First, I should say that I do have the death grip. It doesn't effect my phone calls, but it destroys my internet browsing! I go from what feels like 1.5Mbit to what feels like 200Kbit. Wikipedia takes 1-2 minutes to load when gripped, as opposed to 3 seconds when held otherwise.
Also, don't forget: I only have to graze the bottom-left-hand corner to cause the problem. I don't even know when I'm doing it. I end up thinking, "Why the hell is my internet going so damn slow?! Oh wait...
I'm holding it wrong." Can't you guys see why
this is a problem? The phone is finicky in its current state.
But even more so, there are problems worse than the so-called death grip. Since I received the phone (yesterday), I've had 10 dropped calls. That's right: 10 dropped calls in a 24 hour period. I usuallyfor comparison's sakeonly get about 2 dropped calls in a month. The dropped calls happen without prompting (no choppiness or loss of audio quality) and with full signal.
Serious, guys. This is a problem, and I don't see the point in denying it.
I just got off the phone with Apple tech support. Here is what I was told regarding the current situation:
He said, "there is a problem and we are working to fix it. It is a hardware issue. The "bumper" does not fix the problem either."
I just got off the phone with Apple Support as well, and they gave me the same reassurance: "The bumpers are like a
band-aid for the problem, but our engineers are working hard to fix it for good. The antenna is working fine, it's just the software thinking it doesn't have a signal when it does."
He then went on to say that Apple employees who bought the iPhone 4 are also having the same problems, "The guys at the office are using bumpers, and that helps a little, but they're waiting on that new software. The software should be coming as soon as Monday."
When the tech guy finished his script, I pushed a little harder than normal to get answers, but the guy was clearly not well-versed on the nature of the phone. I asked him if the death grip is a problem with
baseband, considering it has updated recently in iOS4. He said, "Yes, it's the phone's firmware."he might've been trying to speak code as to not give away details, condone jailbreaking/unlocking knowledge, or whatever Apple policy he might've been trying to uphold. It could be that he just didn't know what I was talking about, but my words seemed familiar to him.
(A side note: this is a huge improvement over the insolence Steve shows in his personal emailsRight? I'm sure Steve just thought the problem was just typical nit-picking over one or two bars, though. I'm willing to excuse him for now, but he is becoming more of an ass as time goes on.)