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Other Mobile Phones with Similar Signal Loss Issues

sefs said:
Radio frequency reception is an interesting beast. Electricity, magnetism, and field theory are also equally interesting. These subjects are studied by electrical engineers for four years before they get the entry level qualification to work in positions involving these subject areas. The point being, these are complex sciences, that lay explanations like "the hand is creating a short circuit", do not come close to accurately answering signal loss phenomena.

My personal theory on the occurrence of losing service is that most of us on AT&T are in fringe networks. Covering the antenna, which is placed on the exterior of the cell phone, is negatively affecting reception like it always does. The reason why is a little more complex then just "shorting out", but it does occur when held. This has always happened with phones, and happened with my 3G as well. When I would leave it on my desk at home, it could send/receive text messages, hold calls, and transfer data. If I held it in my hand it would go to "Searching..." and to "No Service".

Bottom line, holding antenna with your hand negatively affects signal quality. The question is are you on a fringe network where a little signal loss will result in a full loss of service, or are you in a strong service are where it will drop bars but not calls?

Qualifications: I am an Electrical Engineer who studied at the University of Pittsburgh, however, I do not specialize in Radio Frequency studies.
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Do you know that each antenna is specially tuned (size-wise) to their specific frequencies? Doesn't it make sense that, by "bridging" the two antennae together, you're essentially changing the size of the antenna, and therefore negatively affecting its ability to send and receive at specific frequencies? Ever hear of rabbit ears? Ever touch them and see what happens to the picture? Same thing is going on here, in essence. You're adding conductive surface area to the antenna that's not designed for that specific frequency spectrum.

All the people "reproducing" this phenomenon on other phones aren't really reproducing the same thing. You cannot physically touch the antenna on other phones, but you can cover them up, muffling signal strength. The iPhone 4's problem is that you are actually touching the two antennae and creating a bridge between them with your finger or palm, altering the way the antenna works, not simply muffling the signal.

If the people having signal problems with the iPhone 4 were simply muffling the signal, then it wouldn't be isolated to a single seam on the entire phone (i.e., Righties would see the same signal loss as lefties, even moreso, since the UMTS/GPRS antenna is on the right side)

It's like screaming and putting your hand over your mouth versus gluing your vocal cords shut. They both accomplish similar results, but they're completely different situations.
 
Takeo said:
Some people are getting the iPhone 4 to lose all signal within seconds by holding it normally in the left hand! That's insane.
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A phone costing up to £600 that is intended to be hand held deserves no sympathy for this kind of flaw. I sincerely hope such reports are exaggerated because I intend to buy 2 or 3 when I return from holidays. 3G networks bring enough problems of their own without having to deal with something as obvious as this.
 
Love the wildfire: Now as soon as you *touch* your phone it loses all its connectivity!

Priceless fearmongering straight from the worst days of the Internet era!
 
job2 said:
As someone pointed out earlier, doesn't the problem occur when you're in fringe areas? AT&T seems to suck big time. I live in Sweden, and I'm not experiencing such problems, no matter how I hold and try to cover the antenna on my 3GS. I loose a pin, at most.
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First of all, Europe has much better mobile phone service than the States, so your signal is much more uniform and strong.

Second of all, you have a 3GS. You cannot reproduce this problem, because you cannot touch the antenna. You can muffle the signal a little bit, but you can't bridge the antennae together to create one big superantenna that can't send or receive anything at the appropriate frequencies.
 
This is amazing to watch. The amount of sheer hysteria over being able to reproduce an undesirable behavior that's existed virtually unbemoaned in previous generations of the phone. The examples of the Nexus One, the older iPhone, and the old Nokia are good ones, but its not convincing for people who think their phone should not behave negatively in ANY circumstance.

I just tried to reproduce the problem for a few minutes without success. I'm thinking my hands need to be a little sweatier or maybe the humidity in my area needs to be higher. It's unfortunate that people think this is something worth getting uptight about. I'm going to put my bumper back on and ignore this entire conversation for the foreseeable future.

Whenever someone brings it up to me, I pledge to say, "Oh, yes... that sounds awful. You shouldn't get the phone then." When they ask if this happens with me, I will simply respond, "No." If they then say, "Don't you think it needs to be fixed?" And I'll respond, "Here, try it on my phone." And we'll play it all out in a practical way.

~ CB
 
Think Different?

Have the iPhone 4, and yep - I can cause it to drop all bars by contacting both sides of the strip. Tried the tape trick, it actually caused a 1-bar loss just by being there and didn't prevent the issue. It is what it is folks - if you don't like it, take it back.

hold.jpg
 
adomanico18 said:
Hold any phone near its antenna and watch the bars drop. Even my 3gs does it but I haven't had any problems on rogers.
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Not. The same. Problem.

This is more like, opening your 3GS and physically connecting both antennae together with a piece of wire. Same thing would happen.
 
Loss of signal does NOT occur simply because of bridging.


I can hold my phone with one finger on front screen glass and one finger on back glass and as soon as I place one finger on bottom left corner of the phone signal drops from 5 bars to 0. So obviously I am NOT bridging and signal still disappears.
 
Cleverboy said:
This is amazing to watch. The amount of sheer hysteria over being able to reproduce an undesirable behavior that's existed virtually unbemoaned in previous generations of the phone. The examples of the Nexus One, the older iPhone, and the old Nokia are good ones, but its not convincing for people who think their phone should not behave negatively in ANY circumstance.

I just tried to reproduce the problem for a few minutes without success. I'm thinking my hands need to be a little sweatier or maybe the humidity in my area needs to be higher. It's unfortunate that people think this is something worth getting uptight about. I'm going to put my bumper back on and ignore this entire conversation for the foreseeable future.

Whenever someone brings it up to me, I pledge to say, "Oh, yes... that sounds awful. You shouldn't get the phone then." When they ask if this happens with me, I will simply respond, "No." If they then say, "Don't you think it needs to be fixed?" And I'll respond, "Here, try it on my phone." And we'll play it all out in a practical way.

~ CB
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One of very few sensible posts here. Thank you.
 
Cleverboy said:
This is amazing to watch. The amount of sheer hysteria over being able to reproduce an undesirable behavior that's existed virtually unbemoaned in previous generations of the phone.
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that's because it didn't exist in previous generations. Sure holding any previous iPhone could make you lose a bar or 2 of signal strength, but no previous phone would go from 5 to 0 bars and dropping the call from holding it.

A single individual said he was told by  that there is supposed to be a coating on the metal to prevent the grounding of one antenna into another so it might just be a manufacturing defect that could be fixed with a replacement. But if this isn't true its a serious design flaw and if the Phone needs the bumper to work properly then it should be standard with the phone.
 
Cleverboy said:
This is amazing to watch. The amount of sheer hysteria over being able to reproduce an undesirable behavior that's existed virtually unbemoaned in previous generations of the phone. The examples of the Nexus One, the older iPhone, and the old Nokia are good ones, but its not convincing for people who think their phone should not behave negatively in ANY circumstance.

I just tried to reproduce the problem for a few minutes without success. I'm thinking my hands need to be a little sweatier or maybe the humidity in my area needs to be higher. It's unfortunate that people think this is something worth getting uptight about. I'm going to put my bumper back on and ignore this entire conversation for the foreseeable future.

Whenever someone brings it up to me, I pledge to say, "Oh, yes... that sounds awful. You shouldn't get the phone then." When they ask if this happens with me, I will simply respond, "No." If they then say, "Don't you think it needs to be fixed?" And I'll respond, "Here, try it on my phone." And we'll play it all out in a practical way.

~ CB
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Best post I've read in a long while...
 
Normal

I am fairly certain my 3G iPhone also does this. I, of course, tried this as soon as I got my iPhone 4. It does happen-- but, to be honest, you really have to hold it in a very specific way. And it's very easy to do so.

I'm going to chalk this up to whiners. Sorry, but you're inventing something to be upset about.
 
All I have to say is that all phones do this. My nexus one at home will do it too.
If I put it in my hand the same way the users in the videos do, my Nexus will slowly drop bars. It's never gone to zero, but it will drop calls.
My iPhone 4 will behave exactly the same way. If I hold it the way people do in the video it will drop a few bars but never to "no service".
Outside or in my office, no matter how I hold it, it will not drop one bar. I basically have to cup it in my hand and it will flutter down one but quickly go back up.
so my conclusion it's all about location location location ;)

also, I've tried making phone calls holding the phone the same way they do in the video (and I'm left handed) and it just feels completely unnatural to me.
I basically hold my phone with my fingers (3 to be precise) and not my entire hand so I guess I will never touch the antennae and I've always held phones this way.

I have no doubt people are having dropped calls, but my experience so far is good. Honeslty, my Nexus had more dropped calls than what I've suffered on my iPhone 4. *knocks on wood*

in the end, I have 30 days to try it out and if it doesn't perform to my satisfaction, I'll return it.
 
pdokeegan said:
My 3GS does this, and I never noticed until today - had it for a year. Perhaps this is indeed a non-issue?
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My 3g dies this but inky wwhen holding intthe middle. Sometimes it does not. The new phone antenna is built around the whole phone si would expect siething like thus. Rev 2 or Google Droid contract up in 2 months. Waited for f3G but Droid is gettinghuge reviews and app store is huge. Would have to try it. Ine I like is from Verizin I believe. Depends on video calling next mod, and family pricing plus maybe hacks. Tom tim for free but will probably pay if iPhone 4. Peace.
 
Proof mobile phones are not safe

I'm not engineering genius, but, conservation of energy and all, if the signal is attenuated when you hold it, that would obviously show that energy is being absorbed by the body, so what does that mean, is it only heat energy, radiation, and if a bit of both, what is this doing to cells and DNA? The common belief by the average person is that these waves just pass right through you and are on another frequency than the human body, but clearly, energy is being absorbed, so you have to ask, what is it doing to you?

IMO, cell phones are the new tobacco....
 
Jack Dangers said:
also, I've tried making phone calls holding the phone the same way they do in the video (and I'm left handed) and it just feels completely unnatural to me.
I basically hold my phone with my fingers (3 to be precise) and not my entire hand so I guess I will never touch the antennae and I've always held phones this way.
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Again, lack of real field testing with a diverse group of people. You could have me pick up and use a cell phone 100 times and it would never even occur to me to hold a $300 object by 3 fingers even once and would never feel natural or safe for me to do it that way.

I think I will take your advice though and return it -  won't take this problem seriously unless people do. Obviously they will fix it somehow if only by giving away bumpers, but they really do have to do something.
 
furi0usbee said:
How does a software fix solve a hardware/physical problem?
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Because software controls the amplification of the antenna transmission and reception. Software reacts to signal strength detected off the antennas. So if by bridging the antennas, it's sending false data to the software (i.e. bridging antennas causing the 3G signal detector to be affected by Wifi/Bluetooth signals), it could react incorrectly by lowering the amplification.
 
furi0usbee said:
How does a software fix solve a hardware/physical problem?
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Possibly it won't fix the call drop out problem, but it surely could easily "fix" the bar loss "problem". :D The meaning of the bars is arbitrary and set by the manufacturer. I could decorate a shoe box to look like a phone and it will always show 5 bars. Apple could easily make the bar change less sensitive and the problem would "go away."

Is there any evidence that the real problem--call drop out-- is worse with the iPhone 4 than for its predecessors? Obviously, the bar loss phenomenum has a greater magnitude then for previous phones, but that's a fake problem. The bars settings are designed to guide the user in optimally positioning the phone, and clearly that is working well.
 
Going to stop reading these iphone post..depressing

Just saw on GIZMODO someone dropped their phone on the ground and back totally cracked. Ouch!!!
http://gizmodo.com/5572227/fuuuuuu-gizmodos-first-accidentally-dropped-iphone

  1. Glass Back that cracks from waist high dropped impact?
  2. Brown spots on the retina screen??
  3. Metal Framed bridge-gripped antenna???

Apple...really????


Form should always follow function. Seems Apple spent a lot of money trying to reverse this methodology and seems to be back-firing.

Software is very cool, but a 4th generation phone...i expected better from what I'm hearing this EARLY in product release.:(
 
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