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Comment by ttol | Hacker News Reader

the antenna issue seems like it indeed is software and really a non-issue. the "feature" to show 50% of signals as 5 bars was introduced in OS 2.1 update back in '08. Here is a graphic to showcase that: http://fscked.co.uk/post/754590440/this-infographic-hopefull...

The fix is to undo that hard-coded reality distortion field into AT&T's recommended formula. In this case, AT&T isn't the bad guy as it seems like apple was trying to show their phones had better signal by misrepresenting the strength.

The other, IMHO bigger, issue is the proximity sensor. To me, that's a NEW issue, and needs to be addressed (hopefully by software patch), since I've had issues with 100% of my calls.

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but what does any of this have to do with the fact the signal goes down when you hold the phone in a certain way? whether it drops from 4 to 2 bars or 2 to 1 based on whatever algorithm they had surely doesn't change the fact that it is still going down?

it goes down because if you're at the floor of that green bar (that fills up half the range), and then you put your hand over it, you cross the threshold and it looks like a dramatic decrease.

what should happen, most likely with other phones, is that the range should be evenly distributed so that a drop in 1 bar is a drop in 1 bar. because iPhone 4's distribution is weighted/biased towards the top half of the spectrum, it fails when you cross the threshold. This "feature" seems like it was introduced in OS 2.1 back in '08.

You also can't avoid drops in signal when putting your hand over it -- this happens with every phone. just iphone's visual representation algorithm makes it seem far worst than it really is, and they will fix the way it displays in the next version.

EDIT: Why the downvote? Gruber even stated that the issue is the introduction of the biased bar meter. The exposure of the antenna just highlights the issue when you're at the threshold between 5 bars and "other".

What you're saying does not make sense when you consider that this didn't happen with the previous iPhone.

If you read the blogs and apple's own letter, it does in fact happen with previous iPhones.

EDIT: again, why the downvote? To quote apple's letter: "To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones."

"..this mistake has been present since the original iPhone"

But this doesn't happen to the same degre as the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4's antennae placement makes this happen with a relatively standard hand position. I've tried this on a Pre and EVO, and I can't get either to do it, although I'm sure there must be some hand position where it happens -- but it shouldn't be one of the most common hand positions.

I don't disagree that the signal goes down if held in a certain position with the iPhone 4. I just think we might all not have noticed it had they not implemented the 3G signal meter "feature" in OS 2.1, since the signal degradation might be only 1 bar (see: anandtech's article with numbers). In real practice, my calls get killed because of the proximity sensor issue from my face, not the antenna degradation from my hand.

EDIT: again, why the downvote?

24 dB of loss is a staggering amount of power. Watt for watt, it means about 1/250 of the signal power is actually available to the phone's radio hardware when you hold it the "wrong way."

That is simply not acceptable regardless of what various blogs, experts, and apologists say. The fact that it was necessary for Ars Technica to hack the phone to obtain a quantitative figure at all is also damning.

In all honesty: do you feel the same anger about the Nexus One? If you feel Apple should recall or replace the iPhone 4, do you feel Google should do the same with the Nexus One?

I ask because -- per Anandtech's numbers -- the Nexus One can lose up to about 30% of signal strength depending on how you hold it. Which, while less than the iPhone 4 (which can lose up to about 38%), is still a rather large issue.

I'll admit I stopped reading when I got to the part about the iPhone 4 losing 24 dB when held a certain way. How does the article reconcile 24 dB (a 250:1 power ratio, or a 16:1 ratio expressed in terms of voltage) with 38%? These are two vastly different values.

The Anandtech article only gives the straight-up dB (iPhone 4 loses up to 24.6 dB, Nexus One loses up to 17.7). The percentages I thought came from it as well but I can't find them now; I'm currently hunting for the article I'd seen them in.

At any rate, the question stands and I'll just rephrase it in terms of just the dB numbers: is 17.7 dB OK but 24.6 dB not? If so, on what basis? If not, where's the outrage over the Nexus One?

And that's without getting into questions like "is it OK to lose a bit more signal if the ability to keep functioning on reduced signal has improved enough?"

Read the Anandtech article. Yes, it loses some strength, but that's not unique to the iPhone 4 or to iPhones, and they have actual numbers for different types of phones that you can use to compare and consider what you'd like to do.

> the antenna issue seems like it indeed is software and really a non-issue

Incorrect. Read the text on the page you linked to and the original Anandtech article: the iPhone 4 loses almost 20dB of signal when holding it naturally in your hand, without using a case. By comparison, a Nexus One loses about 10dB, and the 3GS loses about 3dB.

Yea, the iPhone 4 loses more signal than others due to antenna being on outside. But real world performance shows it still outperforms 3GS/other phones. Other parts of the Anandtech show that iPhone 4's sensitivity is greater.

Is there any evidence either way on whether the proximity sensors problems are hardware or software in nature, and if they're hardware problems whether they can be worked around in software?

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