Again, it would not drop infinite more calls, it would drop infinite times more calls.
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iPhone 4 may be dropping as many as 100% more calls than iPhone 3GS
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Again, it would not drop infinite more calls, it would drop infinite times more calls.
No, it drops an infinite times as many calls, not infinity more. And yes, that is bad.
What? If it is "infinitely worse", how can I still make a call?
Does that mean my phone is still better than a phone that can't make any call at all? If so, how can my phone be "infinitely worse"? These is some phone that is worse that mine!
I'm confused
But the numbers are SMALL. Having one penny or a billionth of a penny is still insignificant despite me increasing the value a billionth percent or whatever it is. You can't definitively say that the problem is solely the antenna system; the numbers are so small that it could be as a result of anything. No one should care with numbers so small.
Not every phone call made on AT&T's network is a smartphone. 75% of calls made could be from "dumb" phones, and 25% could be made from smartphones, and the average could still be possible to create a 1% drop call rate. That 1% represents ALL phones.
So that is completely wrong. The only way I'm wrong is if the problem affecting the iP4 affects ALL phones to a significant enough amount to cause dropped calls.
In all honesty, there are so many variables unknown here that it's just a bunch of wish-wash as the country folk from around here say.
EDIT: I retract this, as the data presented from AT&T is 3G dropped call rates, therefore dumb phones don't count. And even still, I'm correct in stating that the data we're using between Jobs and AT&T is mixing iP4 vs. 3GS and iP4 vs. all smartphones, and therefore is misleading in and of itself to try and make judgments based on that.
Let me restate this...
Steve Jobs did not use percentages because you can manipulate that figure to hell (He could've used 0.0000001% with the right formula and some haters here can go to infinity!) as other people have demonstrated. Thus, the absolute difference of <1 is not a big deal, no matter what level - and that figure does not change unless his data is inherently WRONG.
If that means someone won't purchase a new iPhone 4, so be it...but that's beside the point.
That doesn't matter. As my initial post said, even if the 3GS is significantly worse than the average at a 5% dropped call rate, the iPhone 4 is still 20% worse, which is still significant.
Oh, but he did. "1 per 100 calls" means exactly one percent. So, it's one extra percent of dropped calls or 100% percent increase in dropped calls compared to 3GS. It's a very basic math. There is absolutely no wiggle room here.
Or more likely being the king of bs he used absolute numbers in an ambiguous slide to make things appear cheery for apple. He was there as the lead actor in a damage control PR event, not as an advocate of statistical integrity.
It is exactly the point
. The number of dropped calls that people deem acceptable when choosing a phone is an entirely valid criteria. Having a new model that performs inferiorly to the previous is not "genius engineering". Perhaps if you value other things such as aesthetics as the predominant criteria when chosing a phone then it is "beside the point".You are kidding aren't you
?What? If it is "infinitely worse", how can I still make a call?
Does that mean my phone is still better than a phone that can't make any call at all? If so, how can my phone be "infinitely worse"? These is some phone that is worse that mine!
I'm confused
Yes, a phone that drops 0.00000......1 (finite number of zeros) calls is infinitely worse than a phone that drops 0 calls.
But the phone dropping 0.0000...1 calls will be HUGELY better than a phone dropping just 1 call.
And two phones can be equal and drop 100% of the calls.
Yup. If it was <1% of all calls, he would have said it. Instead he said "less than one additional call" per hundred than the 3GS. If the 3GS is in line with the drop rate for ATT, which is 1%, or 1 in 100, then and additional less than 1 in 100 calls more can be anywhere from 1.51 to 1.99 calls dropped per 100.
So based on the 1% drop rate for att, ip4 may drop up to 2% of its calls, which is 2x as bad or 100% more than 3Gs. OP is right.
The percentages don't matter at all here. If the 3GS drops 99 of 100 calls, and the iPhone 4 drops 99.7 of 100 calls, it increased by .7%. Which sounds like nothing. And if the 3GS drops 5 of 100 calls, and iP4 drops 5.7 calls of 100, it increased by 14%, which sounds like a lot. Yet, in both instances, we're still working with the same range of additional calls being dropped in comparison to the 3GS. I don't see why the percentages are so important here? They completely depend on the true number of dropped calls by the 3GS vs. the iP4, which WE DON'T KNOW.
EDIT: Basically, the closer the number is to 1 for dropped calls out of 100 by the 3GS, the worse the iP4 is going to look relatively to the 3GS (since the increase is less than 1, but assumed to be more than half of one), basing our assumptions of dropped calls on AT&T's reports to be similar to 3GS rates. But CONCRETELY, using the that criteria to real world rates, it still ONLY amounts to being an increase of 1 additional call out of 100 dropped, to a total of 2 out of 100, or 1 out of 50, however you would like to state it.
I'll admit, Jobs used the best looking route to present information. But it wasn't bs, it wasn't lying, and it wasn't fabricating the data. It was representing it in the best light to make the iP4 look not nearly as bad as other methods of stating it would appear.
Now if one additional call dropped per 100 is important to you (compared to the 3GS), so be it. Don't buy the iPhone 4. But if you are comparing the iPhone 4 to ALL other options out there, then this whole discussion is a waste of time.
It is exactly the point
The new antenna system in the iPhone 4 performs better than the previous iPhone for most people. It isn't inferior, except to the few who must touch the strip in normal use, happen to live in a weak-coverage area, and also don't use a case (which many happen to use anyway). A lot of people don't do all 3, so it's not an issue for most.
By what measure?
It is inferior from the point of dropping more calls than the previous version. It has gone from being positioned by apple as "genius engineering" and a significant marketing point, to now being defended on grounds of it being equivalent to other phones on the market (replete with anecdotal vids on the apple website). That's quite a hyperbolic marketing backpedal.
But, how can a phone be "infinitely worse" when there is still a phone that is still worse than it?
Can it be finitely worse?
By the way, today I just learned from MacRumors that the iPhone 4 can be infinitely worse than the 3GS. lol
Study mathematics some more and maybe you'll understand.
There are infinitely many different sizes of infinity, for one.
Because you can't divide by zero. And infinity is not a number.
There are infinities that are bigger than others, but not in this case.
Both the 0.000..1 and the 1 phones are infinitely worse than the 0 phone, and it's the same infinity, but infinity is not a number.
They are not only finitely times worse.
It is exactly the point
I know that dropped calls are an important criteria when it comes to making a purchasing decision of a phone. This topic has nothing to do with what people look at when buying phones. We're talking about how saying a drop rate increase of 100% is more alarming than it really is. That's it.
Ergo "The statistics are not as scary" does not mean that I conclude that "People don't consider dropped calls when purchasing iPhone 4s" nor does it suggest that I know of their tolerances...so I am not sure why you are calling me out on this
That's assuming 1 dropped call per 100 on the 3GS for the 100% increase in dropped calls. It could be up to a "divsion by zero error" increase in dropped calls if the 3GS never dropped. Anyway, sorry, I meant to clarify that Job's figure does not talk about drop rates but rather the number of dropped calls but the OP is using the delta percentage to create some drama even if he is mathematically correct.
The percentage of additional dropped calls is important because it tells us whether there is something seriously wrong with the phone or whether the data is just a fluke or due to something minor. If your old model dropped 98 calls out of 100 and your new one dropped 99 out of 100, that difference might be just due to chance, measuring error, etc., or some other trivial thing. But if your old model dropped 1 call out of 100 and your new one dropped 2 out of 100, then you've got something serious that should be investigated. That's why the percentage matter, because it gives you this picture.
The iPhone 4 gets better reception than other iPhones. This benefits ALL users. For people who might previously have not been able to make calls in weak-coverage areas, some find that they are now able to because of the new antenna system. That's why Apple lauded the new antenna system. Here's an example I just came across earlier: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/25/t...ng-less-calls/
The amount of calls that it drops as opposed to the iPhone 3GS is insignificant. I don't care if it drops an extra call for every 100 that I make. That could have been as a result of anything. I'd much rather have better reception. Apple has gotten a lot of heat lately though, and that's why they have to defend themselves by comparing their phone to others.
It's not upto a "division by zero error", it is the limit of x/y when y tends to +0 and x is a nonzero positive number, which is +infinity.
Not when it comes to antenna performance.
Eh let's not get too nitty-gritty here lol. I was not thinking about calculus since it's not that relevant. But you're right. Though it doesn't invalidate my overarching point.
So, how many percent is the phone that drops 0.0000...1 calls worse than the phone that drop 0 calls then? Is it "undefined" worse or what? 'cuz 0.0000...1/0 is undefined, right?
So you are saying the phone that drops 0.0000...1 calls are not better or worse than the phone that drop 1 calls?
If so, then ... OK.
If not, then how come the phone that drops 0.0000...1 call is better than the phone that drops 1 calls when the phone that drops 0.0000...1 calls is "infinitely worse"?