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iPhone 4 Drops Calls when Left Corner is Touched

Mine does the exact same thing

Just got my iphone 4 today (Wed) and I also have no signal after picking up the phone in my left hand, with palm touching corner. My calls get dropped or I can't make a call. I actually have to put the phone down to get my signal back. I have 3 bars when the phone is in its stand. Turning off the WiFi did not make any difference. Just for kicks I held the phone with my wallet (sort of like a clam shell) and I did not have the problem. I did not have this issue with my original iphone using it in the same room of my home.
 
I haven't gotten my iPhone 4 yet...but this scares the heck out of me. I'm right-handed....but I LOVE holding cellphones in my left hand. I have a Windows smartphone now, and I always hold it with the fleshy part of my palm touching that bottom left corner/section. I really hope they can get this fixed.....
 
Maybe this is a production defect that they can identify/remedy and, hopefully, not a design flaw.

As for the 600,000+ iphones that this could already effect, good luck getting it replaced at your genius bar in a timely fashion. I suppose this will make it just as difficult for those of us yet to pre-order/reserve to get our hands on our own. :(
 
Jonathan360 said:
I haven't gotten my iPhone 4 yet...but this scares the heck out of me. I'm right-handed....but I LOVE holding cellphones in my left hand. I have a Windows smartphone now, and I always hold it with the fleshy part of my palm touching that bottom left corner/section. I really hope they can get this fixed.....
Click to expand...

Same here. Right handed, but almost always hold phones in my left hand. And, unfortunately, I usually fit it so that my palm sorta supports that corner. Yeaayy...
 
Alrighty, I disabled my wifi, held my i4 by bottom left and loaded apple.com w/ no issues. 5 full signal bars. I've tried covering the whole band with both hands, and still 5 full bars. I also have zero yellow spots on my screen. So, this is not an issue with *all* iPhones. How many? and why? I dunno. But mine is fine.
 
hehehe
Is there a chance of some sort of conductivity between those antennae patches through some sort of sweaty hands?
Try shorting them on purpose, then try turning off the wifi
 
Suddenly that 'creative' way to use an antanae isn't so creative. I really doubt this is a surprise to Apple and I agree with other people that the purchased bumper case is a direct ploy to get people to buy an accessory. Apple has found yet another way to get you to buy stuff: purposely crippling your device.

Next year you'll need to sign up for MobileMe if you want to make phone calls at all and all phone calls will have to be placed within iTunes.
 
Take a look in the WWDC keynote where it shows the edge band and the antennas. The seam on the lower left insulates the GSM/UTMS antenna from the Bluetooth/WiFi/GPS antenna. The seam on the lower right is cosmetic only, to make the two sides look balanced. So it seems (no pun intended) that shorting the two antennas together is causing the problem.

The seam on the top of the phone also insulates the two antennas from each other, so it would be a good test to see if touching that seam, which would never happen in normal holding, causes the same behavior.

Optimally, the same guy should test with the same phones.
 
appleguy123 said:
How could this get through Apple's testing? BTW I subscribe to your YouTube, you seem very good.
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I honestly don't think this is a problem with the hardware. I know they say only some iPhone 4s seem to be affected, which says hardware issue, but I don't think so. Brilliant engineers work for years on this, and the product is surely rigorously tested, how could there be a hardware problem?

I'm think this has to do with AT&T.
 
WickedRabbit said:
Suddenly that 'creative' way to use an antanae isn't so creative. I really doubt this is a surprise to Apple and I agree with other people that the purchased bumper case is a direct ploy to get people to buy an accessory. Apple has found yet another way to get you to buy stuff: purposely crippling your device.

Next year you'll need to sign up for MobileMe if you want to make phone calls at all and all phone calls will have to be placed within iTunes.
Click to expand...

Actually, I heard they have made some cheeky business deal with glove companies :p
 
lathode said:
Alrighty, I disabled my wifi, held my i4 by bottom left and loaded apple.com w/ no issues. 5 full signal bars. I've tried covering the whole band with both hands, and still 5 full bars. I also have zero yellow spots on my screen. So, this is not an issue with *all* iPhones. How many? and why? I dunno. But mine is fine.
Click to expand...

I fully agree, I have had my iPhone 4 since 1pm today, and cannot reproduce these signal loss issues no matter where my hand is on the phone. Additionally, my screen is flawless. No complaints here whatsoever, except for the usual AT&T coverage issues in some areas.

EDIT: I have been able to reproduce this issue now.
WiFi MUST be OFF in order to cause this issue. With WiFi off, when the bottom-left seam is bridged with a conductor (metal such as a male usb connector, or a lot of skin -- only seems to work deep in the palm of my hand) the signal slowly drops from 5 bars to 2 bars every time. I have not been able to produce the same effect with either of the other two seams on the phone. With WiFi enabled, I cannot reproduce this issue. This is using the 3G radio (3G enabled). Does not seem to cause me to lose service completely.
 
Matt-M said:
Take a look in the WWDC keynote where it shows the edge band and the antennas. The seam on the lower left insulates the GSM/UTMS antenna from the Bluetooth/WiFi/GPS antenna. The seam on the lower right is cosmetic only, to make the two sides look balanced. So it seems (no pun intended) that shorting the two antennas together is causing the problem.

The seam on the top of the phone also insulates the two antennas from each other, so it would be a good test to see if touching that seam, which would never happen in normal holding, causes the same behavior.

Optimally, the same guy should test with the same phones.
Click to expand...

I was thinking about the same thing.
 
I heard that the affected phones (dropped calls and brown spots) all have a tell-tale mark on the back, something like "Made in China".

Do the Vietnamese / Taiwanese / Korean knock-offs have these features too ?
 
OGDaniel said:
I honestly don't think this is a problem with the hardware. I know they say only some iPhone 4s seem to be affected, which says hardware issue, but I don't think so. Brilliant engineers work for years on this, and the product is surely rigorously tested, how could there be a hardware problem?...
Click to expand...
You mean like how the back of the new iPhone is far from scratch resistant and people are reporting screen discoloration?
 
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