Apple Lying About Signal Strength All Along?

[blairh]

Just want to throw this out there.

Does anyone think that maybe Apple knew of the enhanced signal displayed all along? Perhaps the antenna issue is essentially exposing said lie forcing Apple to scramble and act as if they just learned of this problem?

I came across this comment on CNET just now.....

by Insp_Gadget July 2, 2010 1:58 PM PDT
I don't buy it that Apple didn't know its "formula" was wrong. I think they intentionally fudged the display bars to make the phone appear to have a better signal and have done so since the first iPhone went on the market.

The only reason they are undoing the deceptive signal bar coding now is because their new iPhone's antennas can no longer hide the weak coverage when people hold the phone the most common way. Now the weak coverage is showing up despite what the bars say and people are calling them on it.

How dumb do they think people are?

Perhaps it's a conspiracy theory at best, but something is super fishy here. I found today's statement to just have a very odd tone in general.

 

[dmelgar]

Just want to throw this out there.

Does anyone think that maybe Apple knew of the enhanced signal displayed all along? Perhaps the antenna issue is essentially exposing said lie forcing Apple to scramble and act as if they just learned of this problem?

I came across this comment on CNET just now.....

by Insp_Gadget July 2, 2010 1:58 PM PDT
I don't buy it that Apple didn't know its "formula" was wrong. I think they intentionally fudged the display bars to make the phone appear to have a better signal and have done so since the first iPhone went on the market.

The only reason they are undoing the deceptive signal bar coding now is because their new iPhone's antennas can no longer hide the weak coverage when people hold the phone the most common way. Now the weak coverage is showing up despite what the bars say and people are calling them on it.

How dumb do they think people are?

Perhaps it's a conspiracy theory at best, but something is super fishy here. I found today's statement to just have a very odd tone in general.

Duh. Apple purposely made it read high years ago. Now they're "shocked" to discover this bug. Today is when they're really lying. They're not shocked, its not like someone broke in and wrote the code when they werent looking.

 

[appleguy123]

It's obvious that they were misrepresenting bars the whole time to make people think that the iPhone was the best phone.

 

[jpetticrew]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

They definitely knew about it. The iPhone 4 is just the first iPhone that is sensitive enough for it not to work. I for one am looking forward to having "actual" signal strength in the coming weeks.

 

[deannnnn]

Yeah they knew. No question. Think about it, how often do you see your phone sit consistently at 3 bars? I generally have all or nothing.

 

[317342]

I can't say yes or no, but "probably" is a pretty safe bet since it only benefits AT&T and subsequent iPhone sales.

In regard to the recent issue with the antenna, well, my guess is that this is why the white model hasn't been released yet--they knew about the antenna problem(s) and rushed it out the door without regard to why or should.

 

[kernkraft]

They must have known for a while and by now, they certainly do. It's upsetting and I hope that it will turn out to be criminal in an investigation.

 

[PNutts]

From what I've read about how phones calculate the bars there is voodoo involved. It isn't just a measure of signal strength and some of it is regarded as telco trade secrets. With that said, there are three types of calls: 1. Dropped; 2. Poor Quality; and 3. Good Quality. I've never paid much attention to the bars unless I was trying to mitigate #1 or #2.

 

[blairh]

Glad to learn a lot of you agree with me.

Let me ask you all this. If you currently own an iPhone, are you less likely to upgrade (if you haven't already)? And if you did upgrade are you mad they lied this whole time or do you not care because your phone works and you are happy with it (or maybe it doesn't work to your liking and you are upset)?

Any chance the iPhone has suffered from so many dropped calls in the past because we were duped into trusting the signal we read on our phones?

As for the white model, yes, I totally think they knew something was wrong and hence halted their production of them. It's really disgusts me that they've been essentially telling lie after lie (why the white model was delayed, their "discovery" of the signal inflation).

 

[Reluctant Adept]

No, Apple didn't just wake up and discover this surprise - but then they aren't exactly entirely to blame for the situation, either. The problem is that the entire industry competes on the basis of the question "how many bars do you get?" Does the phrase "more bars in more places" ring a bell? So they've basically been backed into a corner by people getting upset if they aren't getting 5 bars, because they assume that's the only way they get reliable data and voice service.

Now they've seen the other side of the equation and they're going to have to do a lot of backpedaling and customer education. It's a no-win situation, but it's no more evil than the megapixel wars (you do realize that a camera with more megapixels does take inherently higher quality pictures don't you? Most consumers don't know or care, which forces camera manufacturers into fabricating numbers on that front, too.)

 

[iTouch]

I think Apple admitted "this issue" because they had no choice. Now they bought themselves a little time to fix this issue. An issue they should have fixed since the first iPhone. If this were any other company, I would have dropped them instantly. Darn you, Apple. As for the white iPhone 4, I think it will suffer the first gen issues like discoloration or yellowing. Maybe that's the reason for the delay. Otherwise it doesn't make sense because everything is the same except for the color. Nothing else is different internally for this delay to happen.

 

[Simgar988]

Are the bars set to a standard by the FCC or can any phone company decide how strong a signal must be for full bars?

 

[nickspohn]

They are basically undoing their "fix" here:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/20/apple_iphone_2_0_2_update_targets_3g_issues.html

 

[blairh]

Have you read this? The bottom line is that they needed to coat the antenna band in the first place. So it's clearly a hardware issue at the end of the day. Hopefully the white models will feature this change. If not, then I'll have to decide whether I really can enjoy using an Android cell phone.

 

[mhdena]

Glad to learn a lot of you agree with me.

Let me ask you all this. If you currently own an iPhone, are you less likely to upgrade (if you haven't already)? And if you did upgrade are you mad they lied this whole time or do you not care because your phone works and you are happy with it (or maybe it doesn't work to your liking and you are upset)?

Any chance the iPhone has suffered from so many dropped calls in the past because we were duped into trusting the signal we read on our phones?

As for the white model, yes, I totally think they knew something was wrong and hence halted their production of them. It's really disgusts me that they've been essentially telling lie after lie (why the white model was delayed, their "discovery" of the signal inflation).

The iphone has always been weak as far as holding signals go and this pretty much confirms it. The question now is what about those like you who bought the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generations? They should have some recourse from this and I would not be surprised to these earlier iphones rolled into the class action lawsuit.

I held back from the 1st iphones happy with my blackberry curve, but know I need to upgrade and just knew Apple had improved to the point where I ordered a 32gb and should have it by the 14th. But I'm hedging my bet as I ordered a Nexus One today with a 30day return and looking at a newer model Blackberry too.

I like Apple, have an imac, macbook, 2 apple tvs, 2 ipod 120 gb classics, but I'm not buying the phone because its an apple if it doesn't work as it should or as well as blackberry or Nexus One.