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Apple on iPhone 4 Reception: Signal Strength Display Issue Only, Software Update Coming

Just Emailed Steve Jobs...

Steve,

Does Apple seriously expect us to believe the incorrect signal bar count formula was unintentional? I find this condescending, insulting, and in need of some serious government investigation.

Attempting to cover it's *** on this iPhone 4 signal issue, Apple has just confessed to having intentionally mislead (lied to) it's iPhone users for quite some time now in order to make it appear as though iPhone reception has been better than it really is. Talk about reality distortion field. Pile a lie on top of a lie.

Just sharing my thoughts...

Macvault

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4
Re: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/07/02appleletter.html Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4
 
absolutely

99Hawk said:
for anyone who is having issues or know someone having issues... you do realize you can return the phone right ? That's typically what you do when you buy something and it doesn't meet your requirements or you're not satisfied.
Click to expand...

Absolutely, but some people who upgraded have either sold their phones, or maybe passed them on to another family member. Getting back to a working product is going to be either difficult, costly or box one out of a future (there is CERTAINLY going to be a v1.1 of THIS DEVICE) device upgrade option.

Certainly it is possible and most likely easy to return the device but for some it isn't trivial or the best solution.

Quite frankly, as an apple fan, buyer and user for 32 years now I am EMBARRASSED by their response to this issue. they are thinking only SHORT TERM and not LONG TERM
 
I'm not getting a good vibe about this. Could they be doing this to kind of trick people into thinking that their drop calls are due to low reception? Or could they have purposely made it so that the iphone would seem as if it had better reception than it really had? I mean how could they make such a mistake in the 1st place? Really gives me a bad vibe.
 
dijisurf said:
what did i exactly wrote that i may not have an idea about. nothing technical. but for some reason, people(paid bashers from google, htc, nokia, etc) turned out to be all electrical professors... haha...

there are many reasons why this might happen but none of them are enough reasons to start marketing campaign to bad mouth ip4
-reception
-software
-physical(few batches as Majority of ip4s are fine)
-person's own level of magnetic field(touch a speaker jack with your bare hands and see what you are made of)

Ooo by the way. IT HAPPENS TO EVERY SINGLE PHONE IN THE WORLD.
GET THAT TO YOUR HEADS. Who ever says reception signal is not going down when other manufacturers' phones are touched, they are lying....
Click to expand...

You wrote that it's not a problem. That since your iPhone 4 was fine - all were. That's having no clue.

HAHA? what are you - 13? Yes. Clearly anyone suggesting that there's is an issue and/or that this "fix" and press release are flawed are paid bashers. It couldn't possibly be because - oh I don't know - there's an actual problem?!

Get that "to" your heads? Did you mean THROUGH your heads? Because if you're going to try and be condescending, I - and I think others - would appreciate it if you did so using correct grammar.

PS - no one cares about any other phone here. We're discussing the iPhone. I don't care if every other phone has an issue. AND IF EVERY PHONE DOES HAVE THIS ISSUE - then why suggest bringing back the iPhone and getting something else? If every phone has the same issue - it wouldn't matter WHICH phone you have.

Logic FAIL.
 
antster94 said:
Anyone else share this view with me? If it were as simple as that then surely they could roll out an update tomorrow, not a few weeks away. I reckon that this is gonna take more effort and time than they think, if they are correct that it is just an issue with the displaying of the signal bars then how comes calls are dropping? Good one Apple.
Click to expand...
If you read into this press release, they're actually saying two things.

1 - The bars do not represent actual signal. Therefore, when you hold the phone and get the bars to drop from 5 to 1, this fix will show that you're actually dropping from 2 or 3 bars to 1. In essence, they're just providing a fix to show that the signal drop isn't as dramatic as it appears for some.

2 - They are NOT going to fix the signal dropping issue. Instead, if you're in a poor service area and are more affected by this design flaw, they'll simply take back your phone and refund your money.
 
May be forced to return phone?

Screw the bar display! This is an antennae problem! I can actually cancel sending a text by gripping the phone in the non-Apple approved (yet natural) grip. I could never do that with my old iPhone. (Same location. Same hand holding the phone in the same way.)

Other than the signal loss, I love this phone. Too bad it's not a good "phone". :mad:

26 days to decide. Keep or return? Right now, I am leaning toward return...will the "fix" be out in time?
 
Disgusting response - purposely misleading customers

Chimpware said:
Simple question:

If all that needs to be done to fix this issue is "adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display", why does this take " a few weeks"?

Seems like a few days (really hours) should be enough if that is all it is.
Click to expand...

How long does it take to fix a broken window with sticky tape? You could work on it for days, weeks and years.

Apple said "weeks", because they are waiting the public anger and confusion to settle a bit and see the response.

This is the best strategy - deny, give hope, but make it last as long as possible, so people keep buying in the meantime. If the worst comes, just pay a minimal cost to customers directly, through a recall fund.

It's shameful that it makes financial sense for companies to deny obvious problems and continue to mislead the public. I truly hope that sooner or later the relevant departments will start an investigation into Apple's cover-up. I also hope that there will be a fine so severe that makes any company think twice before releasing defective products on the customers' expense.
 
SeattleMoose said:
I am a huge Apple fan.
I own stock.

But....this explanation sounds like damage control while the HW guys try to figure out how to address the REAL problem. This explanation does NOTHING to address the dropped connections.

iPhone4 is a great product with a HW design flaw that requires a redesign of the HW. There is no way around it.

I hope the guy responsible for testing the antenna is gone and now practicing his new mantra...."Welcome to WalMart".

I am embarassed to be a fan boy at this moment :eek:
Click to expand...

Totally agree. Surely it doesn't take "weeks" to fix what they claim to be the problem with the signal bars.
 
Smartphones suck... i'm still rocking my Moto slvr, gets bars no matter how I hold it.

iTunes enabled bi0tches!!! :)

naaa.. but seriously i love my iphone 4, so what I move my fingers up 2mm. i'll live.
 
YoungCreative said:
Screw the bar display! This is an antennae problem! I can actually cancel sending a text by gripping the phone in the non-Apple approved (yet natural) grip. I could never do that with my old iPhone. (Same location. Same hand holding the phone in the same way.)

Other than the signal loss, I love this phone. Too bad it's not a good "phone". :mad:

26 days to decide. Keep or return? Right now, I am leaning toward return...will the "fix" be out in time?
Click to expand...

Think of it as a feature ? lol
 
Pardon me if someone already brought this up somewhere in the thread...I only read 5 pages before giving up and skipping to the end....

I get the frustration felt by those who are saying that Apple is only fixing the display issue without fixing anything else...but I wonder if that's true. Don't all cell phones change the amount of power they use to broadcast depending on how strong they "think" the signal is? i.e. when you have only 1 bar of service, the phone ramps up its power to ensure that it holds the signal and it can back off and conserve power when there are 5 bars of service. Would it be possible that the phone has fooled itself into thinking the signal is stronger than it really is? Therefore it might be displaying 5 bars when there's really only 2 bars of service but maybe it is adjusting itself to only use enough power to hold the signal for 5 bars, resulting in a lost call?

I guess it depends on if the incorrect algorithm was only used to create the display, or if it is also used by the power management of the phone to react to the signal. If the power management was using the wrong algorithm, I suppose a negative effect of correcting it could be shorter battery life as the phone will have to ramp up the power to properly maintain connections.
 
MacVault said:
Steve,

Does Apple seriously expect us to believe the incorrect signal bar count formula was unintentional? I find this condescending, insulting, and in need of some serious government investigation.

Attempting to cover it's *** on this iPhone 4 signal issue, Apple has just confessed to having intentionally mislead (lied to) it's iPhone users for quite some time now in order to make it appear as though iPhone reception has been better than it really is. Talk about reality distortion field. Pile a lie on top of a lie.

Just sharing my thoughts...

Macvault

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4
Re: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/07/02appleletter.html Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4
Click to expand...

You realize that every single cell phone maker handles signals different ways right? What may show as 2 bars on an iPhone could be 4 or 5 on a Blackberry. If you want to believe that there is some massive conspiracy going on over a phone fine, but to really think that your letter is going to do anything other than allow you to stew in your mistrust is laughable.

Use some of that energy for doing something actually productive instead.
 
The problem is that Apple is promoting the idea that this is purely a cosmetic issue. That explanation is impossible, as people are having very physical consequences (dropped calls and the ability to "pause" data).

The only way this fix could remedy the situation is if their algorithm is used for more than just display. For example, as the perceived signal drops, the phone may try to find another tower. If the signal is reported to be too low, the phone may give up and drop the call (or stop the data). But then again, Apple is saying that the phone is reporting too high of a signal... so it doesn't seem likely that this will have any sort of actual effect on the phone's performance.

Edit: BruiserB beat me to it a couple posts above (and it's probably been mentioned within the last 29 pages, too...)
 
iPhone 3G spin

The iPhone 3G had a pretty similar problem when it came out. How quickly we forget. :confused:

https://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/14/iphone-3g-connection-issues-related-to-software-or-hardware/

From the article:
Apple has not yet acknowledged the existence of 3G connection issues with the new iPhone and declined to comment for either article, leaving the details of the problem and Apple's plans for addressing it uncertain and subject to speculation for the time being.


p.s. I'm not buying Apple's explanation 1 bit..but hopefully they'll silently fix the issues..right? Probably after the return window is over. Then they can start experimenting. lol
 
Everyone that has this issue, make sure you are using Twitter , Facebook, etc. to post your feelings about the problem with a link to Apple's ridiculous statement.
 
so my iPhone 4 displayed 1 bar the first week
then 2-3 bars since yesterday

So Apple is telling me that its wrong and that it might be only 1 bar

When my iPhone 3GS always had 3-4 bars in my room
 
People may not rememeber this, but in software update 2.?, Apple "addressed" signal issues to correctly display the bars. People ran field tests and discovered their bars went up, even though field test numbers were the same.

Now they are trying to blame a poor antenna design on this deliberate change? Wow. They must think we can't remember two years into the past. Pathetic.
 
Originally Posted by citrate
I love how the apple fanboys have gone from, "there isn't a problem", to "you're holding it wrong", to "buy a case" and now we're at "just return it for a refund". Never wrong are they?
Quote:
Originally Posted by outz
it's funny how fanboys don't like to see people complain about apple products.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pic620
indeed, the blind fanboys will follow and defend any move apple makes, and when left with no real argument they've nothing to say but "return it".
These blind fanboys are pathetic really. It's just as bad as the fanboys defending the 360 RROD fiasco.
__________________
keep bumping this
 
question of returning phone.

So is Apple claiming we can get full refund meaning no 10% restocking fee either?

Also could we just keep exchanging till it works fine? Is there a limit? Is there a new 30 days Per phone?
 
Encanto said:
So wait, does this mean that by fixing the bar graphics and implementing taller bars we will not experience drops of any calls even if you hold the iPhone in any way one chooses to hold it? From what I understood apple is claiming that there is false indicator with the signal bars. But how does this fix call drops?
Click to expand...

It doesn't - but at least then people can get off Apple's nuts and take their disdain to AT&T.
 
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