh!tty the iPhone will say just that!
No attempts to convince you get something for nothing. Must be a first!

But reportedly it doesn't fix the reception issue
Initial Reports: Software Update Doesn't Fix iPhone 4 Antenna Problem, As Expected
So, physics still trumps magic! Who would have thought...

Diogen.

EDIT: As a compensation for fewer bars, the bars a bigger!
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/14/ios-4-1-seeded-to-developers/