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Different Antenna results from two iPhone 4s, same spot?

C

Cottonsworth

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 11, 2008
132
0
Do we have a consensus yet on whether the antenna issue is an overall design flaw or if some phones are just plain defective and Apple doesn't want to admit that?

I haven't used my phone extensively enough to see if my calls are dropping or not but I did notice that my bars fall from 5 to 1 when I grip it. I'm wondering if that can always be replicated with different iPhone 4s at the same spot or will there be mixed results?
 
just today, i bumped the original thread about this proof

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/10454051/

to quote myself:


Fliesen said:
Sorry to be digging up this thread.

But i just stumbled upon this youtube vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTtzkZk8G-k

shows a guy unable to replicate the issue on one iPhone and then replicating it on another iPhone, both in the same Apple Store.

Same person + basically same location but different phones.

the sceptic in me has to add that he only does the "one thumb" for a short amount of time, we can't really see the palm when he does the actual grip, and the final "ill cover the side with my whole hand" doesn't really indicate that he's touching the bottom left seam

the optimist, however, wonders why someone should artificially fake this.


yeah, just thought i'd post this
Click to expand...
 
The only time I have even the slightest drop in bars (one bar, never dropped a call) is when I'm in a known weak signal area..... many are spots I could barely use my 3gs. I believe that is the biggest part which is why many don't have an issues with their i's. Not saying it's not worse for some (bad batch maybe?) but I believe those people are in the minority.

Just my $0.01
 
I've noted in my posts that I have two friends here in Vegas (more than two total, of course hehe) that bought iPhone 4's from two different Apple Stores here in Vegas and they came by to compare theirs with mine (I'd told them about the problems I had). We all stood on my balcony overlooking downtown Vegas, all within line-of-sight (we could SEE the cell site/tower itself and the antenna array on the AT&T building a few hundred feet away) and each of us had issues.

Mine was the worst, of course, maybe I should throw it up on eBay at some point and make a few bucks off it. The other two suffered the typical reception issues because of being held, loss of "signal strength" as indicated by the display of bars, but only one of them actually lost service like mine did/does. The other one just sat there with zero bars displayed and never actually seemed to lose service - and by lose service I mean the status bar clearly displayed NO SERVICE.

Based on their experiences, both phones were returned within several days, for full refunds. One of the friends got a Nexus One and does nothing but rave about it now, the other got a Droid Incredible but is thinking about returning it to get the even better Droid X when it's out soon.

I've had my hands on several iPhone 4's in an Apple Store here in Vegas - display models - and was easily capable of "dropping bars" with a normal grip in the left hand, and loss of service (NO SERVICE) by placing a fingertip on the seam on the lower left hand side. 3 phones lost bars, 4 phones lost service, all of them inside an Apple Store.

That's a pretty convincing thing to me. Of course mine was already well known to not work... ;)
 
I went to AT&T yesterday to take my first real look at a working iPhone. I am waiting for the white one and will get that one when it comes out. But the guy at the store did talk to me about the problem, he picked up the phone and held it and sure enough, the bars disappeared one by one. I tried it next and the bars stayed put. No matter what I did there were still five bars on the top left of the phone.

I had to conclude that I was more of a conductor than he was. I tried it with the other working iPhone on the stand and the same thing happened.

Maybe my skin has more salt in it and that makes the signal jump across any part of the antenna gap that my hand is covering. Maybe it's some kind of voodoo magic. Same phone, same place, just different people holding it.
 
The bars are all but meaningless on digital service. All that counts is are you connected or not. If you have no bars and you are connected it's the same as 5 bars and connected. People are so obsessed with something that actually represents next to nothing and is only there because the first digital cell phones "forgot" to remove this unnecessary and confusing feature. Now people expect them. What if it had 5000 bars and you were only getting 1? You would still be able to make and receive calls.
 
Same thing here with mine and my wife's

My wife and I got iPhones on the same day. I could hold either phone with my left hand in our foyer and the signals starts to die.

She could hold either phone in the same way and nothing happens.

Our assumption is that body type has a part in the equation. I tend to perspire more than...
 
Fabienne said:
I went to AT&T yesterday to take my first real look at a working iPhone. I am waiting for the white one and will get that one when it comes out. But the guy at the store did talk to me about the problem, he picked up the phone and held it and sure enough, the bars disappeared one by one. I tried it next and the bars stayed put. No matter what I did there were still five bars on the top left of the phone.

I had to conclude that I was more of a conductor than he was. I tried it with the other working iPhone on the stand and the same thing happened.

Maybe my skin has more salt in it and that makes the signal jump across any part of the antenna gap that my hand is covering. Maybe it's some kind of voodoo magic. Same phone, same place, just different people holding it.
Click to expand...

Interesting. The key is that you got the same result with each different phone you tried.
 
SailorMike said:
My wife and I got iPhones on the same day. I could hold either phone with my left hand in our foyer and the signals starts to die.

She could hold either phone in the same way and nothing happens.

Our assumption is that body type has a part in the equation. I tend to perspire more than...
Click to expand...

And along with Fabienne's response, it would seem that different people has different effects on the conduction of how the antenna reacts.
 
that has been discussed and treated several times already

Location AND person is a deciding factor, yes

the interesting part is, that in the video i posted above, location AND person stay the same, while it's only the device that's different.

which COULD indicate that there are devices more sensitive than others
 
Fliesen said:
just today, i bumped the original thread about this proof

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/10454051/

to quote myself:
Click to expand...

What's funny is that you have to dig up that thread. It shows two phones, one losing signal and the other not. Many have been saying that there's no evidence of one phone working in a location and the other not, but when the evidence is provided, it's ignored by these same people.

Here's the thread, BTW that the video was in:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/960731/
 
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