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

[palmerc]

Epic Failing

1.7 million units shipped - epic failing? Not! Great phone, no problems at all - simply love it!

I am going to assume you skimmed. Shipping 2 million units isn't a failing, that is if success is measured in terms of shipped units. However, my point is that the media is making this look like a widespread problem when in fact it isn't.

 

[deadkennedy]

Maybe these calls are dropped for reason. It's just another genius feature from Steve. People anyway spend too much time on the cell phones, not talking to each other in person, playing sports, studying. Apple is about to change that and iPhone 5 is going to have a virtual phone only, you won't be able to make calls AT ALL! How cool is that? Fanbois will still have a virtual phone that will tap'n'slide sleekly... but this feature will only be offered to those who stood in line for at least 48 hours.

 

[neurobound]

It's obviously because the phone was erroneously indicating that you had more signal that you really had. Then when people held the phone in such a way as to cause the signal to drop a little, they were actually dropping the signal down to where it was almost gone even though the bars were still high. Continuing to hold it that way would cause the bars to drop down to where they actually should have been all along.

It makes perfect sense to me and was along the lines of what I figured the problem was going to turn out to be. Sitting at my desk at home, I always had very marginal signal with my other phones. With the iPhone 4, I would often look down and see 4 or 5 bars and thought "wow, this new phone gets much better reception here". The reality is, it was just as weak as before but was being displayed erroneously. Then when I would hold the phone in the bottom left corner, I would see the bars drop down to show the signal accurately.

It also explains perfectly why when you are in a strong signal area, the bars won't drop at all when held at the left corner.

Yeah, there's really nothing new about this press release as far as I can tell. One of the reviews that was released on June 23rd specifically mentioned that there was a 'bug' in the way that the bars were displayed and that apple was working on a fix. This is that fix.

At home, doesn't matter how I hold the iphone 4, it displays full strength. My wife's does the same. However, we went down the street for coffee, holding the phone caused the bars to drop the way people have been reporting. The signal reporting must not be linear, but on some sort of curve.

Considering you have 30 days to return it, it kinda makes it difficult to complain too much...but people love drama.

I suspect there are some flaws with minority of ip4s, but I bet the vast majority work normally, minus the misleading bars. As a result, I highly doubt apple is going to get a large percentage of the 1.7 million phones returned that were sold during the first weekend.

I wouldn't trade mine for anything. And I don't even have to hold it 'the right way'... and without a case.

 

[Piggie]

 

[taltal]

Ridiculous lie

Apple DID change the display of bars with the iOS 2.1 firmware, then for the iPhone 3G. The release doc listed the following:

Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display

Check it for yourself here.

Why do they lie to us? Why do they say the calculation of bars has always been wrong since the original iPhone?

EDIT: You might also wish to read this CNET article.

 

[iEdd]

Stop worrying about it. They obviously can't give away what exactly is happening behind the scenes, but I can tell you what it probably isn't: p)

/* Constant to determine how many bars are displayed */
float scaleConstant = 3.2; // Previously 3.5 in iOS 4.0

signalStrength1 = readSigStrength(antenna1);
sigBars = scaleConstant * signalStrength1;
iPhoneScreen.display(menubar, sigBars);

That is what the article (and all the whiners) seem to imply is what will happen. Hopefully we will get something a little less crude for several weeks' effort.

 

[tatonka]

That is what the article (and all the whiners) seem to imply is what will happen. Hopefully we will get something a little less crude for several weeks' effort.

I hope so too .. yet if you read the Apple letter word for word, that is exactly what they say they will do.
The problem is Apples lack of communication. If they want to do more, they should say so. If that is all they say they'll do, why implying that they are going to do anything else?

T.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Stop worrying about it. They obviously can't give away what exactly is happening behind the scenes, but I can tell you what it probably isn't: p)

/* Constant to determine how many bars are displayed */
float scaleConstant = 3.2; // Previously 3.5 in iOS 4.0

signalStrength1 = readSigStrength(antenna1);
sigBars = scaleConstant * signalStrength1;
iPhoneScreen.display(menubar, sigBars);

That is what the article (and all the whiners) seem to imply is what will happen. Hopefully we will get something a little less crude for several weeks' effort.

Crude is effective, if only a little bit ugly.

 

[grahamwright1]

Lies, more Lies and statistics

I have never been more insulted in my product-buying life than when I read that completely bizarre explanation from Apple.

I have five iPhones in my house, (3) GS, (2) Iphone 4

Guess which ones suck a$$ for reception and dropped calls.

You guessed it, the iPhone 4 blows when you are holding the phone. We dangle the phones by two fingers to make calls without dropping the call all together.

I don't even buy their explanation even considering the potential that both the antenna has problems and potentially the signal display software doesn't work that well either. My 3 GSs have full strength, never drop calls and never lose signal display bars.

Someone is lying or delusional. I seriously hope for Apple that my wife, kids and I are the ones living in delusion, cuz i know we aren't lying.

Well your experiences are the opposite of mine - we had an original iPhone and a 3C in my house with very poor service. Some days I got 0 bars and couldn't make or receive a call. I replaced the 3G with an i4 and it's been working great while the original iphone is still having problems here. Regardless of what you or anyone else says, the i4 works better in our very poor signal area and I haven't dropped any calls with it.

Sorry to hear it's been such a poor purchase for you, but I couldn't be happier. Well, I could and that's if the rhetoric around here could just be dialed back to the people actually having problems versus the people who have heard about, and jumped on the bandwagon to complain.

Hopefully the upcoming upgrade will improve you and your families experience with this very cool device.

 

[grahamwright1]

Apple is playing possum on purpose. They know they have a HUGE lawsuit in the wings and they are going to lose. They aren't investigating crap. A faulty design cannot be fixed. They are trying to cover it up by releasing a software fix that doesn't solve the problem. Some people will be stupid enough to buy into it and that's why Apple is releasing it...

Since Apple have indicated they are going to fix the problem they described of incorrect signal strength indicator, and will most likely take advantage of the fact that they control the firmware for the all parts of the device, why do you make such definitive statements as these? Neither you nor I have any absolute idea or proof of what changes Apple are going to make and their past experience is they will make s/w changes to improve the problems customers encounter.

This frenzy of ill-informed statements, often driven by people who don't even have an i4 at this point is a sad reflection on the world today. I personally love the fact that my i4 works better as a phone than the 3G I'm replacing does, but if I was actually experiencing more problems with the i4 than the 3G it would go right back to Apple. I guess I have a hard time understanding why people will spend so much time vehemently complaining raher than decide the i4 doesn't meet their specific requirements, return it at no charge, and buy something that does meet their requirements.

.....and lets not have another round of "I expect it to work and don't want to return it" comments - if it doesn't currently do what you want or need, move on. As an Apple stockholder and developer, there doesn't seem to be a lack of potential customers lining up (literally) for an i4, so I'm sorry you aren't happy so return it and move on......

 

[grahamwright1]

Lame. Everyone who is going on about how perfect your iPhone4 is, get over yourself. Either all of the phones have a problem or they don't. All 1.6 million iPhone4's were made the exact same way. Yours is not unique. There is nothing special about yours. You do not have some rare, special limited edition which was blessed by Steve Jobs himself. You may not have dropped any calls and you may be sporting a full 5 bars (which as it turns out is actually 3) everywhere you go 24/7 but your phone still suffers from the same design flaw as everyone elses.

There's nothing to get over - my i4 works in my house where my 3G didn't work. I have large hands and haven't done anything to change how I hold my i4 and it simply works.

Do you even own an i4 or are you simply enraged by the problems that some people have encountered and documented?

 

[Lord Vader]

People think this is bad?

Seriously, this is nothing compared to other mass failings. *Cough 360 RROD Cough*

Dell Optiplex?

 

[Lord Vader]

The problem is Apples lack of communication. If they want to do more, they should say so.

T.

It's not that simple and you know it. For me as a consumer it makes sense, but for them as a business it doesn't. There are a lot of strings attached. It's almost like politics.

 

[rish]

Antenna Issues

Apple is playing possum on purpose. They know they have a HUGE lawsuit in the wings and they are going to lose. They aren't investigating crap. A faulty design cannot be fixed. They are trying to cover it up by releasing a software fix that doesn't solve the problem. Some people will be stupid enough to buy into it and that's why Apple is releasing it...

Maybe you're right, however there does not seem to be the uproar thats taking place in the US here in the UK. I also understand from people in France on another tech blog that they themselves have experienced none of the issues that are being experienced in the US.

So here's the problem. Could it not be an issue with the network? I think the cell networks are somewhat more reliable than those in the US.

Furthermore I think this fire is being stoked by the press in order to generate more interest for self interest purposes. Funnily enough I've twice had a comment removed where I've indicated both these insights (press and network).

No one I personally know has had a problem, and finally I was in an O2 store yesterday where there where queues were out the door and people talked about this very same issue. A representative indicated that the problem did seem to be isolated to the US. I certainly have not been able to recreate the problem and I'm one of the people who would be affected being left handed.

I agree with you that I'm not sure how a software update would solve an issues with hardware however in referring to what I have said thus far, I think it truly is an issue with the frequency at which your cell networks transmit.

But what do I know. I just happen to be an iPhone 4 owner!

 

[iZac]

So here's the problem. Could it not be an issue with the network? I think the cell networks are somewhat more reliable than those in the US.

Not to stoke the fire, and yes I've only played with the iPhone4 in store (I didn’t want to pre-order) and my experiences are obviously anecdotal. Furthermore, personally I'm a left handed phone user I find it unnatural and uncomfortable to call using my right hand and ear.

Anyway, going from phone to phone in the Apple store, yes I've had mixed experiences from different networks, I "tested" two from Orange and one from Hutchishon 3G. Interestingly the Hutchison model dropped 2 bars, the Orange models dropped from 3 to 4 bars on different tests. All were at 5 bars initially. Yes, this could be caused by Apples convoluted explanation of incorrect signal indicators, but I'm not convinced. So in my tinkering, this could affect certain networks more, but this certainly isn't limited to AT&T

I think Apple might try to sneak out a fix for antenna prioritisation (or something like that, i'm no engineer.) as well as 'fixing' the signal indicators.

 

[stylinexpat]

No surprise there's no field test mode in OS 4.0....

and it's no accident that they misrepresented signal strength since the inception of the iPhone. It was deliberate (my belief) because why would they want you to have your iPhone next to another phone and have less bars. It would make the iPhone look like it couldn't hold a signal.

This is great marketing and PR spin. I hope people see through the BS that it really is. Not to say that representing the actual signal strength is BS - that part is correct and should have been done all along. But it doesn't FIX anything.

Exactly..

 

[MorphingDragon]

Dell Optiplex?

Hey, I've seen optiplexes that still work from the era when windows was less than average.

 

[Piggie]

Maybe you're right, however there does not seem to be the uproar thats taking place in the US here in the UK.

Being from the UK myself I see that as a bad thing.

Experience has shown me that people in the UK time and time again, just bend over and take whatever crap that's thrown at them, have a moan and do nothing about it.

People in the USA stand up for themselves and get treated with more respect as citizens because of it.

Raise the price of Gas in the USA to the same as it is in the UK.

It's currently $8.36 for one gallon of gas in the UK.

There would be riots on the streets if they tried that in the US, but like normal, UK people just grumble, moan and pay up.

All respect to the Americans for standing up for themselves I say.

 

[stylinexpat]

Maybe you're right, however there does not seem to be the uproar thats taking place in the US here in the UK. I also understand from people in France on another tech blog that they themselves have experienced none of the issues that are being experienced in the US.

So here's the problem. Could it not be an issue with the network? I think the cell networks are somewhat more reliable than those in the US.

Furthermore I think this fire is being stoked by the press in order to generate more interest for self interest purposes. Funnily enough I've twice had a comment removed where I've indicated both these insights (press and network).

No one I personally know has had a problem, and finally I was in an O2 store yesterday where there where queues were out the door and people talked about this very same issue. A representative indicated that the problem did seem to be isolated to the US. I certainly have not been able to recreate the problem and I'm one of the people who would be affected being left handed.

I agree with you that I'm not sure how a software update would solve an issues with hardware however in referring to what I have said thus far, I think it truly is an issue with the frequency at which your cell networks transmit.

But what do I know. I just happen to be an iPhone 4 owner!

Generally speaking reception on GSM networks in Asia an Europe is much better than what is available in the US. They have a smaller area to cover and have more cell towers around the city. In the US we have too many cry babies that complain about having a cell tower in their neighborhood so due to lawsuits,fines,regulations,complaints and large are of space we have less cell towers which is why we have poor reception.

 

[macintoshi]

iOS4

What i experienced yesterday after i updated to iOS4, is that the wifi dropped to 0 without some special holding. I holded the phone normaly as usual. While i never had this with the older OS in the same place. But it only happens there. Then i need to restart the phone completly to get connected, but at begin with difficulty. Really strange issue.

 

[epo]

In the US we have too many cry babies that complain about having a cell tower in their neighborhood so due to lawsuits,fines,regulations,complaints and large are of space we have less cell towers which is why we have poor reception.

The British term for this bahaviour is NIMBYism ("not in my back yard")

 

[MorphingDragon]

The British term for this bahaviour is NIMBYism ("not in my back yard")

The down under term is tossers.

 

[diamond.g]

The British term for this bahaviour is NIMBYism ("not in my back yard")

We do have that problem here. The other issue is that GSM was not forced as the standard of cellular communications here. So you have Verizon with great signal but wrong technology for AT&T to use. You also have the frequency problem.

 

[epo]

The down under term is tossers.

Gosh, oddly that's what we call people who whine about defective products which, if they had actually bought one, they could just return for a refund. Thus proving they are either trolling or are obsessive whiners. (and we're back on topic, yeah!)

 

[judin]

Apple - you liars!

Don't expect me to assume that a software update will fix the fact that - holding my phone - I get no signal.

Admit your phone HARDWARE is flawed. Then fix it.