Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Detailed Analysis of iPhone 4 Signal Strength Dropoff

Good to see some real tests.

This matches my experience. I can get the phone to drop bars by holding it different ways, but it doesn't seem to present any "real world" problems. I still only drop calls in the same places my old phone dropped calls. If no one had told me about this "problem" I wouldn't have noticed since this iPhone gives me the same performance as my old iPhone.
 
So I guess Apple could release a software update that shifts the 'curve' that correlates signal strength with number of bars.

So in future all iPhones will go all the way up to 11. Most phones go to 10. iPhone 4 goes to 11.
 
Alisstar said:
The skeptics are still going to discredit these findings.

My phone does degrade its signal, however, I hardly have any dropped calls. And the other day I was at a gas station where I regularly gas up at and my phone picked up the wifi signal from the restaurant across the street. That never happened with my old 3G. I agree with the findings. My iPhone 4 does have better reception.
Click to expand...

I'm with you. I've had better luck with my iPhone 4. I was a skeptic, but these findings seem legit.
 
how to enable numeric signal strength reporting?

Does anyone know how to enable numeric signal strength reporting on 3Gs? Does this require a jailbreak?
 
Still, the bumper case suggestion seems to show that it's not just a matter of the hand blocking the signal, because the bumper only moves the hand out from the phone a negligible distance. The hand touching the antenna is also altering its tuning, natural sweat might be exacerbating the problem, it is summer time, after all.

This tuning change really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, especially those that grew up with the "rabbit ear" TV antennas. Gigahertz-range antennas are very sensitive to tuning issues.
 
I'm with Rogers here in Canada.

I've never had any reception issues related to the hardware itself. If I'm way out in the woods, in the middle of nowhere in Northern Ontario, I *might* lose a couple of bars, but I'm afraid I can't relate to all this signal strength talk. My 3G signal is always at full bars, wherever I go throughout the course of the day, no matter how I hold it. I have a 3G, so who knows, the iPhone 4 might be a different experience.
 
Was going to get a case anyway

I've already managed to get a small scratch on the back of mine somehow. I was waiting for case prices to come down some but I guess I'll bite the bullet and buy one now.

While I am able to reproduce the signal issue and have had one dropped call,. (that I'm pretty sure was due to the way I was holding it), general reception is *so* much better than with my prior iPhone 3g that I am still loving it. The building I work in is known for terrible AT&T 3g coverage, used to drop calls all of the time, but I've not had one drop with the iPhone 4 there.
 
Good info. Helps explain why I'm getting a ton of dropped calls when compared to my old iPhone even though I am staying away from the corner of death.

It is so frustrating to go from the odd dropped call to 50% dropped calls. I guess I need to consider covering up this beautiful finish.
 
JeffDM said:
...The hand touching the antenna is also altering its tuning, natural sweat might be exacerbating the problem, it is summer time, after all.
Click to expand...
I agree. I've had times where I find it hard to duplicate the problem and notice that my hand was very dry at that time. When moist it is simple to duplicate.
 
Arh25 said:
I went from a 3G and I never dropped calls with it. I have dropped almost 50% of all my calls with the iPhone 4. I was very shocked since i maybe dropped 3-5 calls a year before. Because of poor service in the area i was in.
Click to expand...

This could a problem with the proximity sensor.
 
I'll finally be able to see for myself this week when I get my own iPhone 4 (if the store has any stock remaining). My reception at home has been flaky with my 3G ever since I've had it, with the phone continually shifting from 5 bars of 3G to 2 bars of EDGE then back to 3G with 3 bars, then EDGE with 5 bars and then one bar of GPRS and so on. It makes little sense. I never had those issues with the one other mobile phone I've owned (a Motorola Tracfone). I'm curious how the iPhone 4 will perform in comparison.
 
kornyboy said:
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

I guess it is time for me to head to the store to find a case. I really like the naked iPhone 4 though.
Click to expand...

So you're saying you are going to spend more money just to have a phone that works?
 
I wanna know how they got it to show the dB level now that the field test mode won't work.

But evidently, if there's that much of a gap between the two devices, Apple have a problem on their hands here.
 
arn said:
This explains the "what" that's happening, not the "why".
Click to expand...

I can tell you why. Too often, Apple puts "form" ahead on the priority list over "function."

Apple Pawn: "You know, Mr. Jobs, this new antenna design may cause signal issues..."

Steve: "Yeah, but it looks so pretty... Go with it anyway."
 
I noticed that my iPhone 4 can pick up a signal in my bathroom where my iPhone 3GS can't.

So, if I read this right, the iPhone does suffer worse degradation of signal when held than other phones but holds calls better despite the 'lower strength' signal.

Interesting how all the 'issues' appear to be fading away. The yellow blotches? Gone. The proximety sensor? Appears to be a 'reboot' fix.

Who was it on these forums who said he was selling his Apple stock because this was 'the end' for the company? Ooops. ;)
 
jjo said:
I can tell you why. Too often, Apple puts "form" ahead on the priority list over "function."

Apple Pawn: "You know, Mr. Jobs, this new antenna design may cause signal issues..."

Steve: "Yeah, but it looks so pretty... Go with it anyway."
Click to expand...

Ok, dude. That's just ridiculous. They clearly did it for function. If it was form they would have just slapped a useless piece of metal around the end.

Now, obviously, they made mistakes. (VERY much so!) I'm not excusing Apple. They did this wrong. But it was a mistake in the pursuit of function over form.

You can't just say the opposite of reality and hope people believe it.
 
0dev said:
I wanna know how they got it to show the dB level now that the field test mode won't work.

But evidently, if there's that much of a gap between the two devices, Apple have a problem on their hands here.
Click to expand...

Read the review (it's linked in first post) and it explains how to set it to show dB. An excellent and very thorough review btw. It compares other phones (and the iPad) to give a more comparative test to the new iPhone's capabilities. Most of the other reviews can be summed up as "Ooh. Shiny!".
 
Apple mainstreamed the computer UI with the Mac back int the 80's. They are experts at presenting information to users in an intuitive way.

Might I suggest representing signal strength in a different way than bars? Perhaps it's time to reevaluate that.
 
Thankfully there is now an analysis that shows that there *is* an issue - holding the iPhone 4 "naturally" causes a much greater signal loss than for other similar smartphones. Now the main question is whether Apple can really do anything to reduce this effect, or if some type of covering is the only remedy.

I hope this will also cause those who continue to insist this is a phantom issue or non-issue to rethink their position a bit, though I'm not hopeful. :( But it also good to know that signal strength overall is much improved excepting this one issue.
 
Is it really hard?

Is it really that difficult for people to adjust the way they hold their iPhone? Is it physically and mentally hard to do it? All I did was move my grip up an inch as not to cover the bottom left of my iPhone and no more issues. It took a couple days for me to get used to it but now it's natural for me to hold it that way.

Instead of b!tching about it, I adopted.

I eat food with a fork most of the time. Sure I can use a fork to eat a sushi but it's best if I eat it using a chop stick..
 
arn said:
Guess it means you have a strong signal. Based on this data, you could see how someone could drop a call with 4 bars while holding the iPhone "naturally" (without a case).

arn
Click to expand...


Hi Arn,

Off topic a bit, but with the new iPhone 4's new AT&T data plan, do you think you'd do a poll regarding which version (200MB or 2 GB) are most signing up for and are they finding that it will fit their needs?

And a poll regarding the SMS, are most just using the per SMS basis and being charged accordingly or did they spring for the $5.00 / 200 SMS plan or the higher plans?

This inquiring mind would like to know...

Thanks
 
Wow, iOS4 gives five bars to a really huge signal range. I wish they'd shown the Nexus One's equivalent bar chart.

Of course, when not connected, both these devices are likely just showing the pilot channel signal strength, which is almost meaningless.

With WCDMA/CDMA radios the signal strength is not important. What is critical is the overall noise floor. If you only get one bar, but the cell has a low noise floor (basically fewer users), then you can have a great connection. Conversely, more bars but more users can mean a poor connection.

So phones often show the steady pilot channel signal strength before connections, and then a value calculated using error rates after connection.
 
"As has been noted by many, this 5 bar scale can be a poor representation of the actual signal strength. As seen above, nearly 40% of the range of possible signal levels is reported as 5 bars. Because of this broad range, there could be a huge difference in actual signal strength despite the same "5 bars" being displayed. "

This is somewhat misleading. RF is not a linear scale.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back