Apple's Signal Strength Display Changes in iOS 4.0.1 and 4.1 Detailed

[Zunjine]

I don't mean to be rude but I'm tired of hearing people talking about this as being an AT&T problem or, in fact, having anything to do with AT&T at all. This issue, in so far as it is one, has been seen in many countries.

American's have a reputation for being rather insular in their "world" view and it's hardly surprising when a lot of you on here act as if nowhere else exists! Please can we drop the questions about AT&T and talk about the issue at hand which is of interest to people in, you know, the REST OF THE WORLD!

Cheers.

 

[Darkroom]

i was stunned to discover this article

 

[Zunjine]

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In the uk, in certain situations you are locked into a lenghy 2 year or 18 month contract once you use your phone.

What would you have those people do who are left with up to 2 years of service to pay for?

it isn't as easy as you think to "return it" for everyone.

Actually, hate to be a git here, but if your phone is faulty you can return it and cancel the contract. Your rights as a consumer prevent the sale of faulty goods or those that are not fit for purchase. Plus, and I think I'm accurate here, you pretty much always have a return or cancelation period when you sign any contract.

 

[talkingfuture]

I've always wondered why phones show bars at all and not a simple 'Signal / No Signal'. All I ever want to know is will it send my message or not. They offer shades of grey when black and white will suffice.

 

[SixPenceRicher]

I just completed the 4.0.1 update. Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be much change except for the bars' appearance. I still have 3 bars, as I had before. But this was interesting: I held the phone with my usual grip and (with a case on) my signal gradually dropped off to one bar -- and then rose back up to three. Previously, the phone wouldn't recover.

Yep, I just noticed the same thing. The Death Grip also affects my 3GS now. Says quite a bit about how the bars were being misrepresented before.

Based on the look of the chart, it appears that there was a bias toward the upper and lower modes of the power graph, and that the mean/middle was deemphasized for some reason. Not sure why they would have calculated it in this fashion in the first place, but the new scale seems much more consistent in slope and distribution.

 

[tazdevl]

I'm travelling. The king says hi in Memphis.

Did they fix the exchange/outlook bug? I have appointments that show up in outlook that are not showing up on my iPhone 4 and since the ugprade to iOS 4 with my 3GS

The tech bulletin on Apple's website regarding this (server timeout change) does absolutely nothing.

 

[Greg M]

Don't you remember that Apple put out a fix for the "reception" problems a long time ago? Apple misrepresented the signal strength not to cover for AT&T but to cover the iphone's horrible reception.

The iphone has always had horrible reception and now you get to see it. Cheap phones always outlast iphones in low signal areas. Many times in low signal areas I have to use my wife's phone because mine shows no signal or can't hold a call.

Iphone as a phone isn't all that great. Iphone as an all purpose device is great.

I put up with the bad phone to have all the other features of the iphone.

 

[jayducharme]

Speedtest with iOS 4.0.1

I just ran Speedtest. I used to get an average of 28 kbps both for download and upload (averaged over 5 tests). After five tests with 4.0.1, I'm getting 52 down and 45 up. It could be the vagaries of AT&T's network (I only get EDGE at my house), but it seems like there's an improvement.

I've always wondered why phones show bars at all and not a simple 'Signal / No Signal'. All I ever want to know is will it send my message or not. They offer shades of grey when black and white will suffice.

I completely agree.

 

[iSee]

Where did this come from???

The fact that Apple has also increased the heights of the lower bars alongside the change to the mapping of actual signal to bar display appears to be a ploy to somehow makes things appear better than they are, with the subtle, but baseless, suggestion that taller bars imply better signal.

The rest of the post describes how Apple has significantly improved the accuracy of the representation of signal strength. Yet here you accuse Apple of a ploy to decieve? So which is it -- are we getting a more accurate bar or a less accurate bar?

Pick a position and stick to it, at least in one article.

 

[jp3105]

Stumped by kids question

Whilst discussing the whole iphone4 signal bars dropping issue today , a 6yr old asked me "Why do they show the bars anyway?"

Got me thinking , in the "old days" , my first phones never had a signal strength display , they either worked or they didnt. But I guess now they all have signal bars on , we all obsess over them , if they were not there , you would just dial and get on with the call ( or not depending where you are ).

 

[Mr. Zorg]

Thats what I'm understanding too. Looks likey might of gotten rid of the no signal by lowering the dB so low where theres no way it can get that low. Thats lameo dude

Not if it actually CAN work that low. It was likely that when it reached that bottom threshold before, the phone wouldn't even TRY to send a signal because the algorithm told it there was no service (after all, why waste battery trying to connect to something you know you can't). But if it really can work that low now, changing the floor will allow the phone to keep sending under more circumstances before giving up. That sounds like a good thing!

 

[_Refurbished_]

Classic.

2 years ago iPhone users complained their bars were too low. Apple "updated their software" with the "wrong calculations". 2 years later, Apple reverts back to the original calculations. In that time, your phone's performance has not changed at all.

If you're going to be angry, you should have been angry 2 years ago when Apple began lying to everyone.

I'm happy they got forced into the ATT method, so we can determine our signal correctly, like we could previously....

 

[rsbagga]

If Apple truly did use different formula's to cover up AT&T's bad coverage, there's certainly a legal issue in the works.

How do you figure? What theory? There's nothing in your contract guaranteeing you a particular signal strength?

 

[ChazUK]

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In the uk, in certain situations you are locked into a lenghy 2 year or 18 month contract once you use your phone.

What would you have those people do who are left with up to 2 years of service to pay for?
[M
it isn't as easy as you think to "return it" for everyone.

Actually, hate to be a git here, but if your phone is faulty you can return it and cancel the contract. Your rights as a consumer prevent the sale of faulty goods or those that are not fit for purchase. Plus, and I think I'm accurate here, you pretty much always have a return or cancelation period when you sign any contract.

Doesn't its status as faulty lie in apples hands though? With no admission of a fault you'd pretty much be on your own.

On the cancellation bit, see o2's carphone warhouse terms posted in my link earlier. If you so much as enter a contact in the phone, you can't return it at all. Crazy stuff!



EDIT - I don't think you're a git by the way, I enjoyed the discussion!

 

[Mr. Zorg]

I just ran Speedtest. I used to get an average of 28 mbps both for download and upload (averaged over 5 tests). After five tests with 4.0.1, I'm getting 52 down and 45 up. It could be the vagaries of AT&T's network (I only get EDGE at my house), but it seems like there's an improvement.

I hope you mean 2.8Mbps, 5.2Mbps and 4.5Mbps. There's no way you could be getting the numbers you quoted (disregarding the lowercase m, which would be millibits, not megabits), cellular service doesn't go anywhere near that fast (yet).

 

[rsbagga]

Just updated. Still have 5 bars here in D.C. Will see what it does for the proximity sensor! (hopefully fixes it!)

 

[salesguy]

I love how people are complaining about a better representation of the signal strength.

Nothing can please some people.

The update not only increases the lower range that the phone will work... but now the bars actually are distributed more evenly.

Then why wasn't Apple more forthcoming from the beginning? Did they really need to do this if there wasn't a problem with the phones hardware?

More or less bars are just smoke and mirrors to confuse people into thinking they may or may not have a problem with their brand new phone.

The American public can tolerate quite a bit, but they will not tolerate being played for a fool.

And yes, the ***** will hit the fan tomorrow at 10AM.

 

[Eye4Desyn]

And in 3, 2, 1....

I suspect Ma Bell's new slogan to be Not so many bars in most places. Say it ain't so! Still waiting for the white iP4, regardless. Looking forward to hearing what comes of tomorrow's press conference in Cupertino.

 

[luckinabox]

I tell you if apple comes out tomorrow and says the issue is fixed by this software update to try and cover it up, Ima be pist!

 

[2 Replies]

Five bars!?

Why can't they just dump the antiquated five-bar UI all together and display a percentage?
It's not like we're restricted by LCD screens anymore.

 

[Zunjine]

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Doesn't its status as faulty lie in apples hands though? With no admission of a fault you'd pretty much be on your own.

On the cancellation bit, see o2's carphone warhouse terms posted in my link earlier. If you so much as enter a contact in the phone, you can't return it at all. Crazy stuff!



EDIT - I don't think you're a git by the way, I enjoyed the discussion!

Ah - now that's worth looking in to. I used to work for Carphone Warehouse (don't judge me!) and they have the most misleading terms and conditions ever. I think you'll find something in there about them not effecting 'your statutory rights' or some such thing. This basically renders the above text void as your rights allow for the return of a product that you can demonstrate does not work.

I'm no lawyer so don't take my word for it. Of course, I own an iPhone 4, have been able to cause the signal drop and don't give a monkeys cause I love my phone. So this is all academic to me. Fun to watch the drama mind you.

 

[MacRacer]

Signal Difference with 3GS

I did a comparison between the signal in my 3GS with photos. The phone was in the same spot when the second and third screen shot was taken. I lost one to two bars when I did the update. I like the older firmware better but who knows. Also to mention, my iPhone is not jailbroken.

 

[MacRacer]

I noticed that the new bars also have a slope to them compared to the straight bars before the update.

 

[balamw]

Why can't they just dump the antiquated five-bar UI all together and display a percentage?
It's not like we're restricted by LCD screens anymore.

As has been mentioned many times already in this thread, it would read 0% all the time. The data behind the bars is not on a linear scale, the fifth bar represents 0.3 to 100% just by itself.

Just the inverse square law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law says that if you are at twice the distance from the cell you should expect 4x lower signal, but radio propagation is usually much steeper than that.

B

 

[ChazUK]

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Doesn't its status as faulty lie in apples hands though? With no admission of a fault you'd pretty much be on your own.

On the cancellation bit, see o2's carphone warhouse terms posted in my link earlier. If you so much as enter a contact in the phone, you can't return it at all. Crazy stuff!



EDIT - I don't think you're a git by the way, I enjoyed the discussion!

Ah - now that's worth looking in to. I used to work for Carphone Warehouse (don't judge me!) and they have the most misleading terms and conditions ever. I think you'll find something in there about them not effecting 'your statutory rights' or some such thing. This basically renders the above text void as your rights allow for the return of a product that you can demonstrate does not work.

I'm no lawyer so don't take my word for it. Of course, I own an iPhone 4, have been able to cause the signal drop and don't give a monkeys cause I love my phone. So this is all academic to me. Fun to watch the drama mind you.

You used to work for CPW? I take that bbit about you not being a git back!

That would be great if you could overturn their evil, unethical terms! When my upgrade is due, I may go iP4 but I will probably avoid CPW as I don't wawant to test their terms out.....