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Since iPhones are considered a premium phone the Radiofrequency Radiation iPhones reproduce is the best most pure Radiofrequency Radiation you can buy. Much better than Samsung or Motorolla. I would never give up Apple's Radiofrequency Radiation because it blends seamlessly into Apple's "Eco system".

If you can't afford Apples Radiofrequency Radiation maybe you should look elsewhere. Samsung's Radiofrequency Radiation will slow down your phone and they never update their Radiofrequency Radiation.
 
Curious why the iPhone was tested at 2mm and 5mm but the Samsung phones were tested at 2mm and 10mm (or 15mm). Shouldn’t these tests be standardized in some way?

Also, does the FCC test devices themselves or do the manufacturers test them and provide their results to the FCC (which accepts them and maybe spot checks random samples to verify the manufacturer numbers)?

And the way they were tested somehow makes it less serious for Apple? Any phone giving off Radiofrequency Radiation should be a cause of concern. But Samsung is the bad guy right?
 
Curious why the iPhone was tested at 2mm and 5mm but the Samsung phones were tested at 2mm and 10mm (or 15mm). Shouldn’t these tests be standardized in some way?

Also, does the FCC test devices themselves or do the manufacturers test them and provide their results to the FCC (which accepts them and maybe spot checks random samples to verify the manufacturer numbers)?
Way late back to this thread, but the answer is yes. Public safety bodies will accept manufacturers’ assertion that the device is compliant when they provide a certified iso compliant third-party SAR assessment. These reports are very carefully scrutinized for errors or misinterpretations of data (it happens, I’ve seen clear fails marked as passes when you can see it right in their own graph - oops!). Public safety bodies will also conduct their own internal testing on new devices as availability of test equipment allows. These tests are also carried out on shipping samples purchased from a variety of source (they order five phones from five different stores). This is known as market surveillance.

Oh and to your first question, I believe the standard is in fact 10mm.
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Put your head in a microwave oven and tell me it's a non-issue.



No, the margin of safety on IEEE limits at high frequencies, which are adopted by most governments, is estimated to be 10-50, by power. That means at the worst case, the safety limit is 1/10 that where harmful effects are observed.

At low frequencies, not relevant for cell phones, it's from 9-100. See IEEE Std C95.1-2005 section 1.3.1

we took our guidance from Health Canada and I believe their margin was/is “fifty times safe”.
 
When you do compliance testing, you have to set the radio to transmit at the highest power possible for the longest time it can handle. This requires special firmware and tools not available to normal users, because activating that mode would effectively jam the cell site.

you have the right idea, but there are no special “test” edition phones or firmware. Cell devices transmit at the power that the base station tells them to. So the test BS forces max power mode on the phone for the duration of the test, despite being right next to it. All evaluations are tests of the “worst case” scenario.
 
I couldn’t care less if it is over the limit. I rarely, if ever, hold my iPhone XR up to my ear. I either use a BT earpiece, the speaker phone function, or my car’s stereo system via BT.
 
you have the right idea, but there are no special “test” edition phones or firmware. Cell devices transmit at the power that the base station tells them to. So the test BS forces max power mode on the phone for the duration of the test, despite being right next to it. All evaluations are tests of the “worst case” scenario.

I did some looking and I think for FCC Part 15 you do want firmware to make it run at max blast then you look at conducted and radiated emissions, but it does seem that as you say for SAR you use a base station simulator.

But I think there are some things you have to set up on the phone which may be difficult. For example, you have to make sure Wi-Fi and cellular are fully transferring at the same time (the certification docs mention a hotspot mode) and I wouldn't be surprised if there was power coordination between the functions.

I couldn’t care less if it is over the limit. I rarely, if ever, hold my iPhone XR up to my ear. I either use a BT earpiece, the speaker phone function, or my car’s stereo system via BT.

The alleged violation isn't for holding it up to your head, its for when your phone is in the pocket. Actually, voice transmissions take very little power, the phone is sending about 48 kbps, versus maximum data uploads of maybe 30 Mbps. A simple ratio suggests that voice calls would emit much less than 1% of the power of data.
 
And the way they were tested somehow makes it less serious for Apple? Any phone giving off Radiofrequency Radiation should be a cause of concern. But Samsung is the bad guy right?
If you don't want Radiofrequency Radiation why do even you have a phone?

The scientific consensus is that radiofrequency radiation is not dangerous but more studies are being done. Currently, there isn't even a single THEORY on how radiofrequency radiation would affect cells in a human body. That means that this radiation is probably harmless.

Just for basic understanding: There is ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation. So if radiofrequency radiation (which is non-ionizing radiation) affects us humans, how?! It doesn't exchange electrons at all with anything. It just makes something warmer. Like a microwave. That's why we have these strict (very strict!!!) safety limits for this radiation - you know - so it doesn't cook our brains. A Wi-Fi Access Point produces more radiofrequency radiation than a mobile phone on your ear or in your pocket. So go figure...
 
Okay, so the FCC and all international regulation authorities + Apple themselves just slept on this and the Chicago Tribune managed to find this safety limit violation in the most successful mobile phone out there?

Yeah, sure.

I would bet the setup their contracted lab used wasn't the same that's used for the standardized tests, as a ton of phones violated the safety limits in their test, which seems highly unlikely.
 
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1.1 Watts per kilogram refers to total absorbed RF energy over time resulting in heat, which does not equal RF power?
Watts is power, Joules is energy. Watts per kilogram is a power density measurement. Subtract the power dissipation, multiply by time, and divide by specific heat to get the temperature change.

The SAR limit is 1.6W/kg averaged over 1g of tissue (presumably mostly water).

The electromagnetic radiation emanating from your iPhone is a minuscule fraction of the radiation dose you get by stepping into the sunshine, or from that broadcast TV antenna down the block from your apartment, which is belting out EM waves measured in megawatts. Your phone will not kill you or give you cancer or scramble your brain - all urban legends.
Why do people think that if they don’t understand something, it must be wrong?

I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic and I’m being gullible, but it sounds like you think your logic leads to your conclusion.

First, the sunshine isn't really much stronger than the SAR limit and it can be quite harmful— not because of the ionizing effects of UV, but because of the thermal loading causing various organs to malfunction (ie. heat stroke) with only a few degrees of internal temperature rise.

That's not the real comparable here though. SAR testing is less worried about raising your body temp and more worried about overheating sensitive tissues. Heat stroke is relatively uncommon because our bodies try to regulate their internal temperature and sweat to evaporatively cool-- we mostly get into trouble when those systems fail.

SAR testing is more worried about tissue that doesn't dissipate heat well-- like your eyes. There's a reason why we don't worry too much about going out in the sun, but all know not to stare at it. It's because that same radiation source that our backs and bellies can absorb just fine can be quite damaging to our eyes even after fairly brief exposure-- our eyes don't dissipate heat well, and staring at the sun cooks them.

The sun at noon is about 1kW per square meter. In broad daylight, our pupils are about 2mm in diameter-- so our eyes admit about 1e3*π*0.001^2= about 3mW. About half of that light makes it to the retina, or about 1.5mW. That's not much different than the 1.6mW averaged over a gram of tissue and it will cause significant eye damage.

Your eye won't detect radio and remind you to look away. Since it's the reactive magnetic near field, your eyelid won't block it.

The megawatt TV tower at the end of your block has lower power densities than the sunlight just discussed when you're 9 meters away from it (Surface area of a sphere of radius 9m is approx 1000 square meters, one megawatt distributed over a 1000 square meters is 1kW/square meter).

And again, the TV tower is predominantly electric far field, so not very good at penetrating water in the same way that the magnetic near field measured by SAR testing is.
 
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And the way they were tested somehow makes it less serious for Apple? Any phone giving off Radiofrequency Radiation should be a cause of concern. But Samsung is the bad guy right?
I think a phone that doesn't give out Radiofrequency radiation will not be a phone
 
Based on the likes... people do care :) Good to have a view from someone with inside experience.

No one here will care but I have actually worked in the SAR field and have observed these tests being done. This story is almost certainly ginned-up for clicks. There is a specific methodology that must be applied consistently for the results to make sense. By their own admission, they deviated from the international standard. Phones are tested before they are released and tested again afterwards throughout their availability. Click bait.
 
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More harmful stuff around you every day like car fumes air pollution and they tested the worst situation on the smartphones running full power just a none issue and most people text these days than put a phone up to their head every day.
 
If I had to guess - Apple is probably doing some “tricks” to reduce output - something like simply using the ambient light sensor to determine if it is near your body (Either while on a call near your head, or in a pocket) and if so then lower radio output power (If possible given signal strength). Then testing this screen on under full load produces extreme results like this.
 
I haven't held a phone to my head in YEARS, simply because I don't view my phone for talking that way. It's more of a computer, that happens to be a phone.

Always Bluetooth or speaker. I advise you to do the same.

Not sure anyone would want to be "that guy" having a conversation on speaker whilst out in public...

I don't understand comments like this. Do you always walk around with airpods in, even at work or do you subject everyone else to both sides of your conversation too?
 
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Not sure anyone would want to be "that guy" having a conversation on speaker whilst out in public...

I don't understand comments like this. Do you always walk around with airpods in, even at work or do you subject everyone else to both sides of your conversation too?

No, only millenial's and clueless gen X'ers walk around with their air pods in all day. Being that the actual "phone feature" doesn't get much use on my phone it's a non-issue.

When I do have a lengthy call, I simply take out and use my air pods nothing to it at all.
 
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