Apple Posts New Antenna Performance Test

[Arran]

Watched the video (and the others). You know, it's really intriguing how all manufacturer's signal meters are so laggy - I think Jobs referred to it as "hysteresis" in his press conference.

Why make it so laggy when the actual signal loss is immediate? From a usability angle, what good does lag do for the user? If anything, the meter should respond immediately to give the user feedback they're holding it wrong and allow them to take corrective action now (or understand how to avoid it in future).

It's almost as if the whole cellphone industry has been trying to obscure that fact that all phones have hotspots.

 

[Ferris23]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4 (32GB): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)

Misdirection at its best.

Got news for ya, the media smear campaign wasn't any better.

 

[svndmvn]

Watched the video (and the others). You know, it's really intriguing how all manufacturer's signal meters are so laggy - I think Jobs referred to it as "hysteresis" in his press conference.

Why make it so laggy when the actual signal loss is immediate? From a usability angle, what good does lag do for the user? If anything, the meter should respond immediately to give the user feedback they're holding it wrong and allow them to take corrective action now (or understand how to avoid it in future).

It's almost as if the whole cellphone industry has been trying to obscure that fact that all phones have hotspots.

probably has to do with the battery and people not liking the signal changing so much, they would worry. It is true though, whether you put your hand around the phone or you're in a bad area, the call could be dropped before the phone even tells you you have no service.

 

[jambobowron]

Who cares about other phones, fix the iPhone so it doesn't drop calls.

I've had the iPhone 3G for 2 years and just got the 4 at launch, and never had a dropped call - you should direct your hate at AT&T not apple, their infrastructure is pants.
Not as if O2s in the UK is a whole lot better but it has never (yet) let me down

 

[Arran]

probably has to do with the battery and people not liking the signal changing so much, they would worry. It is true though, whether you put your hand around the phone or you're in a bad area, the call could be dropped before the phone even tells you you have no service.

Yeah, i'm wondering if it's a hangover from the early days of cellphones when that sort of fluctuating meter behavior might have confused new customers. I mean, I can understand having hysteresis in a car's fuel gauge for example: you don't want the needle jumping up and down every time you drive over a bump and fuel sloshes around in the tank. That would be distracting and inaccurate too.

But for a cellphone, i'd love an instantaneously responding signal meter - particularly when i'm walking around a strange room, waving my phone in the air, trying to find the best place to make a call.

 

[maflynn]

I've had the iPhone 3G for 2 years and just got the 4 at launch, and never had a dropped call - you should direct your hate at AT&T not apple, their infrastructure is pants.
Not as if O2s in the UK is a whole lot better but it has never (yet) let me down

To be sure AT&T is at fault for dropped calls, but this one isn't their fault. Hold the phone in your left hand, and watch the bars drop down to nothing. I'm not sure how you can blame AT&T for that. Yeah this doesn't affect everyone, but it does affect enough owners for apple to hold a press conference and consumer reports to issue a do not recommend. So while your criticism has merit, apple is at fault for their design.

 

[jambobowron]

To be sure AT&T is at fault for dropped calls, but this one isn't their fault. Hold the phone in your left hand, and watch the bars drop down to nothing. I'm not sure how you can blame AT&T for that. Yeah this doesn't affect everyone, but it does affect enough owners for apple to hold a press conference and consumer reports to issue a do not recommend. So while your criticism has merit, apple is at fault for their design.

Where as you are correct in saying that it drops bars holding it in your left hand i do it and mine drops to 3 from 5 (with 4.0.1), nobody really knows how much of an affect this is taking outside of the US, i haven't heard much talk of it on these forums in the UK thread in particular. **** it, Its both companies fault - apple (even thought i love the design) because stupidly, field testing with a case on the phone was never going to give accurate results and AT&T because their network sucks
O2 are good thought, cant fault them.

 

[svndmvn]

To be sure AT&T is at fault for dropped calls, but this one isn't their fault. Hold the phone in your left hand, and watch the bars drop down to nothing. I'm not sure how you can blame AT&T for that. Yeah this doesn't affect everyone, but it does affect enough owners for apple to hold a press conference and consumer reports to issue a do not recommend. So while your criticism has merit, apple is at fault for their design.

unless you have bad reception to start with your calls will not drop, you'll have a couple less bars (maybe one less with 4.0.1 and 4.1) but you'll be able to keep talking on the phone. Same thing holding some other phones so the issue is pretty similar..
Also, it's been documented you could keep talking (in some cases) with the phone indicating "no service", having no bars I mean.

 

[blimeyoriley]

APPLE ARE COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT !! who's going to hold their phone like that while making a phonecall ?!?! the iphone drops calls when held in a pretty normal position for making calls, the rest of these videos just show hands in awkward positions and lots of squeezing !!

 

[gnasher729]

Perhaps apple should spend more time in fixing their poorly designed phone, then continually trying to smear other phone makers and drag them down. This behavior is very un-apple like.

Who cares about other phones, fix the iPhone so it doesn't drop calls.

Actually, what Apple has been saying is that building antennas is hard, building antennas that work well in the presence of huge amounts of contaminated water nearby is even harder, and that nobody in the industry, including Apple, has solved this problem well. I can't quite see the "smearing" here. And even though Nokia, RIM and so on have released exasperated press releases, none of them have actually dared saying that Apple didn't tell the truth. Like Nokia very cleverly tells everyone how much experience they have building antennas and how much money and engineering time they invest, but they don't dare saying "Nokia phones don't lose their signal".

Why make it so laggy when the actual signal loss is immediate? From a usability angle, what good does lag do for the user? If anything, the meter should respond immediately to give the user feedback they're holding it wrong and allow them to take corrective action now (or understand how to avoid it in future).

True. With instant feedback, users would very quickly learn how to hold the phone without dropping calls (Apple haters would very quickly learn which spot to touch to lose reception, but I don't think Apple really cares about them). True of course for every phone.

 

[ReflexReact]

I love the fact all of these videos show a drop in signal, yes. but my iphone doesnt just drop bars, it looses service alltogether. THIS is the issue, apple. Who gives a **** about bars, it's about a loss in SERVICE when holding your god damn phone!

 

[haulis]

Nokia was never mentioned in Apple's press conference about antenna attenuation. Nokia decided to respond anyway, even if not directly mentioning Apple, and bragging all the way through it. Judging by the same logic that others have expressed with regards to the mentioned companies defending themselves, I see this response in much the same matter.

Does the iPhone 4 work for you? Great keep it. Does the iPhone 4 drop calls etc? Then get another phone. I've been using mine and haven't dropped a call no matter how I hold it, and that's without a case on it.

 

[samcraig]

who cares. They can test every phone in the world and find flaws with them. That doesn't make their phone any less guilty or flawed.

 

[insidmal]

APPLE ARE COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT !! who's going to hold their phone like that while making a phonecall ?!?! the iphone drops calls when held in a pretty normal position for making calls, the rest of these videos just show hands in awkward positions and lots of squeezing !!

it does?

 

[cecoleman]

I love how all the people on here that support the iPhone 4 and defend Apple are considered "Sheep". Well the people supporting the phone and Apple in this case are the 99 percent of the users who have experienced NO PROBLEMS. So if having a great phone with no problems and telling people about it makes you a sheep, than ... baaaaahhhhh.

Also to the haters, a great friend once told me when referring to haters...

"You are only loud, because your points are weak."

 

[samcraig]

Apple wants people to subscribe to the theory that "misery loves company"

See my post earlier - doesn't matter if other phones exhibit the behavior - fact is - the iPhone does - and the issue is worse.

It's like trying to argue that just because other people on the highway were speeding, you shouldn't get pulled over for doing the same.

 

[opmisk]

This will turn into a positive for Apple. They're now attacking the issue and staying in front of the conversation. They've proven that all phones suffer from attenuation, and expectedly, their competitors have rebutted. This is exactly what Apple wants. They'll innovate a way around the issue with the next iteration of the phone, and in doing so, show how their competitors are still prone.

In the end, Apple looks like the good guy, while everyone else is left defending their old technology.

 

[samcraig]

This will turn into a positive for Apple. They're now attacking the issue and staying in front of the conversation. They've proven that all phones suffer from attenuation, and expectedly, their competitors have rebutted. This is exactly what Apple wants. They'll innovate a way around the issue with the next iteration of the phone, and in doing so, show how their competitors are still prone.

In the end, Apple looks like the good guy, while everyone else is left defending their old technology.

So you think Steve Jobs can find a way to defeat the laws of physics? (His phrasing - not mine)

 

[svndmvn]

So you think Steve Jobs can find a way to defeat the laws of physics? (His phrasing - not mine)

well, the bumper pretty much defeats the laws of physics and so do you if you're strong enough not to touch such a small spot of the phone.. it's pretty obvious where the two antennas meet

 

[zoman504]

This will turn into a positive for Apple. They're now attacking the issue and staying in front of the conversation. They've proven that all phones suffer from attenuation, and expectedly, their competitors have rebutted. This is exactly what Apple wants. They'll innovate a way around the issue with the next iteration of the phone, and in doing so, show how their competitors are still prone.

In the end, Apple looks like the good guy, while everyone else is left defending their old technology.

Positive for Apple? Oh you fanboys are hilarious. I love how NOW Apple wants to compare itself to other companies. Outside of Apple consumers, most people think this fiasco is a joke and they're laughing their asses off at how defensive Jobs has seemed and that Apple finally has a fail on its hands.

That said, I actually do love my iphone 4, and yes I have some antenna issues. But to me, the screen and apps far outweigh those concerns.