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MacRumors Poll: iPhone 4 Signal Loss by Region

Voted yes in US, I can get the issue to happen by bridging the two antennas, and it does seem to be more severe than most other phones as far as potential signal loss. However the problem doesn't appear to always be reproducible for me, leading me to believe other factors (cell towers, skin moisture, etc) are involved.

However, the issue doesn't really affect me because virtually none of my natural positions of holding the phone bridge this gap.
 
my wife and i bought our iPhone 4s in Charleston, SC on launch day. Both of our phones are fine and not experiencing signal loss with and without the "bumper" case. I know many of you won't buy the bumper case, but my wife has butterfingers. On the way back to Louisiana ( home ) the 3G coverage was very spotty along I-10 in Florida, and even parts of Alabama and Mississippi. The majority of the time we were on the Edge network with little to no bars. Once we got into Louisiana most of the trip along I-10 was 3G with full signal. Thought i would share our experience while traveling. BTW i know Baton Rouge has an Apple Store, but we were on vacation, getting the iPhones were lagniappe to a great vacation!
 
SPUY767 said:
If you hold the phone like you were born with flippers instead of hands, you can make the antenna lose signal. If you hold the phone like every normal person in the world, it's not a problem.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it is... I get the problem consistently when I hold my phone normally (with my mostly non-flippered left hand.)
 
Strange

This is quite weird, I have been getting this issue on my 3g.
when I unlock it, it has full reception bars, but within 5 seconds, they start going down to 2 reception bars.

I'm not sure wether this has happened since the iOS 4 update or wether it always happened and I never realised. still very weird.
 
This is actually an issue - at least for me! When my iPhone 4 is sitting on my desk it gets 5 bar signal, and a 3G link (the 3G indicator is shown). However, when I pick it up (I am left handed so would hold it in that hand naturally), the signal strength drops to 1 bar and the 3G connection is lost (so 2G fall back). It's is repeatable every single time.

Using a black iPhone 4 32GB on Orange.

A
 
smarch said:
I wish all of the reporting on this "issue" would stop! like steve says all phones have some signal loss when you hold them different ways, I love my iPhone 4 more than life itself, I want everybody else to get one, i want apple to sell a billion, and stupid people LOVE to feel 'smart' they aren't getting one because they heard 'doesn't that phone not make phone calls when you hold it hahaha blahblahblah. my phone loses some signalwhen you cover that gap, but I just don't hold it there and it works fine for the most part even if I do. it's just like with other iPhones when I would sit there trying to figure a good way o hold it when I was in a basement or something

STOP MAKING THIS THE STORY. THE STORY IS THAT THE IPHONE4 IS AWESOME!!!!!
Click to expand...

you=ate up!
 
Kuro said:
I think the reason this is affecting some people and not others is not a case of location, but a case of the person using it. I get signal loss on my UK iPhone 4 so I went back to the store and they had no idea what I was on about, they said their demo phone was fine. I try their demo phone, signal gone within 30 seconds. The store manager then went on to try my one I'd been experiencing the issue with, nothing happened.

I think this is caused dependant on how conductive you happen to be, does anyone scientific have any idea if humans can be more or less conductive than one another?
Click to expand...

Yep you're exactly right. I've done some testing with 3 different phones and 6 different people. I can make the signal go down on all 3 phones, while 4 of my friends have no affect on any phone while standing in the exact same spot. Out of the 6 of us, only 2 of us can make any of the iphones drop more than 1 bar. And even then that is not all of the time. The other 4 generally have no effect on any of the 3 phones, but 3 of them can sometimes make it drop 1 bar or move up and down a bar.

The problem gets even weirder, sometimes when I make my phone supposedly lose it's signal so it says 'no service', I can still browse the web and start to make a call. WiFi was off at this time.

It seems to be a combination of design, software, where you are specifically located and how conductive you are at a given time.
 
FaustsHausUK said:
I've tried all kinds of crab-handed configurations of fingers around the edge of the band and it just doesn't happen for me. I'm not saying it doesn't happen for others, but thus far, I'm seeing nothing... and it's performing much better than my 3G did in general.
Click to expand...

Same for me exactly. I've had a constant signal no matter where I am in my city nor whatever hand configuration I've tried. The iPhone 4 is lightyears ahead of what my 3G was in connections. I'm still concerned about all those others having problems.
 
For me, the problem is location sensitive. When I'm at school, I can't reproduce the problem... at home it happens every time. (I start out at 5 bars in both places) I have no idea why this would be, but the results have been consistent over two days now.
 
I've tried yesterday at T-Mobile Germany. Full bars on the table, down to 1 bar in left hand in 5 seconds. Back to five in right hand.

Now I can tell my friends that the outer metal construction is not only design, no, this part of the chassis is the antenna, how amazing is that? And as a prove, I'll make an arkward positioning with my right fingers and show them the bars fading away :rolleyes:

So, what's true love? It's loving someone's bugs and quirks. And I'll love iPhone 4 forever. Think different :apple:
 
Wirelessly posted (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)

You need to distinguish between this happening a little (which happens with my 3GS and many other phones) and it happening to a degree that makes the phone unable to connect. It's a matter of degree, but there's a sharp difference between "weaker signal" and "unusable."
 
You know, if I solder two wires between the antennae, I find that my phone no longer has service.
 
Some enterprising developer needs to come up with a quick Mark the Spot type app for this specific issue. Then use that data to track where and when it is happening. Wish I had the time.

Definitely happens to me and is pretty easy to reproduce.
 
What is this poll supposedly for?
The only useful information would be to show if there has been a particular 'bad batch' sent to one or two countries but not the others:
Any other issues with reception depend on more precise locationing than this - specifically, what network (frequencies used / frequency spread), which cell tower (as adjacent cells have different frequencies to provide overlapping coverage without interference), distance to mast (signal strength) etc.
 
SPUY767 said:
If you hold the phone like you were born with flippers instead of hands, you can make the antenna lose signal. If you hold the phone like every normal person in the world, it's not a problem.
Click to expand...

You mean, in my hand just like the picture of Steve Jobs during WWDC? You know, the way he says is WRONG. That way? Like everyone else I know?

How do you hold it - with tongs? :rolleyes:
 
clarksonknight said:
This might be the most unscientific poll I've ever seen. You need a poll for each region.
Click to expand...

Any poll limited to macrumors members who choose to respond is unscientific.

Having said that, I haven't been able to reproduce this issue. I do live in an area with very good AT&T coverage (I get a good signal in my basement), which may or may not matter.
 
Based on a reported email response, Steve essentially says 'don’t hold the iPhone like you would normally hold any other phone’ (tweezers not included).

So, if you’re among the few million right-handed humans and need to initiate a third party call (or anything else), you could possibly drop the call by the manner in how you would cradle the phone in your left hand while navigating the touch screen.

The fix seems to require that you spend 30-bucks for the Apple ‘Bumper’ just to be able to use the phone without dropping your call. Man, talk about 'product placement' for an Apple accessory!
 
It's two antennae, not two antenna.

Correct the main article.

Sure the intended audience for mr has become 14-15 year olds, but that doesn't mean you should spell as well as they do. They too need to learn spelling.
 
On a personal note...

The dude in the video was a bit annoying... all too easy.
If he didn't like it dropping out he should've just returned the deveice...
:p
 
The first day I got my iPhone, I dropped 10 calls trying to talk to my friend. This was in a time period of 5 minutes. I am extremely disappointed. How can I go a year without being able to hold the phone comfortably?
 
Without working it out precisely just looking at the poll its obvious that half of all users in each area are experiencing the problem, so no its not regional.
 
I have a feeling this issue is a bit exaggerated considering I lose 2 or 3 bars when holding my iPhone 3G. But then again, I don't have an iPhone 4, so I don't know.
 
This is a woefully inaccurate and relatively pointless poll. The U.S. has the largest amount of iPhone 4 users also compound that by the fact that most Macrumors users are U.S. based. :eek: No surprise here!! whoa a whopping 29% of US users are facing issues? duh... please post the statistical methodology behind this survey.

I am for sure suffering the from the "signal loss issue" but it generally does not result in any lost calls and is a non issue now that I am using a case.
 
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