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Comment by elrodeo | Hacker News Reader

> In a nutshell, Apple knows the phone has problems but > will insist that users are simply “holding it wrong.”

I think it is a wrong implication from leaked documents.

The problem of Apple is that they always state, that their products are the best on the market. And this is probably true in many aspects. However most people understand "the best" not as "better than others", but as "ideal" or "flawless", which is not true. And this wrong understanding rockets the expectations of customers through the roof, ignoring physics laws etc.

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I don't know from what market you're getting your products from, but I've never had a phone that had reception problems when holding it in the left hand.

Of course, I've only used low-end Nokia phones mostly, and smartphones might have problems in general ... but you know, that's why I purchase a phone mostly ... to make phone calls ;)

And when you're paying several hundred dollars on a smartphone, or getting tied up with a multi-year contract with AT&T ... you are expecting that smartphone to make phone calls fucking reliably (even more so than a $15 Nokia phone)

The thing is that there is always some negative buzz after each release of a new Apple product. Maybe this time it's something new, a real issue -- I don't know, since I don't have the new iPhone.

But if make induction on the past, then this is just another exaggerated 'fact of life'.

There are no reported reception problems when just casually holding the iPhone 4 in your left hand, either.

AnandTech showed in their review that cupping the phone caused signal drops on both the iPhone 3GS and the Nexus One too. The drop on the iPhone 4 was larger, certainly, but it didn't drop the call.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2

Galvanic skin response varies from person to person, wildly in some cases. I haven't seen this addressed in the various iPhone 4 antenna analyses so far, though I've probably just missed it.

It seems like this 'dropped call' thing is mainly a US thing also though. Most of the blame must surely rest with the carriers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03PQyWp0mWE

It seems rather obvious that for any given phone, there is a way to ruin it's reception. If nothing helps, put it in a steel box, encase it with concrete and throw it into the ocean. That should do the job.

The real question is, how is the reception in a typical phone call situation.

Well, I can report from the high end Nokia user side (9300, > 5 years old, changed battery, still in great shape).

It very rarely drops calls and I never had a reason to suspect that it makes a difference how you hold it.

Actually; I have.

A number of my past phones (particularly Nokia's) had reception issues when held.

Odd.

There's still demand for the Nokia 1100 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_1100 ) due to its almost legendary reliability and reception (anecdotal evidence says that it works better than any other brand phones in the Uruguayan countryside).

The Wikipedia article states that it is the best selling consumer device in the world (and handset of course).

I never had a 1100.

Off hand... I had 3310 (x3), 3210, 1208, 1600, N81

Do you have iPhone which has reception problems when holding it in the left hand? Holding phone specific way may cause signal drop, iPhone or not: http://funsizebytes.com/post/745721120/instructions-from-my-...

> "I've only used low-end Nokia phones mostly..."

Like the Nokia 2320 with the instruction manual that says you shouldn't hold it like that?

http://funsizebytes.com/post/745721120/instructions-from-my-...

Oh come on now. Nobody expects perfection even from Apple. But we do expect them to have tested the product and fixed the issue before it went to production. A simple lining over the antenna would have sufficed. This episode just illustrates Apple's design hubris.

So you are saying that all other phones had these reception issues all along, and only with the "perfect" iPhone people are starting to notice?

I might be wrong, but yes it looks to me exactly like this. No one cared about the same issues on the Nexus One phone.

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