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My first dropped call with an iPhone ever!

Azmontana

Azmontana

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 27, 2008
113
0
Ok I know this has been talked about a million times but the fact that people are defending Apple I find strange, the antenna design is a design flaw and this is why.

Speaking to a friend today (with my 3G I used to get full bars in my house, now I get 3) I was holding the phone in a simple manner i.e. no deathgrip when my pinky finger by accident just touched the death spot for less than a second and the call was dropped.

Now to comment on what SJ said previous generation iPhones had this problem, maybe so but a slight touch did not drop the call or the death spot was in a more covert location away from fingers.

Most of you are going to say get a bumper on it or return it. First of all I think the bumpers look really tacky and second of all apart from this I think the iPhone 4 is an excellent phone it does everything you want it to but I think Apple needs to address the design flaw and stop pointing the finger to others.

Just my two cents, I have been an loyal apple fan for many years but they need to admit the fact that they made a design error and fix it.
 
Agreed. people are focused on the deathgrip when the deathgrip isnt an issue. do you realy engulf your phone when making a call? NO. but your pinky finger most certinly will touch the lower left corner on a phone with the same size as teh iphone 4.

love the phone. thankfull for the bumper. but apple. be honest about it dont sling mud at other companies...
 
Apple is not going to do anything to physically modify your iPhone 4. Also, most iPhone 4 owners don't have this problem and Apple can't make iPhone 4s fast enough. Where does this leave you?
 
I know what you mean about the pinky lightly resting on the magic spot. I don't yet have an iPhone, but I tried out my natural grip on the iPhones in the Apple store, and sure enough, my pinky likes to rest right there too.

At this point, Apple IS working on fixing the antenna design/issue. But you're not gonna see it until next summer.

I understand why you and so many other people are soooo frustrated about this. You wouldn't care so much if the phone wasn't so freaking awesome in all other respects. If not, you really could say "it's just a phone, get over it, and move on". Because it's not just a phone. It's an iPhone. And it's kick-ass.

It's a shame this antenna thing came about. But at this point, Apple's been pretty clear about how they see it. It's case it, or return it. Maybe you could try some clear tape over the spot? Or get the InvisibleShield kit that just covers the sides. That might be a good compromise for you so you don't need to give up on the phone.
 
MisterDisney said:
Apple is not going to do anything to physically modify your iPhone 4. Also, most iPhone 4 owners don't have this problem and Apple can't make iPhone 4s fast enough. Where does this leave you?
Click to expand...

If thats the case then something has gone wrong in production, why do some phones suffer and other don't, thats what people and Apple should be asking.
 
Azmontana said:
If thats the case then something has gone wrong in production, why do some phones suffer and other don't, thats what people and Apple should be asking.
Click to expand...

the problem is afflicting everyone.
its just more apparent in low reception areas. cause there calls drop the second u put your finger on it.
 
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)

How many times can you reproduce this or was this a freak incident?
 
MisterDisney said:
Apple is not going to do anything to physically modify your iPhone 4. Also, most iPhone 4 owners don't have this problem and Apple can't make iPhone 4s fast enough. Where does this leave you?
Click to expand...

Actually they do, just have not experienced it yet. Like a Toyota, just because you haven't had runaway acceleration, doesn't mean your car doesn't have the problem.
 
Call drops are area dependent. I live in Nassau county on LI, NY. I never had a dropped call with both my previous 3G and current 4, but I had several dropped calls driving through Brooklyn and in Kensington, MD when I was there for 1 month.
 
Azmontana said:
Ok I know this has been talked about a million times but the fact that people are defending Apple I find strange, the antenna design is a design flaw and this is why.

Speaking to a friend today (with my 3G I used to get full bars in my house, now I get 3) I was holding the phone in a simple manner i.e. no deathgrip when my pinky finger by accident just touched the death spot for less than a second and the call was dropped.

Now to comment on what SJ said previous generation iPhones had this problem, maybe so but a slight touch did not drop the call or the death spot was in a more covert location away from fingers.

Most of you are going to say get a bumper on it or return it. First of all I think the bumpers look really tacky and second of all apart from this I think the iPhone 4 is an excellent phone it does everything you want it to but I think Apple needs to address the design flaw and stop pointing the finger to others.

Just my two cents, I have been an loyal apple fan for many years but they need to admit the fact that they made a design error and fix it.
Click to expand...

This same type of scenario is the reason I had to take mine back. I love the device and wish it worked like a charm, but the phone being in the piss poor shape it is in was just not acceptable. For example, here in my office I never got more than 3 bars on my iPhone 4. Back on my BB 9700 and I have full signal and I cannot replicate the LOS that Apple showed in their press conference.

The thing that really sucks about all of this is that, not expecting to have to take the thing back, I already sold my iPod.
 
feddy84 said:
the problem is afflicting everyone.
its just more apparent in low reception areas. cause there calls drop the second u put your finger on it.
Click to expand...
Absolutes like; "the problem is afflicting everyone" are so funny. Everyone and every iPhone 4, really? There is no data to support these claims. I travel in & out of AT&T's service area daily, yet even in fringe coverage areas have been unable to recreate the scenario with phone bars, or calls, dropping while holding the phone across the antenna bands. And "cause there calls drop the second u put your finger on it" is just silly. I'm in these low reception areas 4-6 hours daily & have no problems making & receiving calls. Have I ever dropped a call with my iPhone 4, yes, twice I believe. These calls were dropped in the same locations I would drop calls with my iPhone 3GS, my iPhone 3G, my original iPhone and all my previous Non-Apple phones. No doubt many people are having antenna related issues with the iPhone 4, the point is NOT everyone is.
 
Azmontana said:
Speaking to a friend today (with my 3G I used to get full bars in my house, now I get 3) I was holding the phone in a simple manner i.e. no deathgrip when my pinky finger by accident just touched the death spot for less than a second and the call was dropped.
Click to expand...
Do you have 4.0.1 installed? The update changes the ratio between signal strength and number of bars displayed.
 
You do realize that Apple changed the way the phone display the signal strength, right?

You cannot really compare your old iPhone 3G with the iPhone 4 in that regard, unless they both had the newest update.
 
My mom called me today and I had the phone in my pocket and was using the headphones. It was fine.

Fine until I tried to take the phone out of my pocket, so with 2 fingers on the top left of the phone as i pulled it out the phone call dropped.

so yeah it's a design flow.

Ive said this once before but i will say it again, those who have a perfectly functioning phone, you guys are lucky but you think most iphones are fine except a small bad batch. Those of us who have flawed phones assume most are flawed with a small perfect batch.

anyway.
 
I would have to say that it's probably area dependent.

I drop calls all the time. I would go so much as to say the complete opposite of what Apple claims, <1 dropped call per 100

I would half-halfheartedly exaggerate that I've KEPT <1 call per 100
but seriously, not a day goes by without it dropping on 80-90% of the calls I make.

Some of my calls are so short most of the time that thank god they drop at the last second. But still, it's become ridiculous enough I'm trying to decide if I should wait till the bumper gets to me or just move to droid x.
 
Had almost the same thing happen this weekend to me. I decided to remove the bumper for the day and go naked again. I was at my folks house, not a great area for 3G, and while talking on the phone with a friend my pinky was just resting on the magic area. During the call I noticed it started to breakup and I decided to go outside, still had the problem there too. I looked down and noticed that my pinky was touching and saw one bar. As soon as I lifted the finger it got better right away.
 
Toyota analogy is not a good one. Every iPhone has the problem but, how you hold it, and how your coverage is, defines whether you drop a call or not.

Another issue, that rarely gets talked about, is the amount of use. I did almost 2000 calls last month, so I'm VERY aware of the problems because my sample size is huge. Some of my buddies claim they have "perfect" iPhones that "never" drops calls. They average 250-500 calls and with their "perfect" phones I can get them to drop within about 1 min at my house by barely contacting the lower left part of the phone.

All that said, the bumper fixed the signal drop but my IP4 still drops more calls than my 3Gs. I would say 1 out of 50 or so.




ash =o)
 
I had been T-Mobile TOGO user forever - recently jumped to Iphone 4 and AT&T - :) I never ever had dropped call on T-Mobile - keeps me wondering why its so hard for AT&T+Apple to not have dropped call (I know dropped calls is not entirely true with Iphone 4, its always been AT&T mojo)
 
Cool story bro...

Just kidding! Sorry that you're having iPhone 4 problems. I would take the phone back and try a different phone to see if the iPhone 4 is really the root of your problems.
 
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