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Sorry but that is a rubbish statement that most do not. As you said it's conditional. At home I cannot replicate it, probably due to my proximity to the tower and strength. When I went to the office on Friday, it was very easy to replicate. We tried it on 6 phones in the office. Though to be honest i am yet to have a dropped call, not a big issue atm.

It's only an issue when you're looking for it. ;) I've yet to have it drop a call but I also do not do this kind of full palm contact on the phone when making a phone call and I've yet to succeed in bringing it to the point of saying "No Signal" in any event, even in cases where the signal should have been extremely fragile.


All of the phones have this bug, but I think most people will not encounter it.
 
You're gonna feel silly doing that when/if the iOS upgrade fixes this problem.

The upgrade won't stop bars from dropping (somewhat). It'll just stop the phone's software from flipping out when that starts happening and teach it to react more intelligently.

I remember having an old motorola phone with an external antenna that I could do this to by completely covering the antenna. I find it fascinating. Ultimately you really should have this phone in some kind of shock absorber or bumper or something anyway.. in case no one's noticed you don't want this thing hitting the ground too hard without something mitigating the shock a bit.
 
It's defective by design simply because putting an antenna into contact with human skin - especially an antenna designed to transmit/receive microwave frequencies which is where all modern cell phones operate - is going to cause dramatic signal attenuation and loss, period.

That is a scientifically provable fact that none of you is going to be able to disprove, sorry.

Then why did you buy one if this is such an obvious and unavoidable issue. Will you still return you iPhone 4 if a fix is issued?

arn
 
It's defective by design simply because [etc etc etc] Hence:

Defective by design...

Again, that's not what "defective by design" means. All of your arguments are that it's badly designed and/or can't possibly work. Argue that by all means. Even if Apple knew it wouldn't work but didn't care, that's not "defective by design". You need a new slogan.
 
Apple have until Tuesday to fix my phone before it's going back. I refuse to use it in only my right hand!
 
It's defective by design simply because putting an antenna into contact with human skin - especially an antenna designed to transmit/receive microwave frequencies which is where all modern cell phones operate - is going to cause dramatic signal attenuation and loss, period.

That is a scientifically provable fact that none of you is going to be able to disprove, sorry.

Show me one other device, of any kind that uses an antenna for signal reception and transmission, made by any manufacturer, that works better by allowing human contact with the antenna or is specifically designed to enhance signal reception/transmission because of that contact.

Come on, show me.

Any antenna engineer or anyone that deals with not only communications equipment in general but more specifically microwave reception/transmission hardware is going to laugh you out of whatever box you're keeping yourselves locked inside with such ludicrous concepts.

Antennas just don't work that way, they never have, they never will. Hence:

Defective by design...

You're describing a design defect, it's not defective by design. Semantics, but it's an important distinction.
 
No antenna responds well to direct human touch. That's a fact of reality and not one we can ignore.. interference will be caused.

Yeah, I said all that multiple times so far over the past few days in multiple posts.

However there's a lot of very unique engineering in this particular antenna system that, for the most part, alleviates the issues.

Apple's solution to alleviate this known issue is the bumper.

The problems begin when you cover both sides of that separator on the left side of the phone.

Yeah, and... now who's repeating?

Given that the ENTIRE structure of the phone is an antenna of one variety or another it seems that there's an issue caused by a human bridging that gap, not by touching the phone itself.

So you're saying the phone is the antenna (with that "ENTIRE" there it's pretty obvious) and touching it in that spot - which happens to bridge the connection - isn't touching the phone. Boy that's convoluted if I ever saw anything convoluted before.

But I get the gist of what you're saying, and I'm not saying you're wrong - I've never said anyone was wrong about any of this, actually. I also know about the website you mentioned but I'm not related to it or associated with it in any way - I'm an owner of an iPhone 4 hence me posting about my experiences so others that may find themselves in the same or very similar situations has something to work with.

When I say "defective by design" I mean that not nearly enough common sense was applied, not to mention basic antenna propagation and transmission engineering knowledge, in the creation of this device. The current antenna design is what's causing the defect, to be as clear as possible. Somewhere down the line a short is happening, and it just MIGHT be addressable with a firmware fix which could potentially re-route some of the signal as required but...

As it stands right now (or lays on the desk beside me), I can't use the 3G capability of the phone held in my hand unless I:

a) slap a case on it, or a Band-Aid aka bumper
b) switch to EDGE
c) use Wi-Fi for any and all data functionality
d) contort my normal cell phone grip/handling into some twisted abnormal fashion to place it next to my ear/face/head

I can't even make a 3G phone call, to be honest, unless I put it on speaker while it's laying on the desktop - and I'm line-of-sight from a freakin' cell site.

Wouldn't that be something that you'd raise hell about and consider defective? A hand-held cellular phone that I can't use as a hand-held cellular phone in it's native default state?

Sure seems like it's broken to me, folks. Believe it, ignore it, whatever, but it sure as hell ain't right.

The entire gist of every post I've made since this whole brouhaha began days ago is it doesn't work as advertised, and Steve Jobs and his insult to my intelligence by telling me "You're not holding it the approved Apple way" (paraphrased, of course) is simply untenable.
 
Then why did you buy one if this is such an obvious and unavoidable issue. Will you still return you iPhone 4 if a fix is issued?

arn

I didn't buy it, as I've noted in other posts: it was a gift to me and regardless, it'll be returned after the so-called "fix" comes out and gets proper testing.

It's a discussion forum, if I'm not mistaken, hence me taking part in the discussions. Something wrong with that? :)
 
It's defective by design simply because putting an antenna into contact with human skin - especially an antenna designed to transmit/receive microwave frequencies which is where all modern cell phones operate - is going to cause dramatic signal attenuation and loss, period.

That is a scientifically provable fact that none of you is going to be able to disprove, sorry.

Show me one other device, of any kind that uses an antenna for signal reception and transmission, made by any manufacturer, that works better by allowing human contact with the antenna or is specifically designed to enhance signal reception/transmission because of that contact.

Come on, show me.


Any antenna engineer or anyone that deals with not only communications equipment in general but more specifically microwave reception/transmission hardware is going to laugh you out of whatever box you're keeping yourselves locked inside with such ludicrous concepts.


Antennas just don't work that way, they never have, they never will. Hence:

Defective by design...

I can touch the antenna all I want, nothing will happen. It's only when I put my finger on the gap that the signal fades out. No noticeable signal degredation when touching just the antenna.
 
Wow. I'm sorry dude but you're incredibly stupid. You're talking about the controlled leaked pics of the iPad on the eve of the keynote? You think Apple isn't going to hide it in a case? You're honestly basing your opinion of Apples ENTIRE 18 month development period on the phone, just off of a couple controlled leaked photos for a different product?

Wow. You need to hang your keyboard up. Reading through all your posts, its pretty clear that reason, rationale, and intelligence are not your strongest qualities.
He can't even spell broadband. What do you expect? lol. He should type, "D3f3ctive by d3s1gn" or something.
 
You're describing a design defect, it's not defective by design. Semantics, but it's an important distinction.

Agreed.

"Defective by Design" would require that Apple intentionally designed, constructed and sold a product with a design flaw.

I cannot possibly think of a reason why they would have done this, given that it's turning into a PR nightmare for them.

A "Design Defect" is merely a problem with a product's design, whereby normal usage of that product results in unexpected behaviour or product failure.
 
There are reception issues, Mr. Jobs.... there are... otherwise people would not be complaining...

Until a fix is provided, there were, are and will be reception issues.
 
ive been saying all along this is an unfixable design defect

but if im proven wrong i'll be the first to sign up for a new ip4
 
It is (mostly) a software issue. The reality is that putting your hand in front of any antenna is going to have the potential to interrupt it.

But this isn't the same problem, is it? The iPhone 4 antenna isn't being blocked, it's being shorted out. Can software fix that, too?

In other words when a certain Apple engineer lost his phone in a bar Apple went into lockdown mode and didn't allow the phone out for testing without covers (or really at all). The issue might have been discovered at that point, but you can all kind of thank Gizmodo for helping to make sure this bug was never caught in time to patch it before release.

Or we can thank Apple for not testing the phone properly because their egos were too big to stomach losing it a second time.
 
Yeah, I said all that multiple times so far over the past few days in multiple posts.



Apple's solution to alleviate this known issue is the bumper.



Yeah, and... now who's repeating?



So you're saying the phone is the antenna (with that "ENTIRE" there it's pretty obvious) and touching it in that spot - which happens to bridge the connection - isn't touching the phone. Boy that's convoluted if I ever saw anything convoluted before.

But I get the gist of what you're saying, and I'm not saying you're wrong - I've never said anyone was wrong about any of this, actually. I also know about the website you mentioned but I'm not related to it or associated with it in any way - I'm an owner of an iPhone 4 hence me posting about my experiences so others that may find themselves in the same or very similar situations has something to work with.

When I say "defective by design" I mean that not nearly enough common sense was applied, not to mention basic antenna propagation and transmission engineering knowledge, in the creation of this device. The current antenna design is what's causing the defect, to be as clear as possible. Somewhere down the line a short is happening, and it just MIGHT be addressable with a firmware fix which could potentially re-route some of the signal as required but...

As it stands right now (or lays on the desk beside me), I can't use the 3G capability of the phone held in my hand unless I:

a) slap a case on it, or a Band-Aid aka bumper
b) switch to EDGE
c) use Wi-Fi for any and all data functionality
d) contort my normal cell phone grip/handling into some twisted abnormal fashion to place it next to my ear/face/head

I can't even make a 3G phone call, to be honest, unless I put it on speaker while it's laying on the desktop - and I'm line-of-sight from a freakin' cell site.

Wouldn't that be something that you'd raise hell about and consider defective? A hand-held cellular phone that I can't use as a hand-held cellular phone in it's native default state?

Sure seems like it's broken to me, folks. Believe it, ignore it, whatever, but it sure as hell ain't right.

The entire gist of every post I've made since this whole brouhaha began days ago is it doesn't work as advertised, and Steve Jobs and his insult to my intelligence by telling me "You're not holding it the approved Apple way" (paraphrased, of course) is simply untenable.

Actually, if what you said were factually accurate about not covering antennas then, at least according to Apple's break down of what each of these antenna structures do.. you shouldn't be able to use wifi, bluetooth, or GPS while holding the phone in your left hand.. but phone calls should die in your right hand. It's very clear Apple engineered a way around common interference problems since GPS is faster than it was on previous models, etc.,

Or maybe it's software reacting poorly to your hand causing interference in a way it isn't used to (by bridging that gap). Software controls how the phone is going to handle signal at almost every level of the process, in one way or another.

Then again, I don't come from that particular camp of the free software/techie movement that sees conspiracy in every corner, I find human error to be much more likely. It was just missed in testing.
 
Not sure why all the positive votes on this one. Some commenters are reading an awful lot into Steve's comment.

I'd be more hopeful if he had said, 'It's not a reception issue.' At least that would imply confession of some kind of problem. But that's not what he said. He said, 'There are no reception issues.' That doesn't sound so different to saying 'non issue' to me.

If Apple does come out with a real fix to this problem I'll be surprised… but a big part of me still wants to believe! If they do pull a rabbit out of the hat, I'll give Steve five stars for keeping the suspense alive with that email.
 
Actually, if what you said were factually accurate about not covering antennas then, at least according to Apple's break down of what each of these antenna structures do.. you shouldn't be able to use wifi, bluetooth, or GPS while holding the phone in your left hand.. but phone calls should die in your right hand. It's very clear Apple engineered a way around common interference problems since GPS is faster than it was on previous models, etc.,

Or maybe it's software reacting poorly to your hand causing interference in a way it isn't used to (by bridging that gap). Software controls how the phone is going to handle signal at almost every level of the process, in one way or another.

Then again, I don't come from that particular camp of the free software/techie movement that sees conspiracy in every corner, I find human error to be much more likely. It was just missed in testing.

Ok, so what, I should alter my now infamous tagline to say:

"I believe the iPhone 4 is defective because of the design." ?

Because it is, for reasons already posted.
 
When I hold my limbo phones (Still saving for iPhone 4) which is a C902 and a Nokia 6300 and hold them with a tight grip over the back they both loose signal/drop to one bar (I'm in a very strong signal area).
 
Then why did you buy one if this is such an obvious and unavoidable issue. Will you still return you iPhone 4 if a fix is issued?

arn

It's an apple product. It's sexy it's shinny, everybody wants one. If only it was so easy to say no. Even if iPhone 4s were exploding , some people would not part with them ;) .

P.s the only that has not gone wrong on my imac27 is an explosion ..... And I still have it, it just likes to be taken on walks to the apple store every few months to get fixed.
 
most of these professional reviewers on youtube are not even able to replicate the issue, they are not holding it properly atleast for the sake of showing that it is dropping, maybe they are scared to make apple angry. This problem exists on all iphone 4s and those who dont have the problem are using bumper or are living in a different world.

Also what steve jobs is saying here is that "there is no reception issue, there is a transmission issue". Whatever there is an issue, so stay tuned till your 14 days are over and then you are stuck with the phone. -- here i completed what steve wanted to say.

I was in an apple store today (Denver) packed to the gills with shoppers. Waited about 5 min to play with the iphone4 tried to replicate the signal problem and couldn't. So it is not happening to all iPhone4 like your saying.
 
Jobs needs to be:

1) Less ****ing arrogant and
2) More adventurous with his wardrobe and clothes sense !
 
But this isn't the same problem, is it? The iPhone 4 antenna isn't being blocked, it's being shorted out. Can software fix that, too?

Right, show me a video of you shorting it out with a good electrical connection then. A piece of wire will be fine, and bonus points fir sticking a myomeres across it to show zero resistance.

This is not an electrical conduction issue, it stems from rf interference, not
"shorting" a connection.
 
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