Well, that would be a weight of Apple, if all they have to do do is replace the SIM tray to fix the problem (all 1.7 million of them).
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One Possible iPhone 4 Antenna Fix With Mixed Results
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Good to know there's a fix with inconsistent, mixed results.
No placebo effect going on here at all.......
What do you mean?
They guy said that this solution had no objective measurement. Neither does the reported problem. You want to contend that there has been some kind of scientifically valid and objective study to prove this is an issue, yet there isn't.
Most of it is just people waving their phones around saying look at the bars drop. Oh my I can't make a call.
What is objective about that?
I am not going to stop speaking the truth. This has as much chance as being the legitimate issue as anything else brought up so far.
Since I don't think most people even know what the "problem" is how to actually recreate it, and are likely just suffering from poor signal in general, I would dismiss a lot of those who say this does nothing for them at this point.
Right now it is more spot on to see if several or more people can see the problem go away by modifying/reseating their sim card.
The fact that some people say it does nothing for them is not really relevant at this point, as we have no way to know if they were having a problem to begin with...
Signal loss and AIRPLANE MODE...
For what it's worth, I wanted to relay this story...
I have not experienced the signal loss problem many others have, but a few days after taking delivery of my phone indeed I did. It really seems to be location specific, as I cannot replicate the issue in Midtown Manhattan of all places, yet I can 50% of the time at home in Queens.
Now, just for yucks,, while "death gripping" the phone and watching my bars slowly tick away into oblivion, I switched Airplane Mode on and then off again, just enough to kill the cell signal and have it reacquired immediately. Wouldn't you know it, they came back full 5, and there was no looking back!
I read something about the new iOS in the iPhone using a different method of which frequency band it chooses and which tower it locks on to, looking for the least traffic as opposed to the strongest signal. Have you ever had full bars and lousy reception and/or dropped calls? This new feature is supposed to alleviate that phenomenon.
This may or may not work for anyone else, and may not be a long term fix, but if anyone here can try it and report your own findings it might be beneficial. The one thing that I take from my experiment is that perhaps it is indeed a software issue after all and not the world's biggest hardware design blunder in the history of electronics, by the world's most savvy tech corporation that ever was...
...or maybe the chorus of Internet nerds is smarter.
For what it's worth, I wanted to relay this story...
I have not experienced the signal loss problem many others have, but a few days after taking delivery of my phone indeed I did. It really seems to be location specific, as I cannot replicate the issue in Midtown Manhattan of all places, yet I can 50% of the time at home in Queens.
Now, just for yucks,, while "death gripping" the phone and watching my bars slowly tick away into oblivion, I switched Airplane Mode on and then off again, just enough to kill the cell signal and have it reacquired immediately. Wouldn't you know it, they came back full 5, and there was no looking back!
I read something about the new iOS in the iPhone using a different method of which frequency band it chooses and which tower it locks on to, looking for the least traffic as opposed to the strongest signal. Have you ever had full bars and lousy reception and/or dropped calls? This new feature is supposed to alleviate that phenomenon.
This may or may not work for anyone else, and may not be a long term fix, but if anyone here can try it and report your own findings it might be beneficial. The one thing that I take from my experiment is that perhaps it is indeed a software issue after all and not the world's biggest hardware design blunder in the history of electronics, by the world's most savvy tech corporation that ever was...
...or maybe the chorus of Internet nerds is smarter.
I am seeing improvement in signal after this but not when holding the phone just by itself. Used to be I would get the signal degrading problem even when holding the phone in a case. Now it is holding better signal when I have it in the case.
I tried with some tape and it didn't work so what I did was take the actual simcard out of the tray and slightly bent the simcard a little so it layed in the tray bowing in an upward fashion.
I tried with some tape and it didn't work so what I did was take the actual simcard out of the tray and slightly bent the simcard a little so it layed in the tray bowing in an upward fashion.
Signals can normally fluctuate somewhat randomly. How often do people notice this?
Finding meaning in random noise is exactly why some people believe in voodoo.
Finding meaning in random noise is exactly why some people believe in voodoo.
We have two iPhone 4's. A 16GB, and a 32GB. My wifes 16GB has it a lot worse than me.
I tried it with my wife's. Did not work.
Mine went away after I had the "No SIM card installed" error message. I isolated it to actually be the SIM card by swapping my wife's and mine around. Called Apple, they sent me to AT&T. Swapped it out, now I don't have any signal issues.
The AT&T rep said these SIM cards are brand new, made basically for this phone, maybe there were manufacturing defects in the SIM cards. The rep said the phone won't make them go bad, they will just kaput by themselves.
I have faith in Apple, and I am reserving judgement until they either, find the problem and fix it, or release an official statement.
I tried it with my wife's. Did not work.
Mine went away after I had the "No SIM card installed" error message. I isolated it to actually be the SIM card by swapping my wife's and mine around. Called Apple, they sent me to AT&T. Swapped it out, now I don't have any signal issues.
The AT&T rep said these SIM cards are brand new, made basically for this phone, maybe there were manufacturing defects in the SIM cards. The rep said the phone won't make them go bad, they will just kaput by themselves.
I have faith in Apple, and I am reserving judgement until they either, find the problem and fix it, or release an official statement.
I just covered the very edge of the sim card with regular transparent tape ( thinner than black electrical tape and since low voltage) and it seems to work perfect!! FULL bars. Previously I lost 3 bars in the same location. So far so perfect. It figures that once again the AT&T part of the phone has caused the problem. If Apple makes it it works. If AT&T does well.... This would also explain why not everyone is having a problem. My guess is that those sim cards were cut correctly and don't make contact with the tray.
Ok a half hour later and it not does not work. I'll try it longer but this is looking more like a hoax. Maybe something to do with the phone searching for a signal after re installing the sim???
Ok a half hour later and it not does not work. I'll try it longer but this is looking more like a hoax. Maybe something to do with the phone searching for a signal after re installing the sim???
Powder Coat
I had the metal bits of my iPhone 4 powder coated (with clear). Worked like a charm.
I had the metal bits of my iPhone 4 powder coated (with clear). Worked like a charm.
wow. long time lurker here and this is my first first. Not ten minutes ago, i pulled out my card to check after reading this post. i didn't notice any contact issues, but i did notice smudges. gave the card a quick wipe with a microfiber and voila! reception issue-free
There is nothing random about a detuning effect. Using a microcell so that one can tell when the phone switches cells, the touch of death is absolutely reproducible even three feet from the cell. I have done so repeatedly on three different i4s. Touch the left side, and bars drop within seconds, all the way down to 0, and then the phone switches to a different cell. On average the entire process takes 25 seconds. Standard deviation is 3 seconds. I have compared the effect to the attenuation effect, and found, unsurprisingly, that it is different (mere loss of bars). The effect cannot be reproduced on my two iPhone 3gs's or my 3G, again not surprising since a dielectric protects the antenna from detuning by touch. The effect also seems to occur in other locations, but the lack of visual indication of switching cells makes it harder to detect in some cases.
As long as Apple remains silent on this issue more and more of these goose chases will occur. If another manufacturer had this issue, this forum would crucify them. This is just sad.
A "Fix" like this will need to be confirmed by thousands of people after a few days for me to believe it works.
You guys are nuts for hacking up your shiny phones.
The fix is going to be a recall by apple. Plain and simple. The phone has a defective design. This has nothing to do with sim cards.
And some advice - pass up on the snake oil, you don't need land in florida, and the Brooklyn Bridge is not for sale.
The fix is going to be a recall by apple. Plain and simple. The phone has a defective design. This has nothing to do with sim cards.
And some advice - pass up on the snake oil, you don't need land in florida, and the Brooklyn Bridge is not for sale.