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Occam's razor, the bumper, and the iPhone 4 - A theory...
- Thread starter br0adband
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If Apple does come up with a fix, why would you return it? Or don't you think they can fix it? Not attacking you or anything, just curious.
I currently have one on order, set to ship the 14th and am tossing up canceling it and maybe buying the 32Gb 3GS. All the issues with the i4 kind of worry me. I don't presently have an iPhone, this will be my first. I currently have a 'dumb phone'.
Thanks for your input.
Thanks for the post. I have to say that I didn't even think about Apple field testing iPhone 4 prototypes with those 3G lookalike cases and how it would enhance reception without them realizing the design flaw in time. That's a very good point.
Besides absorption, is there any way our hands are just connecting the pulses between the various types of antennas and shorting them somehow? I wonder if software could just turn off antennas when one is in use. But then again, that would take away from multitasking on different networks.
Besides absorption, is there any way our hands are just connecting the pulses between the various types of antennas and shorting them somehow? I wonder if software could just turn off antennas when one is in use. But then again, that would take away from multitasking on different networks.
I kinda covered that aspect in the link in my sig, down near the bottom in a paragraph stating my precise reasons for returning it.
I don't care that this phone doesn't work as it should, honestly I don't. But it doesn't work, and I'm not alone so that makes it a real issue to me, and all I would like to see - for once in the history of Apple - is for either Steve Jobs himself or someone in some official capacity come out and say "Ok, we pooched it, we have a problem here and we're going to fix it, it's our mistake, however it happened, and we're going to make it right."
That's what all of us having problems with deserve if this turns out to really and seriously be a defect caused by the design of the phone meaning putting the antennas where they are and allowing potential skin-on-metal contact.
If it's not, and a simple firmware fix brings this phone to (nearly) 100% perfect working order, congrats to Apple.
But if they release such a piece of firmware, that means the phones do have a problem... and it starts all over again.
They'll release a fix, but they won't admit something is wrong and it's their fault. They'll find some other blame - "You're holding it wrong" "Turn off your Wi-Fi!" "Buy a bumper" - or some other childish rebuttal that does no one any justice whatsoever.
They don't make things better with such implied admissions that a problem exists, they just make things worse in the long run. And people still love 'em for it, which is beyond my ability to fathom...
One of my favorite commercials these days is the one from the alcoholic beverage maker Dos Equis with their "The Most Interesting Man In The World" setup. The setup is that the announcer makes comments about how cool and suave and sophisticated that guy is and this one really got me laughing pretty hard:
"If he punched you in the face, you'd have to fight off a strong urge to thank him for it."
I swear to some higher power I fully believe that the diehard Apple fanatics would feel the same way if it was Steve Jobs punching them in the face.
I feel like I got punched in the face when the phone didn't and still doesn't work as a cell phone should, and I'm not about to thank anyone for it.
I don't care that this phone doesn't work as it should, honestly I don't. But it doesn't work, and I'm not alone so that makes it a real issue to me, and all I would like to see - for once in the history of Apple - is for either Steve Jobs himself or someone in some official capacity come out and say "Ok, we pooched it, we have a problem here and we're going to fix it, it's our mistake, however it happened, and we're going to make it right."
That's what all of us having problems with deserve if this turns out to really and seriously be a defect caused by the design of the phone meaning putting the antennas where they are and allowing potential skin-on-metal contact.
If it's not, and a simple firmware fix brings this phone to (nearly) 100% perfect working order, congrats to Apple.
But if they release such a piece of firmware, that means the phones do have a problem... and it starts all over again.
They'll release a fix, but they won't admit something is wrong and it's their fault. They'll find some other blame - "You're holding it wrong" "Turn off your Wi-Fi!" "Buy a bumper" - or some other childish rebuttal that does no one any justice whatsoever.
They don't make things better with such implied admissions that a problem exists, they just make things worse in the long run. And people still love 'em for it, which is beyond my ability to fathom...
One of my favorite commercials these days is the one from the alcoholic beverage maker Dos Equis with their "The Most Interesting Man In The World" setup. The setup is that the announcer makes comments about how cool and suave and sophisticated that guy is and this one really got me laughing pretty hard:
"If he punched you in the face, you'd have to fight off a strong urge to thank him for it."
I swear to some higher power I fully believe that the diehard Apple fanatics would feel the same way if it was Steve Jobs punching them in the face.
I feel like I got punched in the face when the phone didn't and still doesn't work as a cell phone should, and I'm not about to thank anyone for it.
In my specific situation - and I have two friends with phones that are pretty much identical in how they work - disabling Wi-Fi/GPS/Bluetooth has no effect whatsoever. I can still kill the phone's 3G service completely in less than 1 minute with a fingertip on the lower right seam, each and every time I do the test, inside my apartment, outside on the balcony, even standing next to the AT&T central office building with the cell site/tower on top.
Doesn't matter, "It's dead, Jim."
Note that I'm saying in my specific situation, as I haven't duplicated my exact tests with one of those two other phones from friends. I might ask 'em over for dinner this week but honestly I think they've already returned theirs and moved to Android phones, I don't know at this moment.
I would argue that the antenna is the most important component of a cell phone. This whole thing seems fishy. I just can't comprehend that a company would overlook something as important as the antenna. I've spent my fair share of time speculating on the matter, but in the end, all of this is really speculation. My phone does not exhibit the reception issue, and this has been tested at home, at work, multiple restaurants and businesses around the south bay, and in multiple bars in San Francisco. In none of these places have I experienced the dreaded finger-of-death.
I agree that this could very well be a hardware issue though with a batch of phones, but maybe not all phones. Perhaps I am just lucky in the 10-20 places I've tested the phone for reception issues.
P.S. I have had my fair share of Apple hardware failures, and in no way am I apologetic or blind to Apple's mistakes. My dvd drive failed on my 12 inch powerbook. My third generation iPod stopped outputting audio due to a logic board failure, My 15 inch macbook pro had a faulty battery and a faulty logic board, and finally a failed iSight camera. These are extremely complicated pieces of hardware. Though inconvenient, all of the aforementioned problems have been fixed by Apple free of charge.
Let's hold on for a few more days before drawing any major conclusions. Perhaps it will be a simple firmware fix. Perhaps there really was a faulty batch of iPhones. Let's see how Apple responds. At least in my experience, Apple has been good about helping customers with faulty goods.
I agree that this could very well be a hardware issue though with a batch of phones, but maybe not all phones. Perhaps I am just lucky in the 10-20 places I've tested the phone for reception issues.
P.S. I have had my fair share of Apple hardware failures, and in no way am I apologetic or blind to Apple's mistakes. My dvd drive failed on my 12 inch powerbook. My third generation iPod stopped outputting audio due to a logic board failure, My 15 inch macbook pro had a faulty battery and a faulty logic board, and finally a failed iSight camera. These are extremely complicated pieces of hardware. Though inconvenient, all of the aforementioned problems have been fixed by Apple free of charge.
Let's hold on for a few more days before drawing any major conclusions. Perhaps it will be a simple firmware fix. Perhaps there really was a faulty batch of iPhones. Let's see how Apple responds. At least in my experience, Apple has been good about helping customers with faulty goods.
As other people reported, a bit repetitive. Regardless, to clearly indicate a theory you should have written less.
Also, I don't agree with the point on cell phone radiation since you indicated it was safe to hold it next to your head. It is probably a safe assumption that since most of the leading neurosurgeons won't hold a cell phone next to their heads that it is a BAD thing. The iPhone definitely doesn't register on the low-end of radiation by the way...
Call me crazy..
Also, I don't agree with the point on cell phone radiation since you indicated it was safe to hold it next to your head. It is probably a safe assumption that since most of the leading neurosurgeons won't hold a cell phone next to their heads that it is a BAD thing. The iPhone definitely doesn't register on the low-end of radiation by the way...
Call me crazy..
Did I actually say it's safe to hold it (presumably you mean the iPhone 4) next to my head? I did? Hrmmm... doesn't seem like I did. What I said was the exposure is generally regarded as "safe" considering the levels.
Do I think cell phones are a bad thing? Definitely, I do, but there's no way we're going to suddenly stop using them in today's world - we don't have any radio communications equipment that works in such ways in lower frequency ranges that are considerably less harmful.
But the simplest fact of all is: radiation of any kind tends to have negative effects, so...
"Repetition is the mother of all skill" is something I agree with, hence the repetition of many points in my posts. Most of the time, people don't get stuff the first time out - won't find too many people disputing that one.
Besides, what do doctors know, eh?
The OP really needs to learn the values of brevity.
That whole first post could have been one sentence: Apple knew about the design flaw, that's why they released the bumper.
That whole first post could have been one sentence: Apple knew about the design flaw, that's why they released the bumper.
I, for one, read and appreciated the post. Maybe a little irony in not applying the Razor to your own post (one must not multiply entities beyond necessity ), but hey, it was very informative and I suspect, true.
Thanks.
), but hey, it was very informative and I suspect, true. Thanks.
You misunderstood the meaning of the term "detuning" as it is relevant to antennas. Completely.
"Detuning" of an antenna refers to detuning of antenna resonance, or altering the resonance of the antenna to a wavelength other than that which it was designed for, resulting in a corresponding impedance mismatch and reduction of transmitted power and receive sensitivity.
(Damn, that high school electronics and ham radio license came in handy for something!
)Now, I will have to say that I thought "they're nuts" when I saw the pictures from WWDC on the live blogs. Who in their right mind would design any device with a microwave antenna where the metallic surface of the antenna is very likely to be touched constantly while in use? I mean, the old-school phones really made an effort to get the antenna out of the way. But, my microwave knowledge is limited. Perhaps direct contact isn't that much worse than that huge RF-absorbing mass of mostly-water holding onto the phone. Maybe they just challenged conventional wisdom found that it was nonsense. I can't imagine they didn't do testing, as surely others would have had the same initial reaction that I did. "What?! Are you insane?! The user is just going to be one giant detuned random-wavelength antenna! Prove that it will work!" That conversation HAD to take place. They had to have proved that it would work.
My guess is that something unexpected happened. Occam's Razor tells me that.
I think the bottom rail is key. According to the slides, it is not a part of either antenna. But what if inadvertently it is part of the WiFi/Bluetooth antenna? Or grounded? Maybe some last-minute different-sized component substitution or incorrect placement of a part during assembly caused unwanted contact. And thus opening up the ability to short the antenna to either the WiFi antenna or ground, which severely negative consequences.
There are only two parts to the antenna structure on the iPhone 4, as shown during the WWDC video:
I snapped that picture so people could load up the WWDC video (from here and go to the same point themselves if they wanted, about 34 minutes in is where he points out the "amazing" new idea of making the antennas a part of the chassis/frame of the phone. Nothing new about it, as Nokia has pointed out recently, but the general idea once again is you don't design anything so that people can touch the antenna, it's just not done.
While there is a notch in the lower right side, it's just that: a notch, it does not constitute a separation in the band and therefore - from the electrical perspective - will not have any affect on the tuning/detuning of that resonator. I guess they added the notch to make it look more symmetrical given the actual gap/seam on the left side, a visual design thing I suppose, but it offers no bearing on the performance of the GSM/UMTS antenna.
The fact that bridging that gap/seam and creating an electrical connection, short, whatever you'd like to call it, DOES affect performance as most of the people reporting in have stated - in my case, bridging that seam with my fingertip causes complete loss of service in less than a minute and I'm in an area of coverage one might even consider an overload.
Detuning would cause the cell phone to hop frequencies - you're creating so much signal attenuation that a loss of signal is happening, and if it triggers some threshold the phone is going to jump to another frequency aka channel in cell phone terms and try to acquire a better more reliable and hopefully more stable connection. The potential issue here (if it's a software one) is that the phone is either a) spending too much time looking for candidate channels or b) when it finds one it's not switching to that channel fast enough to "catch it" and stay locked on, especially if the attenuation remains constant, or in a lot of cases it gets worse (the signal strength degrades on a downward slope and doesn't recover).
I understand detuning quite well, thanks.
I appreciate that Apple can have some really smart folks on their payroll, but they can't simply rewrite how stuff actually works no matter how hard they try.
And yes, when I was writing the posts I did get a kick from the irony that me making my theories known would put me in Eleanor's exact position (the main character in "Contact"): making claims or providing theories that other people, pretty much everyone that reads them, will immediately discount and dismiss outright.
Guess I just like being different even when I'm fighting the tide, I suppose.
Someone asked me earlier today "What happens if you're right, if this is all spot on dead accurate and Apple does release a fix that actually works, and it resolves all the problems you're speculating about and their reasons for being?" and I said, "It won't matter, people won't focus on me and I'll disappear into the woodwork while Apple will continue to draw people in even in spite of this issue and many others like it. Swept under a rug while profits continue to be made, as always."
People that say I should have made a post with 13 words in it simply don't get communication and discussion anymore. I've been "chatting" and communicating using computers since the late 1970s, I come from a time when people had discussions and not one-sentence replies to everything as so many people do.
It's kind of sad that the idea of the Internet itself is to foster and share information anywhere, anytime, with anyone, and whenever someone does offer up what could potentially be a treasure trove of info (my posts notwithstanding) the reaction of so many is that dreaded "tl;dr" which is basically saying to me "I have no reading comprehension, someone give me a one-sentence version because I can't think for myself, and do it fast so I can post my one-sentence blast right back at this idiot for wasting our time."
It's a discussion forum, as stated right in the banner of the website itself, not someplace to drop twits...
What does Occam's razor say for the fact that I cannot replicate the issue?
Granted I am in NYC where signal strength may be better and, in fact, it has been stronger in places lately than it has in the past.
Is it just that I am lucky? My hands are weird? Ot is it the signal? (I do not think it is signal since many on these boards from NY also have complained).
I am not dismissing the problem as it does seem to impact a good percentage of folks on here (no one I know who owns it claims to have the issue but they may just be oblivious or not as tech savvy or knowledgeable to look up the matter).
As for you theory, I do not think the simplest solution is that they created the bumper to avoid the design flaw. The simplest solution is that they did not realize this would bother as many people and they just missed it. The bumper was made because they can make 99% profit margin on a piece of rubber. The case made for iPad which preceded this, in my opinion, refutes your theory.
Granted I am in NYC where signal strength may be better and, in fact, it has been stronger in places lately than it has in the past.
Is it just that I am lucky? My hands are weird? Ot is it the signal? (I do not think it is signal since many on these boards from NY also have complained).
I am not dismissing the problem as it does seem to impact a good percentage of folks on here (no one I know who owns it claims to have the issue but they may just be oblivious or not as tech savvy or knowledgeable to look up the matter).
As for you theory, I do not think the simplest solution is that they created the bumper to avoid the design flaw. The simplest solution is that they did not realize this would bother as many people and they just missed it. The bumper was made because they can make 99% profit margin on a piece of rubber. The case made for iPad which preceded this, in my opinion, refutes your theory.
Thank you for the technical posts by you and other members of the forum. It is nice to get the proper technical info from actual radio engineers. This was definitely a good read. Now we will sit back for a bit and see how Apple will fix/try to fix this issue.
You're approaching it backwards:
The simplest explanation/solution is the bumper itself, not the fact that they created it. If the issue is "oh crap, we have to do something to stop people from touching the metal" then the most elegant practical cheapest and still profitable solution while maintaining Apple's focus on design and showing the iPhone 4 off is the bumper.
See how simple it really is?
The case for the iPad is irrelevant and anyone that uses it in this kind of discussion shouldn't, really. It's a full body case, and the iPad already has protection for the 3G antenna since you can't touch it even if the iPad doesn't have the bump case on it.
Besides, there still isn't any other company that I'm aware of - out of HUNDREDS - of case and accessory makers for the iPhones, NOT ONE, that is making a bumper.
Only Apple is making them. Only Apple. Doesn't that seem a bit, odd? Strange? Weird?
Coincidence? Somehow, I don't think so considering the insane profit margin on such a thing. And first and foremost: Apple is a company in business to make the maximum profit from everything it sells, even simple rubber bands. I go looking at the websites for the most popular iPhone case makers: Griffin, Speck, iFrogz, Case-Mate, Otter-Box, InCase, and a few hundred others, and I've yet to see a bumper made by any of them. A simple "rubber band" and nobody else is producing them?
Are you kidding me?!?!?!?!
Did Apple suddenly slap a patent on the bumper's "magical" design or something? Did they include something in the contracts they have with licensed iPhone case and accessory makers saying "Do whatever you want, but don't make anything even remotely similar to this, the bumper, which is our design and don't infringe on it or we'll yank your licensing agreement."
How many clues do people need till they can actually see the bumper for what it is?
You said it yourself, albeit not quite with the right understanding: the bumper wasn't made specifically for the profit which is freakin' obscene, it was made to keep your hands off the damned metal band so you wouldn't start complaining if and when your phone has reception/signal problems, like many of us are.
And many posters have said they can't replicate the issue, maybe they're in strong signal and even overload areas too. You're not alone in the fact that you can't make it happen nor are you having problems, and I can respect that and understand it.
Now, return the favor and respect and understand that there are a ton of us that do.
It's funny that you cite Occam's Razor, since you had to write a tome to describe your theory. that in it itself disqualifies it as "the simplest explanation."
What you have instead is conjecture without any evidence. The more accurate axiom here is that you've built a house of cards.
What you have instead is conjecture without any evidence. The more accurate axiom here is that you've built a house of cards.
nice posting br0ady.
so what is the fix, if any? is it possible to boost the signal a little more in the hope that it might aid a little?
pretty big design flaw - rev2 will be coming out sooner then we think
so what is the fix, if any? is it possible to boost the signal a little more in the hope that it might aid a little?
pretty big design flaw - rev2 will be coming out sooner then we think
And an iPhone 4 sitting here on the desktop that fails to function as a hand-held cellular phone when I hold it in my hand and attempt to use it as a cellular phone.
Thanks for playing, next!!!
nice posting br0ady.
so what is the fix, if any? is it possible to boost the signal a little more in the hope that it might aid a little?
pretty big design flaw - rev2 will be coming out sooner then we think
I would suspect that we'll see:
a) a software fix that will handle the current fairly horrible attenuation levels by adjusting power output in the hopes of maintaining a better connection
b) a software fix that will handle the current fairly horrible detuning and necessary channel hopping which seems to be taking place but never actually locking on because it wasn't hopping fast enough, the lag was killing it (there was a posting at the Apple Support forums about that theory, it was removed several days ago, however)
c) a software fix that will address the signal strength indicator so it's showing "true signal strength" instead of the haphazard levels it shows now for many people
d) a software fix that will address some of the reported Wi-Fi signal reception issues (not nearly as bad as the 3G stuff but the reports are there regardless)
and a few other issues. If they can fix that/those issues, that's most of what's going on for those of us reporting problems.
The bridging issue, I don't have much hope of that one getting resolved. It happens whether I have Wi-Fi/GPS/Bluetooth enabled or not - there's something going on in the hardware between the two antennas that shouldn't be.
Well dammit, I didn't want to ruin THAT part of the movie for those that haven't seen it yet, geez... give a guy some credit for trying to be nice.
But seriously, I thought about adding that part and honestly, after I'd posted it I realized it wasn't there. Not sure it would make much difference in the long run as I did comment that she (meaning Eleanor) "was there for a while" but I suppose people that haven't seen it might think she popped in for a chat then got shipped home lickety split.
Oops...
I haven't seen one of these in person, as they are sold out online, but isn't this "case" by Marware very similar to the Bumper?
http://www.marware.com/products/iPhone-4/SportGrip-Edge-for-iPhone-4
It goes only around the edges, with no front or back protection built into the case (it has protection films for the front and back, but those are seperately applied).