Can you take a vid of your phone in an area starting with 3 bars and applying the death grip and no bars dropping? Its a concensus it has to do with starting in a low signal area but if it's as you say you can start in a low signal area and not drop bars that would throw a monkey wrench into that idea.
I "could" go to all the trouble of doing this, but from what I understand, no one is going to believe it, unless I also have an iPhone that doesn't work to show the difference. I simply don't know anyone that has this problem. I would suspect if I even had the second iPhone, they'd say I needed to go to such and such location and try it next or do it with 2 pairs of iPhones (or not believe me at all and want someone else to post a video). All I know is what I've seen with my own two eyes and using the same diagnostic tests that have been posted all over the place. I'm not a fanboy (PC or Apple products, I just get what's best for me at the time). I have no vested interest in the iPhone 4 doing well. I'd be the first to return mine if I had the reception issue.
IMO, there are a number of pied pipers, who make most of the posts stating there is a reception problem, and nothing is going to change their belief that all iPhone 4's have this problem. Even one poster stated it was better to have all the posts they could get (as long as they said the iPhone 4 had problems...wouldn't want any positive posts there), because that would make more noise and get Apple to do something. However, because of all the noise, it's almost impossible to tell how prevalent this issue even is. The media surely doesn't help. I don't even think they care what the truth is for most of their stories, as long as it grabs the headlines. Sorry for being off-topic somewhat in my last point with my general disgust at what the media has become.
Like anything the media is prone to report, this story has meat, because it shows the "magical" device having issues and the reporters love it, since it helps the ratings, helps get clicks to blogs, etc. One of these days, maybe we'll actually know the real story, who knows. I definitely haven't seen anyone returning an iPhone 4 (doesn't mean they're not, but I haven't seen it). You'd think with all the media attention they could show us long lines of people returning the phone, wouldn't you? I mean, over a million sold (more like 2 million) would imply if even 10% have the problem, we'd see 100's of thousands returning them. Show that, media. Can't? **** then.
All that being said, it's disappointing to see Apple's non-responsiveness. That's probably the worst thing they've done through all this. That and the only responses being Jobs' emails and one letter, which would have been better not sent or written.
