Apple letter about iPhone 4
apple.com
apple.com
"Probably the biggest thing I’ve taught the team at Apple is that people never know what they’re supposed to think about anything. This is true in Hollywood, in the book business, in the art world, in politics. And especially in technology.
"So we put out a new phone and everyone is sitting there wondering what they should think about it. What I realized many years ago — and honestly, it still amazes me — is that most people are so unsure of themselves that they will think whatever we tell them to think.
"So we tell people that this new phone is not just an incremental upgrade, but rather is the biggest breakthrough since the original iPhone in 2007. We say it’s incredible, amazing, awesome, mind-blowing, overwhelming, magical, revolutionary. We use these words over and over.
"It’s all patently ridiculous, of course. But people believe it."
....
"Which brings me back to iPhone 4 and the antenna issue. Right now you’re confused. You’re worried. You don’t know what to believe. You just wish someone would come along and tell you that everything is squared away and there’s nothing to worry about."
"Well, stay tuned for that. And remember: There is no spoon."
Compare that to the real thing: "Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place."
But every time he's right these days, I think it's karma balancing out how wrong he was on SCO-Linux.
EDIT: It seems Apple introduced the bar bug in OS update 2.1 that "improves the accuracy of the 3G signal". Graphical representation of that is here (Source: Gruber): http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...
So, RDF was hard coded into the bar display (50% = 5 bars?), and the sudden drop shows up if you're at the floor of that green bar, then you use your hand to cover the phone and force it to drop slightly, it will go into freefall mode since you're now crossing the threshold. Fix is to remove the RDF.
There is a lengthy thread on Apple forums about this issue, with no resolution: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2475509...
Complaining gets issues fixed, period. Living with issues and accepting them may be better for your health and outlook on life, but it doesn't bring about progress. If Apple had just accepted the things wrong with smartphones there would be no iPhone in the first place. I agree that complaining and entitlement sometimes go too far (though not in the case of dropped calls; a phone should be able to be used as a phone), I'd say that complaining overall remains very much a good thing. Satisfaction leads to stagnation.
Edit: And although I don't agree with your post, I didn't find it downvote worthy. I hate to bring karma into discussions, but it seems like it keeps things more civil when one side doesn't downvote the other, so I don't.
I took my iPhone into a genius appointment yesterday. They took it into the back area and upon returning informed me that they installed a "patch," I couldn't restore from my previous back-up, and that it was a known problem.
Apparently this is a software issue that only affects those upgrading their iPhones (the iPhone 4 doesn't like something in the back-up), not brand-new users.
All my apps/ settings were intact and my version number is the same as the regular shipped build.
I was told to restore my iPhone fresh (which would delete the installed patch, no?) and not to restore from back-up, which is possibly the fix itself. I'm going to do it now and will report back on the results... did you upgrade from a previous iPhone and restored from a previous back-up?
Just tested against a co-workers by placing on a flat table and moving fingers to cover up the sensor... mine seems to work consistently within about an inch of cover-up, his is hit-or-miss even while physically covering / pressing on the sensor.
Their conclusion was that the iPhone 4 had better reception overall than the 3GS for various reasons, (a fact which Apple seem to be clinging to like a life raft) but that the external antennae was still faulty even when held "normally" and if fixed would make a major difference in areas with poor reception.
AnandTech said "That brings me to the way that signal quality should really be reported - Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)." [1]
I found a good comment on MeFi that discusses the bars' uselessness for CDMA. [2]
[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2
[2] http://ask.metafilter.com/60227/What-do-cell-phone-reception...
"At the end of the day, Apple should add an insulative coating to the stainless steel band, or subsidize bumper cases. It's that simple."
The iPhone 4 loses 24.6dB of signal strength when cupped at the bottom vs 17.7dB for the Nexus one. If Apple should be required to add an insulative coating to the stainless steel, then shouldn't Google also be required to make their phone thicker (or make other adjustments) until it reaches the 14.3dB reduction of the 3GS?
If Apple is required to subsidize a bumper case, to bring the signal reduction down to 7.2dB, then shouldn't Google also be required to subsidize a case (even with a case, Google's signal reduction would still be 7.7dB).
Also, the iPhone 4 can hold a call quite well at the absolute minimum signal level of -113dBm. If the Nexus One can't do this, then should we demand that Google recall the Nexus one until it can do so?
This whole issue and the hundreds of news stories around it are ridiculous. This is not a black-and-white issue of the antenna working or not. The phone has a weaker signal for some people, and a stronger signal for others, depending on how you hold it and where you are. Take that into consideration when choosing a phone. If it's not working out for you, then just return the phone and buy one you like.
Imagine someone talking to you in a load bar. That person can, by shouting at you, make themself understood - but just barely. Although the signal is high, the noise (bar music, other conversations etc) is also high, and the quality of the communication is much reduced. That same person talking in a library could use a tone just barely above a whisper, and still be more clearly understood because the noise floor is so much lower in a library.
Many people don't realise that noise is actually the limiting factor in communications - if a signal has been attenuated, we can always just amplify it back up, but amplification amplifies the noise as well as the signal. Eventually, once the signal and the noise reach roughly equal amplitudes, amplification just gives you the noisy bar situation, you can't ever get back to the quiet library...
Bringing this back to the iPhone's antenna, we same to be in the library case, rather than the bar case. The signal that is being received when the antenna is being held is much quieter than what we see in other phones, but when we look at the only metric that really counts - bandwidth - we see that the iPhone is achieving consistently high transfer speeds, even when the antenna spacing has been bridged by someone's hand.
If I had to guess, based on the anandtech data, what we are seeing is an antenna that performs extremely well at reducing noise from the environment. Alternatively, the calibration of the sensor giving the signal strength readings in the 4G might not be terribly good. Either way, the independent tests done so far have all indicated that the iPhone 4G is outperforming every other phone out there at the moment, when looking at signal throughput.
Apple has claimed not touching the black gap or using a case helps. Random people online seem to think that sticky tape or nail polish can fix the problem. Anand seems to think some thin layer of diamond would do the job too.
Are you saying it wouldn't work? And if not could you explain why not, and what would be needed?
Your finger and the metal of the antenna are essentially two conductors separated by a thin insulator, which forms a capacitor. A capacitor blocks DC current, but its impedance (resistance) goes down as the frequency of the signal increases. What tesseract is suggesting is that the frequencies in the antenna are so high that our capacitor's resistance is practically nil; the thin insulator essentially does nothing to fix the problem.
A possible way to fix this is by lowering the capacitance of our capacitor. The simplest way to do this is to simply increase the distance between the two conductors, i.e. move the finger farther from the antenna. If you look at Apple's bumper case, you'll notice that it is far thicker than any of the proposed insulating layers.
How exactly would that affect the signal is up for discussion. It depends on how conductive is your body, what's the thickness of the coating, what area would be needed to create a visible effect, etc. etc.
As for holding the phone, I'm not so troubled by the antennae, could it be better, yes, but is it that terrible, doesn't seem so.
However, in locales that have less signal, but where iOS
still displays 5 bars, the drop of 24 dB is visualized
much differently. For example, at another test location,
signal without holding the phone is -89 dBm, which is
still displayed as 5 bars. Cup the phone, and you'll fall
all the way to -113 dBm. All the bars dramatically
disappear one after the other, people think they've
dramatically lost all the signal, and you know the rest...
More apple marketing bull and pointing fingers.
jobs did exactly what I thought they would do. Change perception, not reception.
Doesn't seem right to me, as I thought I had hear complaints about calls being dropped upon covering the antenna - not just fewer bars.
Ironically, I now have a much better idea of the iPhone 4's antenna location than that of any cell phone I've owned since they had protruding antennae.
It's not a huge deal to me, but changing antenna execution (if not design) fundamentally, seems to have been quite a rash move, when suddenly the phone acquires a new behavior that other phones don't have.
the RDF was put in back in '08 via OS 2.1 update to "improve the accuracy of the 3G signal".
The fix coming must be more evenly distributed aka more accurate.
So it seems that in the worst case, holding it across the bottom attenuates the signal by about 10dbm, i.e. by a factor of 10, compared to holding it across the top, which is about the same effect as the relative position of your head vs. the tower.
It's weird, though, that in the best case, holding it by the bottom has no effect at all on signal. You'd naively think that the best case would be when the phone is on the side of your head facing the tower, in which case the hand across the bottom should make maximum difference. I guess this just goes to show how nonintuitive the results are of loading the antenna with a bunch of conductive goo of strange shape...
I can't recall ever seeing my iPhone report 2 or 3 bars -- it's always a very low or very high signal indication. And yet, so many times I've gotten bad performances at "full signal"...
This is more pragmatic than bitching on the Internet (I concede a difference between investing and reporting these problems and merely bitching) or class action lawsuits[1]. Vote with your wallet, eh?
If you cancel after the 30 days, there is an early termination fee of $325.00 (minus $10.00 for each completed month).
[1] http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/iPho...
Verizon does, and I ended up taking advantage of that when I returned the Droid and switched back to the iPhone after 2 weeks. Unfortunately, because Verizon's billing department is terrible, they charged me the ETF even though they shouldn't have and I had to go talk to a CSR to get it removed.
Just after releasing a phone that uses a metal ring all around the chassis as an antenna (which is something that perplexed every engineer living outside of the reality distortion field as soon as they saw the first pictures of the phone), they discovered that they've always used the wrong algorithm to calculate the signal strength.
I contrast Ive's comments and iFixit's teardown with the Keynote presentation, and think someone's simplifying something in the explanations.
It seems like there's still a problem with the antenna design that was just made more obvious by the software.
It uses terms/expressions like "totally wrong", "Their big drop in bars", "the iPhone’s bars", pretty much anything that mentions "bars", etc.
Or do you think this is just about keeping it colloquial, so it sounds like a real email from one of your friends?
Their typical customer is a bit of a bohemian bourgeois so they need to adapt their writing to seduce that target.
Ok I'm exaggerating a little bit, but do you get the point?
Everyone refers to signal strength as the quantity of "bars" they have, so I suppose this is the colloquial way to write this. But sentences like "Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place." just boggles my mind that it made it through Apple PR.
This is the same company that has the following boilerplate on the bottom of their press releases: "Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices."
It's a psychological thing. A few extra pixels do indeed give the illusion of better network reception, albeit the actual level doesn't change.
Similar to designing progress bars, the actual progress is hidden from the user. Instead, the user is presented with the illusion that the process is progressing faster than it actually is.
Someone should write an iPhone app...
* No connection * Slow/intermittent connection
On the other hand, all this hype is encouraging people to perform Science, with cameras, posted to YouTube, so maybe there is a purpose to all of this.
Wonder why they didn't mention the proximity problem. From what I have heard that's actually more annoying then the signal issue.
And the only reason Apple made this PR release is to get ahead lf this story. I've had people ask me if I'm returning my iPhone because "I heard it can't make calls when you hold it wrong" or other crap. They're just trying to respin the story that the public has latched onto.
I think it's funny to imagine what would happen if Apple didn't tell us what's wrong and just released an update. Suddenly the voodoo bars work better and everyone says, "Oh wow Apple's firmware engineers are geniuses! I no longer lose 4 bars when holding my phone!"
Using a speed test app, I measure 2-2.3mbs 3G downline bandwidth with the phone sitting on my desk. Holding it gently in my left hand, the speed test drops to 0 and eventually fails. I can also reproduce that data transfer failure by lightly touching the left and bottom sides with two fingers.
This focus on the displayed signal strength is somewhat insulting misdirection.
http://gizmodo.com/5048905/iphone-21-update-available-now
Especially entertaining is the update note at the bottom:
The "3G signal strength display" fix certainly seems to have done something for my iPhone 3G: it's sitting here in the same place on my desk, and has gone from two bars of 3G signal with the 2.0.2 software to a whopping five bars in version 2.1.
When your phone shows 5 bars yet you still get dropped calls, distorted sound, etc, you know there is a problem with the signal strength meter.
They might as well have just made it 1 bar, either you have signal or you don't. But there may be something about the placebo effect, or maybe illiterate tech reviewers would actually write "my iPhone has more bars!1!1!11!1!"
Translation: Don't worry about the signal, we have BARS!
Droid phones?
Edit: I didn't understand your original comment. Rereading it, yeah, that doesn't make much sense. Perhaps the dear leader only cares about the Droid family on Verizon. Well, more likely they just didn't want to acknowledge the existence of Android in a press release where they are delivering a mea culpa.
Apple is now placing the blame on AT&T by saying that the problem is actually low bars (i.e. the network).
Brilliant way to shift the blame.
If you don't remember, back then every blogger was saying things like "my signal has improved drastically with this update!!11!!1one".
This is what the graphical representation of that update was: http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...
As you can see, over 50% = 5 bars. AT&T's recommendation = more accuracy and less reality distortion.
Next update, you should see OS 2.1's 3g signal update reversed to what it used to be.
Edit: dBm as a unit for SNR doesn't make sense, which is why I was confused. The Y axis is overall signal strength, not S/N ratio.
But the solution doesn't really address the real complaint -- that holding the phone in some ways seemed to change the number of bars shown. It seems like overall the bars display will be conservative now, so people just won't perceive such a large drop in the number of bars.
So the fix is to make what was fake before, more accurate.
Source (from Gruber): http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...
b = (int)5s/100; // where b is the number of bars, and s is signal strength
Apple:
b = (int)5s/100; if(b > 2) b += 2;
AT&T's formula must be not so heavily weighted towards 5 bars as what Apple is currently using.
Today they are built to be fashion accessoires, which naturally leads to different design trade-offs.
Sure, your 1100 may have the best reception of any cellphone ever produced. Sure, your battery may last 2 weeks under normal use.
But what does that help you in a real emergency, like when you urgently need to edit a video on the go?
(Electrical engineering textbooks should come with warning labels. "DANGER: once you understand how reality works, human psychology will occasionally give you migraines.")
for example, if signal == some-weak-signal, then bars = 5 then, if signal == some-weak-signal - 1 (for example), then shouldn't bars = 4 instead of bars = 0 (or 1).
This seems like horseshit to me. Though it seems people are buying this explanation, so as far is Apple is concerned, it worked.
A 30 dB drop can both not change how many bars are displayed at all or get you down to no bars at all. If you have a signal strength between -51 dB and -61 dB and the signal drops 30 dB five bars will still be displayed. If you have a signal strength between -83 dB and -91 dB and the signal drops 30 dB you go all the way from five bars to zero bars.
What AnandTech found seems consistent with what Apple writes. More or less, at least. The drop in signal strength when holding the phone is a bit larger than with other phones (and previous iPhones), but not dramatically so. That’s the only thing Apple is still quiet about.
'thumbs up': All's OK
'thumbs down': You're holding it wrong. Or AT&T is failing your area. But it's not our fault.
Clever. As I was reading this my mind started reeling "What if they intentionally showed more bars to make AT&T's crappy network look better than it really is?"
I bet they anticipated the rumors this might start.
They are attempting to put a different spin on the whole issue , its not that the phone has a faulty antenna or you are "holding it incorrectly" - its that we display incorrect number of signal bars, nonsense.
A correct- taking the problem head-on approach would be - "We apologize for the mistake and are aiming to rectify it in the next software update. Thank You."
Then again, I really don't know how complicated this can be. It just seems like there have been enough phones released that did (perceivably) display the bars correctly that this should be a non-issue.
So return it already, don't sue.
add.: yes, YOU, DOWNVOTER! Solve the problem you're holding in your hand instead of just focusing on pointing your finger at Apple - enough people are already busy doing that 24 hours a day.
Dubious indeed.