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

Nieval said:
According to Apple my true signal at home is No Service on O2 although my other Nokia 12pound phone shows 4 bars at the same location and works great.
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While I'm sure that's true, it's completely irrelevant. Every phone is a series of tradeoffs between style, weight, antenna design, etc. etc.

An old brick of a Nokia is skewed heavily towards reception. More modern phones such as iPhone and Driod are skewed towards style.

At the end of the day either the antenna design is "good enough" for your particular locale, or it's not. If it's not, then you option is to buy a phone with a different antenna design.
 
Are dropped calls a US/ATT only issue

Hi there,

I would like to know if these dropped calls are only experienced in the US with AT/T or if people in Europe are experiencing the same problems.
In other words, is it a network issue or a hardware issue?

Tom
 
Interesting. I will hold judgement until the update. My mcell signal is all messed up as well. It shows 2-3 bars sometimes while I am only a few feet away. Think there will be more tweaks in the update then just display.

Guess it could be display, but I think it is also change the way the phone processes signals or something like that.
 
Small White Car "gets it"

And I hope more people see through the PR spin.

What this press release is saying is that since the iPhone launched - Apple has misrepresented the signal strength. And there is no doubt that this was on purpose because why would they want another phone next to theirs to show a better signal? They "fixed" the system by cheating. And now it's come back to haunt them

Any surprise that you can't enable field testing mode in OS 4.0 - the very same OS that runs on the iPhone 4?

And they've smartly shifted the blame over to ATT and other carriers by basically saying "it's not our design - it's the cellular service"
 
Mjmar said:
Still doesn't answer why holding it makes the bars go down.
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What they're effectively saying is "Holding all phones, regardless of brand, makes bars drop down by 1 or 2" and they're also saying.. and this is the important difference.. "The iPhone has been fooling you into thinking you have a full strength signal in areas where you didn't".

In other words, someone seeing 5 bars on the iPhone may only have the signal strength of 2. The bars were misleading.

So their theory is, someone who sees 5 bars, holds phone, and goes to zero.. what they *should* have been seeing was 2 bars, holds phone, goes to zero.

If you believe the above is another question.
 
Yes but what about the dropped calls when holding the phone on the bottom left corner? I don't think the bar issue has anything to do with that does it?

I don't think people would care so much about the bars, because if the call isn't dropped, who cares? So what about that YouTube video with the guy getting dropped calls when using the "death grip"? Does everyone else get that, or is the big fuss really just all about the number of bars displayed?
 
DavidLeblond said:
Ok, for starters I've seen the signal bars drop on my iPhone 4 when holding it, although it hasn't dropped a call yet. So really, I'm happy with my phone. I recently put a bumper on it, but that was for protection and to make it less slick in my hand-- not to fix any reception problem.

But still. This press release makes me facepalm. "We've fixed it! Not only did we make it so you get less bars in more places, but we're making the bars bigger! So you'll get one bar but it'll be a BIG bar!"
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Why does it make you facepalm if it's true?

Read the anantech article posted 2 days ago.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2
 
Steviejobz said:
"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."

I love how Apple thinks its customers are idiots. So we are to believe that Apple has not figured this out after 4 years of making a handset?
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iPhone has better signal reception than 3G/3GS. May be they use the same formula for iPhone 4, while the "no signal" threshold should be lower.
 
ReflexReact said:
Who gives a flying ***** about the representation of signal via bars on a phone. What we care about is dropped calls and inability to browse internet while holding in left (and sometimes right hand). THAT is the issue here Apple, not some visual representation crap!
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well it's sort of an

"you're in a worse reception area than you think.
your iPhone 4 reacts slightly more sensitive to you holding it.

just don't get your hopes up"

fix.


better than nothing, i say.
 
Dusse said:
Uhm, no it won't.

This was expected. Too bad for the trolls.. (though it will take some time for them to calm down)
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Hilarious. How can you still say that all the people with reception issues are trolls when this basically proves there is a reception issue?
 
OlgaJ said:
It's simple. If the phone doesn't work for you, all you have to do is return it. It's not that they won't take them back.
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I really wish people will stop saying this. Everyone loves the phone, no one wants to return it. Its the fact that it is flawed, no one knew when they purchased it and customers feel cheated. We shouldn't have to return it. People spent their hard earned money on this things and its apples responsibility to keep their customers satisfied. So cut it with this "all you have to do is return it" crap.
 
rotobadger said:
I thought about that too. They don't want to publicly admit they really screwed up so a quiet update hidden in their "status bar update" might be coming.

Or I could be reaching...
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We're used to this with some of the Mac OS updates. They say things like:

* Fixed issue with g-mail syncing.
* Other Bug Fixes

Yeah, way to shove 99% of the update into one line that says nothing. :rolleyes:

This will be the same:

* Adjusts Bar Readings
* Other Bug Fixes

...where "bug fixes" really means "everything we learned about the reception problem over the last 3 weeks."
 
Steviejobz said:
As the press release says, if you don't like it, you can return it.
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For the cynics, yes you can return it "within 30 days of purchase" which Apple was quick to point out. But reasonable people are going to want to give Apple a chance and they will want to try the fix, to see if it works for them.

I think Apple should extend the return policy to 30 days from the time the fix comes out, if they wanted to do the right thing.

The software fix is out in a couple of weeks-- but I don't think it needs to take that long make it since, to me, it is simply a fixing their incorrect signal strength numerical formula and making a slightly larger icon.

So when it is out, many people may still be upset. But by then they will only have a couple of days to return the phone. This probably has been calculated by Apple bean counters and Steve.

"Fix now, lots of returns. Fix in 2 weeks, not much time left to return."
 
Bodhi395 said:
Probably one of the worst PR statements I've seen from Apple, who are usually good at things like this.

First, they seem to say that the baseline display of the bars is incorrect. Ok, but how does that answer the question that the iPhone 4 bars go down, while none of the other iPhone bars go down, since they are all using the same wrong formula? It doesn't, the iPhone 4 still is losing more signal than the other phones, no matter how its 'displayed'? This has been verified with actual speed tests, having no relation to any bars.

Second, changing the height of the bars??? Are you kidding me, what a stupid thing to do.

Third, this entire article is written badly and I really thought when I was reading it it was a hoax, but apparently its real.

Fourth, Apple, just admit there is a problem and fix it for real, none of this smoke and mirrors!
Click to expand...

Other iphones do go down (but their antenna is located inside, so their signal isn't as good, but it doesn't degrade as much) and it's not the same formula as other smartphones, again, read the anandtech review posted well before this press release was released. It confirms the press release.
 
I'm not sure it's the whole solution, but I do think the number of bars displayed is often wrong. Comparing the bars to the download and upload speeds (of course, this is data, not voice, but I assume data is equally affected by signal strength) there is often a disconnect between the number of bars and the speedtest.net app speeds.

At least the updated software should give users a better idea of the actual signal strength, which hopefully will lead to less dropped calls.
 
I dont like this.

1. Apple was fooling us with the number of bars that we saw to make it appear that we received better reception.

2. Apple is saying that something that is clearly a hardware problem can be fixed with a software update which only fixes the bars that we will see.

3. This may explain why bars drop, but this still does not explain why holding the phone a certain way drops calls or eliminates data coverage. Some drop in bars may be a software issue, but when it can be reproduced each time to drop a call, I can't accept that a software fix will alleviate this.
 
I'm seeing a lot, here and elsewhere, of mis-understanding of what Apple really said. They said:
1. Our software mis-calculates how strong your signal is and shows it to be better than it really is
2. Our software has always done this on our iPhones
3. Oh, and the antenna also degrades signal strength when held on the left.

The only thing new about this is 1 and 2, but they were suspected.

The core issue is a hardware issue, the perception of which was made worse by a software issue. Apple will be fixing the perception, but not the underlying core issue.

The question then becomes for each owner or potential owner, is this issue bad enough to be a deal breaker.

It's not for me, but each person has to make up their own mind, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who will be more than happy to share their decisions with everyone else, whether we care or not. Some in all capital letters. Many with great hyperbole. :rolleyes:
 
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