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has antennagate been fixed

Eso said:
In how many threads must I link you to multiple articles that conclude, through measuring the signal, that there is a problem when touching the gap on the antenna? At this point you are either willfully ignorant or simply obtuse, by either refusing to read said articles or failing to understand them, and continue to believe whatever you want despite evidence to the contrary.
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If there were such an issue with said antenna, then there would've been a recall of some sort. What you fail to realize is that this "issue" was all media driven. I've never had an issue with the antenna and so have millions of users.

Only people who have nothing better to do like nitpicking on their iPhones and see what they can make the iPhone do wrong, suffer from such issue. Hold it like a normal, sane person would and you should be ok.
 
iphone3gs16gb said:
If there were such an issue with said antenna, then there would've been a recall of some sort. What you fail to realize is that this "issue" was all media driven. I've never had an issue with the antenna and so have millions of users.

Only people who have nothing better to do like nitpicking on their iPhones and see what they can make the iPhone do wrong, suffer from such issue. Hold it like a normal, sane person would and you should be ok.
Click to expand...

So it's willfully ignorant, got it.

Also, recalls are not warranted unless the defect poses a safety hazard.
 
iphone3gs16gb said:
If there were such an issue with said antenna, then there would've been a recall of some sort. What you fail to realize is that this "issue" was all media driven. I've never had an issue with the antenna and so have millions of users.

Only people who have nothing better to do like nitpicking on their iPhones and see what they can make the iPhone do wrong, suffer from such issue. Hold it like a normal, sane person would and you should be ok.
Click to expand...

Hehe. This post wreaks of denial. Anyways - how does a "normal, sane person" hold their phone? Would you demonstrate that for us please? I am really interested in knowing how you hold it.
 
iphone3gs16gb said:
If there were such an issue with said antenna, then there would've been a recall of some sort. What you fail to realize is that this "issue" was all media driven. I've never had an issue with the antenna and so have millions of users.

Only people who have nothing better to do like nitpicking on their iPhones and see what they can make the iPhone do wrong, suffer from such issue. Hold it like a normal, sane person would and you should be ok.
Click to expand...
A flawed product doesn't mean it's un-usable and warrants a recall. It means it's flawed and won't work as well as say, an earlier model.

In this case, antenna was put on the outside of the phone 4, resulting in worse (7-10x) signal attenuation when holding the phone normally (no death grip). This results in a worse antenna performance than the 3GS. This has been proven.

What happened when the 3G came out? People complained battery life was worse than the 2G. 3GS? No surprise, it was still bad. Were people nit picking? No, they wanted better battery performance. Did it require a recall? Nope, it required a better battery and better battery management. What did speaking up get? Industry leading battery performance with the iPhone4.

Antennagate is the same thing. Antenna performance got worse with the newer model. Does it require a recall? Nope, it just requires better antenna design. Put it back inside the phone, like the 3GS.

It never ceases to amaze me how Apple defenders never want to criticize their products. They HAVE to realize even though they are better than the competition in many ways, they still can be improved. Even more so, they don't want to admit when the products take a step back or have flaws. It used to be AT&T, battery life, multi-tasking, a better camera. Look what complaining got - better battery life, camera, multi-tasking, Verizon iPhone! See how it works?

Speak up. Don't you want better notifications? Maybe a bigger screen? More UI customization? A better antenna? Just because others experience the issue, why do you feel the need to deny their claims. If it results in a better iPhone with a better antenna, you would benefit as well. How is that a bad thing?
 
AbSoluTc said:
Hehe. This post wreaks of denial. Anyways - how does a "normal, sane person" hold their phone? Would you demonstrate that for us please? I am really interested in knowing how you hold it.
Click to expand...

You hold it like this:

best%2Bway%2Bto%2Bholding%2Biphone%2B4.jpg


can you see it?
 
Rhonen said:
A flawed product doesn't mean it's un-usable and warrants a recall. It means it's flawed and won't work as well as say, an earlier model.

In this case, antenna was put on the outside of the phone 4, resulting in worse (7-10x) signal attenuation when holding the phone normally (no death grip). This results in a worse antenna performance than the 3GS. This has been proven.

What happened when the 3G came out? People complained battery life was worse than the 2G. 3GS? No surprise, it was still bad. Were people nit picking? No, they wanted better battery performance. Did it require a recall? Nope, it required a better battery and better battery management. What did speaking up get? Industry leading battery performance with the iPhone4.

Antennagate is the same thing. Antenna performance got worse with the newer model. Does it require a recall? Nope, it just requires better antenna design. Put it back inside the phone, like the 3GS.

It never ceases to amaze me how Apple defenders never want to criticize their products. They HAVE to realize even though they are better than the competition in many ways, they still can be improved. Even more so, they don't want to admit when the products take a step back or have flaws. It used to be AT&T, battery life, multi-tasking, a better camera. Look what complaining got - better battery life, camera, multi-tasking, Verizon iPhone! See how it works?

Speak up. Don't you want better notifications? Maybe a bigger screen? More UI customization? A better antenna? Just because others experience the issue, why do you feel the need to deny their claims. If it results in a better iPhone with a better antenna, you would benefit as well. How is that a bad thing?
Click to expand...


Worse antenna performance? My roommate has a 3GS and I have a 4. He gets one bar which constantly drops to searching while I get 1-3 bars and no searching at home. How's that worse?
 
cloakedpegasus said:
I'm wondering if the antenna gate problem has been fixed on recent production iphones or refurbished iphones. Does anyone know?
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some people claim it still happens to them on their verizon iphone, however my verizon iphone is not affected by it all. i could not be more thrilled with this new phone
 
Dandrews524 said:
some people claim it still happens to them on their verizon iphone, however my verizon iphone is not affected by it all. i could not be more thrilled with this new phone
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Same here, no issues at all with the Verizon iPhone and the antenna problem. I've tried and tried and tried and I cannot get my phone to do it.
 
Rhonen said:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4163/verizon-iphone-4-review/2

Anandtech shows the Verizon ip4 is slightly better than the att ip4. However, it is still 7 x worse signal attenuation, when holding normally (no death grip) than the 3gs.

the reason why the 3gs doesn't attenuate 7-10x worse like the ip4 is simply bc the antenna is on the inside. By putting the antenna on the outside, Apple worsened signal attenuation 7-10 x. It is a design flaw, antennagate is real.

Apple can't fix it until they fix the design flaw and put the antenna back on the inside.
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Thanks for posting that link. I haven't read through it yet but Anandtech is a fairly reliable source when it comes to these things.
 
Rhonen said:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4163/verizon-iphone-4-review/2
Proven, iPhone 4 has 7-10x worse signal attenuation than the 3GS. [Bold added]
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Oh for crying out loud... Let's look at that report:

  1. The report only describes attenuation, not the signal strength or the reliability of each phone in extracting a signal.
  2. When held 'naturally' the 3GS is an outlier in having low attenuation compared to the other phones on test. Indeed, 3GS has the lowest attenuation when held this way. So, yes, the iPhone4's attenuation is worse but so are the values for all of the other smartphones tested.
  3. All 10 phones showed moderate attenuation in the death grip and little attenuation when held in the palm of the hand. From this we conclude that all phones are subject to the laws of physics. Shame on Apple for not creating a parallel universe in which physical laws differ for the iPhone.
  4. Finally, it appears only one of each phone has been tested. So just because a given phone on test has a higher or lower value than a single example of another brand or model, we cannot conclude that there is any difference among the brands/models on average. In short, although the report is thorough, and has presented a few numbers from a whopping sample of 10 phones, it tells us nothing about the relative merits of each brand or model. The only rational verdict from this report: nothing proven.

I am a scientist. I tell you honestly I despair about how many of us - the popular press in particular - evaluate 'evidence'.
 
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VulchR said:
Oh for crying out loud... Let's look at that report:

  1. The report only describes attenuation, not the signal strength or the reliability of each phone in extracting a signal.
  2. When held 'naturally' the 3GS is an outlier in having low attenuation compared to the other phones on test. Indeed, 3GS has the lowest attenuation when held this way. So, yes, the iPhone4's attenuation is worse but so are the values for all of the other smartphones tested.
  3. All 10 phones showed moderate attenuation in the death grip and little attenuation when held in the palm of the hand. From this we conclude that all phones are subject to the laws of physics. Shame on Apple for not creating a parallel universe in which physical laws differ for the iPhone.
  4. Finally, it appears only one of each phone has been tested. So just because a given phone on test has a higher or lower value than a single example of another brand or model, we cannot conclude that there is any difference among the brands/models on average. In short, although the report is thorough, and has presented a few numbers from a whopping sample of 10 phones, it tells us nothing about the relative merits of each brand or model. The only rational verdict from this report: nothing proven.

I am a scientist. I tell you honestly I despair about how many of us - the popular press in particular - evaluate 'evidence'.
Click to expand...
It's not a report, it's a REVIEW. The purpose isn't to find the average phone attenuation and throw out the outliers. It's to directly compare individual products.

Physics says if you touch an exposed antenna with your bare skin, you will de-tune the antenna, resulting in worse signal attenuation. The solution is to insulate the antenna, ie., putting it on the inside of the phone. It's no coincidence that the 3GS, with its antenna on the inside, has vastly less signal attenuation than the ip4 since its antenna is on the inside. It's also no coincidence that when you insulation the ip4 antenna (with a case), signal attenuation vastly decreases as well.

Take antenna > put it on outside > hold phone > phone du-tunes > worse signal attenuation. FACT. As a scientist, I'm sure you can appreciate the laws of physics and the proof behind this one.
 
Rhonen said:
It's not a report, it's a REVIEW. The purpose isn't to find the average phone attenuation and throw out the outliers. It's to directly compare individual products.
Click to expand...

We agree. The review allows conclusions to be drawn only about the 10 phones that it sampled, not any other phones. Thus, one cannot make conclusions about iPhones in general from the review.

Physics says if you touch an exposed antenna with your bare skin, you will de-tune the antenna, resulting in worse signal attenuation. The solution is to insulate the antenna, ie., putting it on the inside of the phone. It's no coincidence that the 3GS, with its antenna on the inside, has vastly less signal attenuation than the ip4 since its antenna is on the inside. It's also no coincidence that when you insulation the ip4 antenna (with a case), signal attenuation vastly decreases as well.
Click to expand...

Perhaps detuning occurs, but there is another bit of physics at work that looks like it has a more profound effect. Otherwise, how do you explain that all of the phones - that's 10 out of 10 - have more attenuation with the death grip that being held naturally or in the palm of the hand? Presumably in the 8/10 of phones with internal antennae something other than antenna detuning is causing the death grip attenuation. That illustrates my point: the iPhone4 is not uniquely vulnerable to being held tightly. And also of course attenuation in the signal is not the only determinant of how well a phone actually handles a call.

Take antenna > put it on outside > hold phone > phone du-tunes > worse signal attenuation. FACT. As a scientist, I'm sure you can appreciate the laws of physics and the proof behind this one.
Click to expand...
[Bold added]

Are you so sure about this? Think about it. In open palm the 3GS has attenuation of 0.2 dBm and in the death grip its attenuation is 14.3 dBm, an increase in attenuation of 14.1 dBm. The corresponding figures in the Verizon iPhone 4 are 7.9 and 16.5, an increase in attenuation of 8.6 dBm. For the much-maligned AT&T iPhone4, the values are 9.2 and 24.6, for an increase of 15.4 dBm. So the 3GS, with its internal antenna, is affected more by the death grip than the Verizon iPhone 4 and only 1.3 dBM less affected than the AT&T iPhone 4. So... while the possibility of antenna detuning is a plausible mechanism for attenuation in the iPhone4, in this sample the death grip affected all phones, including the 3GS to the point it has a worse impact than on the Verizon iP4 and about the same impact as the AT&T iP4.

To a scientist, 'proof' is the strongest assertion possible. That's why I wrote my post, not to be offensive, but to point out that the public and the press should have a more healthy skepticism about everything that passes as 'proof'.
 
I've pretty much gotten over the antenna issue with my iPhone. Yeah, I can kill all downloads with just the tip of my finger. I have yet to see another phone do that.

I just got used to forcing myself to stay away from that black line on the side.

Buying a case is an unacceptable solution.

Apple builds a phone with the antenna on the outside so that you need to put the phone IN something for the antenna to be on the inside? Why didn't they just build the iPhone 4 in a permanent case? Oh yeah, that's right... then it would look like a 3G or 3GS.
 
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