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Any "Rumors" about when the Proximity sensor will be fixed?

dark55 said:
I believe, like others, that everyone doesn't have the problem because of the way each individual holds their phone. There are probably some other variables as well (ear shape...ear hair?), but I don't believe this is a hardware issue.
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After sitting here and experimenting with mine (placing a call and then moving my hand on/off & up/down on the screen), I can't imagine that it's software related. Mine works - perfectly. The only way my phone would reproduce the problem (based on what I've read) is if I held the phone a full 1 to 1.5 inches off of my face/ear. I cannot imagine that is how people hold their cell phones during a conversation. :confused:

A friend of mine told me today that he is having this problem so I am hoping to sit down with both phones and compare how they function. That might shed some more light on things and/or change my opinion.

The only way it could be software related IMO is if the screen sleep program is setup to activate/deactivate based on a certain range of data from the sensors - and the sensors are not consistent from one device to another. If that is the case then one could argue that it is also a hardware issue. I'm not a programmer nor cell phone designer, but I can't imagine an updated algorithm to "fix" the broken phones that wouldn't simultaneously hinder the function of the "working" phones.
 
I think you may be right about the proximity sensors not being consistent, drummingcraig, but I don't think there's really anything wrong with the sensors in phones like mine with this problem, they might just report distance values back to the phone differently. My iPhone turns on the screen if I only pull it a fraction of an inch away from my face. When I'm on a call, the screen goes on and off numerous times because of this.

One software solution I can see, as you mentioned, is increasing the range reported from the proximity sensor in order to turn the screen back on. I don't think this would be noticeable to people that have non-problematic sensors like yours, other than possibly the screen takes longer to turn back on after pulling the phone away from your face. Although if this were such a simple fix, why wouldn't Apple have released a fix by now?
 
dark55 said:
Although if this were such a simple fix, why wouldn't Apple have released a fix by now?
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Thats what makes me wonder if its a hardware issue they are trying to patch with a software fix (i.e. wide ranging values from sensors; inconsistent from phone-to-phone). That kind of thing could take awhile to fine tune so it didn't negatively affect those who aren't experiencing the problem.

You mention the screen taking longer to come on when you remove it from your face/ear, but the other side of that coin is the screen shutting off while you're trying to use the buttons during a call if you got your fingers/hand too close to the top.
 
My screen sometimes takes too long to switch back on. The one time I had this problem, my cheek turned on the speaker in a crowd with my mom sobbing on the other end of the line after our dog died. Good timing.
 
drummingcraig said:
...but the other side of that coin is the screen shutting off while you're trying to use the buttons during a call if you got your fingers/hand too close to the top.
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That's a good point, I didn't think about that. I believe the proximity sensor is pretty unidirectional. I don't think it would be a problem unless you were reaching over the top of the phone to use the screen for some reason, but I could be wrong.
 
I was on a half hour call before. In the dark I could see my screen blinking on and off followed by my contacts coming up. It was a challenge to have a conversation with this distraction. This morning it muted my call.
One plus though, my apartment usually gets a poor signal - with the 3G--- on the 4, no dropped call.
 
Sweetbike40 said:
I was on a half hour call before. In the dark I could see my screen blinking on and off followed by my contacts coming up. It was a challenge to have a conversation with this distraction. This morning it muted my call.
One plus though, my apartment usually gets a poor signal - with the 3G--- on the 4, no dropped call.
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Maybe I need to be educated on this, but is there a link between dark ambient light and this problem popping up?
 
dark55 said:
I think it might just be because it's easier to notice when it's dark out :)
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I agree, I never noticed it before till I used it in the dark. I'm pretty sure it's doing it all the time. If they can fix this I'll be happy. My signal is okay for now. We're suppose to get 3G here next month so that should fix my signal issues. Like I said I love my 4, I just wish this problem was fixed.
 
dark55 said:
I think it might just be because it's easier to notice when it's dark out :)
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I only had the problem on a lit street at night (where my cheek actually hit a button). It's happened to me before in well lit rooms and I'd notice it out of the corner of my eye. However, if the light/proximity sensor is in a dark area, the contrast between ear on sensor and ear of sensor would be lower and may, in fact, cause a "false positive". Then again, the proximity sensor may not even use light levels to measure whether the phone is against one's head, so WTF do I know haha.
 
Cynikal.Mindset said:
I've only ever once had the screen turn on while on a call with the phone at my ear...but my face was nowhere near the screen. unlike some people, I dont mash the phone on the side of my face when talking. When the screen came on, I took it away from my head and then back and it worked again and went off.
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Yup, this. Describes my experience perfectly.
 
I think one of the reasons some of us hold the phone tight to their ear is because like me their hearing is not that great and any outside noise makes it hard to hear the person on the other end. All those years of guns, motorcycles and rock concerts have taken it's toll on this 51 year old man. :mad:
 
Someone somewhere speculated that the design of the phone itself could be the issue for different users/conditions. Being a glass front screen, light refracts differently for each user and surrounding enivronment. This could be the reason some see it and others do not.
 
Having cancelled my land line the iPhone 4 is my only phone at home now, both my wife & I have one and both have the prox sens issue. To make matters worse I've been doing lots of phone interviews for jobs and it's very embarrassing to start dialing keys with my face while talking. I've tried using the headphones & speakerphone but if the people on the other end are also on speaker it sounds like a cave to them. Even worse ate the couple of times I've accidentally hung up on people mid conversation

My solution for now, sadly, is to explain at the beginning of the interview that I'm on a new iPhone 4 that has known prox sens issues and I will call them back if we accidentally get disconnected.
 
Funny thing happened to me yesterday: my screen would not come back on at all during a call!

Yep. I received a call, immediately hit the home key so that I would not accidentally hang-up, put the phone to my face and the screen went off. I periodically checked to see if the screen came back on. It did not. So, I pulled the phone a few inches away from my face, and it still stayed off. I then held it 2 feet away, and it still stayed off! There was nothing I could do short of hitting the home button to re-activate the screen.

I was excited to see this particular malfunction. Unfortunately, I have not been able to reproduce it. :(
 
Been following this issue since day one here and on a half dozen other forums. Neither of my two IP4s have this issue but I have found a few folks at the office that do (many more that don't).

I will be very interested to learn root cause (if we ever do) as it is so random.

For those that are convinced it can't be fixed with a firmware update, consider that the OS does have code in it to determine when to utilize the sensor. There have been reports on the dev site for 4.1 that there are issues with the API calls used to determine when a headset has been disconnected. It's possible that the prox sensor hardware is working correctly but the OS is incorrectly interpreting the inputs or ignoring them altogether, perhaps thinking the headset is connected for example.

On the other hand, you'd think an OS glitch would be universal so perhaps it is a hardware problem. Time will tell. If you like the phone otherwise, just use the headset to avoid face dials until Apple does something about it.
 
My proximity sensor goes to eleven

Maybe someone knowledgeable could explain how the proximity sensor works so we can all speculate with more accuracy :D

Step 1) LED above ear speaker emits infrared light
Step 2) ...
Step 3) Profit?
 
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