Logically Deconstructing Apple's Statement

[Bodhi395]

So, after reading Apple's statement it makes no logical sense that their fix will remedy the problem of the iPhone and experiencing signal loss. To prove it, look at the statement itself.

But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.

Ok, so they admit here that users are experiencing signal loss when they hold their iPhones and cover the black strip. They are not denying this happens.

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Here they state that they now have found a solution to the problem of holding the iPhone and experiencing signal loss.

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. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength.

Their solution to the problem? In plain english they are saying the iPhone inflates the reporting of your signal by showing more bars than you actually have, and they will make it show less bars now.

HOWEVER, the problem was people having less bars! So how does a fix that makes your phone have less bars solve the problem of having less bars??

It makes no logical sense, and its a good smoke and mirror statement Apple has put out, but if you read it carefully it doesn't address the issue in any way. The iPhone 4 still experiences signal loss when you hold it, and their fix does absolutely nothing to fix that.

 

[ubercool]

The media are all over it:

Poking holes in Apple's iPhone 4 antenna explanation

 

[spblat]

Deconstruct this:

As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

 

[Bodhi395]

Deconstruct this:

As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

In plain english: This 'fix' of ours will actually not fix anything and the only real solution is to return your phone.

 

[iPadThai]

iPhone 3GS with iOS 4.0 software installed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmVtLLEkxO8

original iPhone 4 signal loss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ-b56MdVjo

 

[mangohippo]

I think it's pointless to criticize something until you see it. If it works then bravo Apple. If it doesn't then they need to issue free bumpers or offer a looser return policy (a recall is ridiculus in my opinion).

 

[Bodhi395]

I think it's pointless to criticize something until you see it. If it works then bravo Apple. If it doesn't then they need to issue free bumpers or offer a looser return policy (a recall is ridiculus in my opinion).

But on its face, the fix doesn't make sense.

People are saying: The problem is I'm seeing not enough bars

Apple is saying: The problem is your seeing too many bars, and we're going to fix it so you see less bars.

People: But no, I said I was seeing NOT ENOUGH BARS!

 

[big0mar]

So, after reading Apple's statement it makes no logical sense that their fix will remedy the problem of the iPhone and experiencing signal loss. To prove it, look at the statement itself.



Ok, so they admit here that users are experiencing signal loss when they hold their iPhones and cover the black strip. They are not denying this happens.




Here they state that they now have found a solution to the problem of holding the iPhone and experiencing signal loss.



Their solution to the problem? In plain english they are saying the iPhone inflates the reporting of your signal by showing more bars than you actually have, and they will make it show less bars now.

HOWEVER, the problem was people having less bars! So how does a fix that makes your phone have less bars solve the problem of having less bars??

It makes no logical sense, and its a good smoke and mirror statement Apple has put out, but if you read it carefully it doesn't address the issue in any way. The iPhone 4 still experiences signal loss when you hold it, and their fix does absolutely nothing to fix that.

Less bars isn't an issue. Every phone experiences it. Every iPhone has experienced it. They are saying that you've been fooled into believing you had better reception to begin with. Now you'll just have ****** reception at the onset, so you won't complain about your hands causing reduced signal as much.

You will always have less bars when your hand is positioned in certain areas. This isn't a new concept.

 

[jb007clone]

Less bars isn't an issue. Every phone experiences it. Every iPhone has experienced it. They are saying that you've been fooled into believing you had better reception to begin with. Now you'll just have ****** reception at the onset, so you won't complain about your hands causing reduced signal as much.

You will always have less bars when your hand is positioned in certain areas. This isn't a new concept.

Readjusting the bars will give you a better representation of signal attenuation, but what about people who can TOTALLY cease voice & data transmission by touching the lower left seam EVEN when they're in extremely HIGH signal areas? That would appear to be another problem Apple needs to address.

 

[Bodhi395]

They are saying that you've been fooled into believing you had better reception to begin with.

Right there you don't make sense either. If people were fooled into thinking they had better reception to begin with, why are they complaining about BAD reception and less bars?

The only way it makes sense is if the iPhone is fooling you with more bars, but when you touch it at the black strip you suddenly correct whatever was fooling you and you get the correct number of bars.

 

[Fuchal]

Readjusting the bars will give you a better representation of signal attenuation, but what about people who can TOTALLY cease voice & data transmission by touching the lower left seam EVEN when they're in extremely HIGH signal areas? That would appear to be another problem Apple needs to address.

Yes, all they are addressing in this letter is the visual cue of losing bars when you hold the phone - not the actual signal transmission issues. And I fear it will please most people. (My mom sent me an email today: "I see they are fixing your iPhone!")

 

[Macficionado]

For all those trivializing the situation (OP, I'm looking at you), I think it's very worthwhile to start by pointing out

(a) There's no one way to measure signal quality. One way to measure signal quality is by measuring the strength of the electric field at the location of the phone. Another is based on the amount of useful signal versus noise (signal-to-noise ratio). Further, it's not entirely clear what the relationship between different numbers should be.

As a way of an example, suppose you wanted to develop a ranking system for members of the opposite sex based on a scale of 1-5. There are many ways in which a person can be attractive (personality, posture, face, body), but you only have 5 possible scores to work with. Further, what does it mean that you see a 4 vs a 2? Does it mean you're twice as happy having one as your partner? Does it mean that you're 200 times as happy? Or just barely? Scores are artificially designed and therefore reveal no 'absolute truth', just like in the case of the cell phones.

(b) The signal in the iPhone is likely logarithmic Consider the diagram shown in http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/update-i-have-a-followup-piece-about-apples-new . If the original rating system mapped a huge range of signal qualities to 'full bars', then there's little range of signal quality for the remaining bars. This implies that if you're at teh bottom of the full bars score, any perturbation will immediately put you at a very small amount of bars.

As explained in the article, likely they will change these bars to more accurately reflect signal changes in a way that is more intuitive to understand

(c) *There IS signal degradation**As the OP duly points out, there is in fact a signal degradation. The question is how it compares against other cell phones. As of now, we have few comparisons to this effect. Some benchmarks suggest the iPhone 4 has better reception qualities than previous iPhones in general. Sure, there seems to be a tradeoff with a single weaker spot. However, going on to say that Apple's explanation makes no sense makes little sense to me.

 

[chembox]

I would like to know if that software update will actually fix the issue before I return my phone. Knowing Apple, they will probably release the software update on Day 31 and it may not even completely fix the issue.

 

[dmelgar]

I would like to know if that software update will actually fix the issue before I return my phone. Knowing Apple, they will probably release the software update on Day 31 and it may not even completely fix the issue.

No, no, no. Cant make it any plainer.

 

[JediZenMaster]

Isn't this thread mistitled? It should be titled your "Opinions on the statement" because it looks like your logic is really twisting the statement to fit your agenda.

 

[Small White Car]

Right there you don't make sense either. If people were fooled into thinking they had better reception to begin with, why are they complaining about BAD reception and less bars?

You're really having trouble with this. Here, let's go with an example:

Pretend there is a house that gets 2 bars. (This is not a 100% accurate way of saying it, but I've gotta say it this way to make this make sense to you.)

Now pretend there is an iPhone 4 and a Blackberry in it.

The BB shows 2 bars.
The iPhone shows 5 bars.

But they're both really getting 2.

With me so far? This is what Apple said is going on in their phones. (They did this to fool you into thinking you had better signal. Naughty Apple! This is why lying is a bad idea...it eventually catches up to you.)

NOW - We cup our hands over the Blackberrie's antenna. It drops 1 bar and now shows 1 bar.

We do the same to the iPhone...it now figures out it only has 1 bar (just like the Blackberry) and shows 1 bar.

You think you lost 4 bars, but you really lost just 1.

The Blackberry and the iPhone work the same (2 bars down to 1 bar) but the iPhone user thinks he lost more bars than the BB!

So they're gonna make the iPhone more like the Blackberry and have it show 2 bars in the first place.

Got it?

 

[ruinfx]

apple has know about the apparent "misrepresentation" of bars since before the release of the iphone 4 to the public and the discovery of the "death grip". walt mossberg mentioned it in his review and hinted that this change would be coming, even before we knew of the "death-grip".

Yet, in some places where the signal was relatively weak, the iPhone 4 showed no bars, or fewer bars than its predecessor. Apple says that this is a bug it plans to fix, and that it has to do with the way the bars are presented, not the actual ability to make a call. And, in fact, in nearly all of these cases, the iPhone 4 was able to place calls despite the lack of bars.

http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20100622/apple-iphone4-review/

even if the "death-grip" never existed, apple still would have released this same exact software fix to re-do the algorithm and change how bars are represented. the only difference is that with the discovery of the "death-grip", what would have been a simple mention in the 4.1 software update release notes is now being expanded into a press release in an attempt to reduce negative publicity for an issue they cant fix.

 

[big0mar]

Right there you don't make sense either. If people were fooled into thinking they had better reception to begin with, why are they complaining about BAD reception and less bars?

The only way it makes sense is if the iPhone is fooling you with more bars, but when you touch it at the black strip you suddenly correct whatever was fooling you and you get the correct number of bars.

Touching the antenna results in diminished signal. Nobody is disputing that. Thats the reality of cell phones. They're just saying that going from 5 bars to 1 bar isn't necessarily indicative of the drop you're seeing. The drop may only be from 2 bars to 1 bar.

 

[Bodhi395]

You're really having trouble with this. Here, let's go with an example:

Pretend there is a house that gets 2 bars. (This is not a 100% accurate way of saying it, but I've gotta say it this way to make this make sense to you.)

Now pretend there is an iPhone 4 and a Blackberry in it.

The BB shows 2 bars.
The iPhone shows 5 bars.

But they're both really getting 2.

With me so far? This is what Apple said is going on in their phones. (They did this to fool you into thinking you had better signal. Naughty Apple! This is why lying is a bad idea...it eventually catches up to you.)

NOW - We cup our hands over the Blackberrie's antenna. It drops 1 bar and now shows 1 bar.

We do the same to the iPhone...it now figures out it only has 1 bar (just like the Blackberry) and shows 1 bar.

You think you lost 4 bars, but you really lost just 1.

The Blackberry and the iPhone work the same (2 bars down to 1 bar) but the iPhone user thinks he lost more bars than the BB!

So they're gonna make the iPhone more like the Blackberry and have it show 2 bars in the first place.

Got it?

Here's what I don't get in your example, Apple inflates the signal from 2 bars to 5 bars right now. But why then does it go down to 1 bar if you hold the phone and not 4 bars? Since the inflation seems to be a 3 bar increase?

 

[Small White Car]

Here's what I don't get in your example, Apple inflates the signal from 2 bars to 5 bars right now. But why then does it go down to 1 bar if you hold the phone and not 4 bars? Since the inflation seems to be a 3 bar increase?

Because it's not an even scale. If you looked at it as a 0% - 100% thing for signal strength, the iPhone is kind of like this:


0% (and up to 9%)
1 bar
2 bars
3 bars
4 bars

10%
5 bars

20%
5 bars

30%
5 bars

40%
5 bars

50%
5 bars

60%
5 bars

70%
5 bars

80%
5 bars

90%
5 bars

100%
5 bars

= = = = = =

So somone at 90% tries the death grip and is now at 70%. They stay on 5 bars the whole time and say that the problem isn't real.

Somone at 30% tries it and is suddenly on 2 or 3 or 4 bars, pretty much instantly...who can tell? They're barely different at all!

This is the problem. The iPhone bars are SO freaking meaningless that small problems look like HUGE problems to some people and they look like NO problems to other people, depending on where they start from.

If you knew where you were starting from you'd have a better idea of why you ended up where you did after it changes. But you have NO CLUE where you're starting from, so people get really, really confused.

EDIT: Can you imagine if the iPhone showed numbers instead of bars? Wouldn't the conversations and tests around here the last few days been SO much easier to understand? I know I would have been happier. Look at that chart and understand that those "bars" are what have been the information behind all the "Do you have the problem?" threads around here. Scary, isn't it?

Can you trust ANYTHING you read on here? We're like the blind leading the blind.

 

[Bodhi395]

Because it's not an even scale. If you looked at it as a 0% - 100% thing for signal strength, the iPhone is kind of like this:


0% (and up to 9%)
1 bar
2 bars
3 bars
4 bars

10%
5 bars

20%
5 bars

30%
5 bars

40%
5 bars

50%
5 bars

60%
5 bars

70%
5 bars

80%
5 bars

90%
5 bars

100%
5 bars

= = = = = =

So somone at 90% tries the death grip and is now at 70%. They stay on 5 bars the whole time and say that the problem isn't real.

Somone at 30% tries it and is suddenly on 2 or 3 or 4 bars, pretty much instantly...who can tell? They're barely different at all!

This is the problem. The iPhone bars are SO freaking meaningless that small problems look like HUGE problems to some people and they look like NO problems to other people, depending on where they start from.

If you knew where you were starting from you'd have a better idea of why you ended up where you did after it changes. But you have NO CLUE where you're starting from, so people get really, really confused.

Even apart from the whole bar issue, Anandtech confirmed that the iPhone 4 is much worse at blocking a signal when you hold it than the 3GS. On the iPhone 4 it drops about 20 db when held naturally while the 3GS only drops about 2 DB, a ten times increase. That is scientific proof holding the iPhone 4 drops the signal significantly more than on the 3GS, and they didn't rely on just looking at the bars. Apple's fix therefore will have no effect on the actual issue, which is that holding the iPhone 4 degrades the signal significantly more than other phones.

 

[ruinfx]

Even apart from the whole bar issue, Anandtech confirmed that the iPhone 4 is much worse at blocking a signal when you hold it than the 3GS. On the iPhone 4 it drops about 20 db when held naturally while the 3GS only drops about 2 DB, a ten times increase. That is scientific proof holding the iPhone 4 drops the signal significantly more than on the 3GS, and they didn't rely on just looking at the bars. Apple's fix therefore will have no effect on the actual issue, which is that holding the iPhone 4 degrades the signal significantly more than other phones.

thats the point though. where did apple say the "fix" is going to fix the signal drop from touching the seam? they didnt, because they cant.

this "fix" is simply to readjust the bars to display more accurately, which is something they have been planning on doing for weeks now. the "death-grip" really doesnt have anything to do with it.

 

[BigOrangeSU]

YOu know what I find funny....throughout the 3 years the iphone has been released there has been a constant problem with the way the iphone reports signal strength. How with all the research apple and att must have done into dropped calls that they didn't figure out the bars were a misrepresentation of true signal strength?

 

[Small White Car]

Apple's fix therefore will have no effect on the actual issue, which is that holding the iPhone 4 degrades the signal significantly more than other phones.

Right, but it will clear up all the confusion. Perhaps we'll find that removing the confusion will let us focus on the people who really have problems vs. those who are only being fooled into thinking they have it.

And even besides that, it sucks that my phone is lying to me about how good my signal is. They should be ashamed that they did it in the first place.

So this change is very welcome for both of those reasons.

Now, as to whether it will fix everything? No, I doubt it. I think the radio power management and frequency detection need to be greatly tweaked. I think there's a lot of other things they can be doing to the software.

But do we know they're not doing those things? No. They didn't TELL us they were doing them, but they DID say that this fix will take several weeks. Does it take several weeks to change the bar icons? No. Thus I'm certain that they are working on these other fixes in addition to the ones they told us about.

I wouldn't get worried yet. Wait and see what they come up with. I suspect it will be a much bigger software change than they told you this morning.

 

[Fuchal]

YOu know what I find funny....throughout the 3 years the iphone has been released there has been a constant problem with the way the iphone reports signal strength. How with all the research apple and att must have done into dropped calls that they didn't figure out the bars were a misrepresentation of true signal strength?

They knew the whole time - they're backs are just against the wall now and that's what they've come up with to please the masses.