Lab tests: Why Consumer Reports can't recommend the iPhone 4
blogs.consumerreports.org
blogs.consumerreports.org
Most non-techies, I find, will see a tech-oriented friend to guide purchases, and they will learn about it through those means.
"Ooh is that the new iPhone? Do you have antenna problems?"
I say that while I do notice the affect, i've dropped no calls in my apartment with the new model, vs 70% dropped rate on my 3G.
You mean the ones who treat Consumer Reports' recommendations as holy writ?
EDIT: Wow, Ok I get it. It's a real problem. But I guess I meant to say that it certainly seems like the iPhone will be remembered in a much more positive light.
Well, since cschep hasn't had the issue, it can't possibly be true.
First comment:
> The iPhone 4 antenna attenuation issue will be remembered as one of the biggest avoidable but unforeseen design errors of all time, I think.
The response:
> iPhone 4 owner as of day 1 and I haven't had an issue. I can't imagine that this is true.
What cschep can't imagine to be true is:
That the iPhone 4 will be remembered as one of the biggest avoidable but unforseen design errors of all time.
That said, I think that the post he was replying to is overblown. I don't think everyone will remember the iPhone for having antenna issues. I think that the most outstanding thing the iPhone4 brings to the table is the display, which is awesome and ahead of its time, by just a little bit.
Let's go over this again, just so you understand the downvotes. [EDIT: I appreciate that you removed the bit where you called me and the other upvoters 'geniuses' - I would like to believe that the level of rehtoric on HN is above ad hominem attacks.]
"The iPhone 4 antenna attenuation issue will be remembered as one of the biggest avoidable but unforeseen design errors of all time, I think." This guy thinks that the antenna issue is going to be very memorable. I personally disagree with what he thinks, but it is what he thinks.
"iPhone 4 owner as of day 1 and I haven't had an issue. I can't imagine that this is true." This guy either can't imagine that it's true that the other guy thinks that the antenna issue is going to be very memorable, or he can't believe it's true that the issue he can't reproduce even exists.
He is wrong on both counts. While certainly the original poster can change his mind about how important the antenna issue will be, at the moment he wrote that, is is true that he thought it was huge. At the moment he wrote that, the issue as described by Consumer Reports and now Engadget, exists and is true.
IMHO, Apple got burned by two things here: 1) The got carried about by how cool using the Antenna as part of the case would look. 2) Their infamous obsession with secrecy meant that all the test phones were hidden in cases that masked the problem, thereby inadvertently tainting their test results and preventing them from discovering the problem.
I wonder if they could apply a thin laquer or clear plastic coating to the antenna on future iPhone4's to fix the problem?
It should've shown up in an EM simulator before the hardware design was even finalized. The fact that it didn't explains why Apple is just now getting around to hiring some RF engineers.
It's certainly been entertaining following the drama from finding out that it was left in a bar ("Why would Apple let one off campus? Are they mad?") to Steve Jobs explaining the 'revolutionary' new frame as antennae design, to the eventual kerfuffle about bridging the gap and Apple's admission that they display arbitrary bars 'incorrectly'.
They probably should have installed some Faraday cages of varying effectiveness in Infinite Loop methinks.
It's a slightly unfortunate design decision on an otherwise elegantly designed device. It's notable because our expectations are so high - if this was from any company other than Apple it wouldn't get so much press.
But let's put things in perspective, it's not a Ford Pinto, Three Mile Island control panel, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Hyatt Skywalk, or DC-10. If you don't like it, you return the phone and get your money back. You don't end up six feet under.
In the future, it might make more sense for Apple to release several flavors of phones, diversify what they are selling, rather than lumping their entire strategy with one product that might have unforeseen problems.
Technically they are: the iPhone 3GS runs the iOS 4 very well and doesn't have the lovely antenna bridging issue.
That said, I'm having trouble imagining Apple going the iPod/iPod Nano/iPod Shuffle route with the iPhone. Whereas an iPod is used to play music 99% of the time, an iPhone makes calls, sends e-mail, surfs the web, and runs hundreds of thousands of apps, all of which expect a certain screen size and hardware components. An MP3 file doesn't require much.
So, as neat as it would be to see Apple make many flavors of iPhones, I doubt it'll happen. This is the company that doesn't make a sub-$2,500 workstation with a replaceable graphics card, and whose netbook competitor costs $500.
(Still, I would love to see an iPhone Shuffle. No screen. Press the button and it calls someone at random.)
Crappy antenna is something I can live with. Crappy display, battery, software and user experience are not.
If you are different, there is a vast number of alternative, seriously cheaper phones doing the phone part so much better.
But if you want to do... anything else, well, there's an app for that.
Which is not to say the problem doesn't exist. I just don't think they understand it.
also, every iphone has had serious signal issues, it's a known problem, yet people still continue to buy them–why would this change anything... most people buy the iphone because of marketing not functionality.
To suggest someone buy a 3GS over an iPhone 4 because of this issue (as they do at the end of the article) is just a little silly.
Do you think they have some kind of anti-Apple agenda? I can understand why people were skeptical when Gizmodo started posting reports they culled from the Macrumors forums, but this is Consumer Reports. Just because your phone works fine doesn't mean that the issue does not exist.
Consumer Reports took the time and money to test three different iPhones in an RF isolation chamber, and presumably through scientific process, determined that indeed, the iPhone4 has signal attenuation issues that cause calls to be dropped.
I think that if one believes they are fudging the numbers, either duplicate their effort, or contact Consumer Reports and ask for more details on how the experiment is run.
I think it's good to question authority - and in fact that's what Consumer Reports often does, and is what they're doing here. The authority, Apple, is saying there's nothing wrong with one face, and with another face, they're hiring RF and antenna engineers. There are real people who paid at least $200 for this phone who are having real signal issues, but I shouldn't believe them because AT&T's coverage in Philadelphia is so widespread that I can use my iPhone underground in the subway?
That's zealous, and I'm glad to see an organization with the means to test these things put some weight behind the bloggers and everyday users who are having real trouble with these phones.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/12/consumer-reports-confirms...
That's how you refute -- or reinforce -- a published study. Not with rhetoric that a high school student would be embarrassed to get behind, but with independent study, publishing your methods and findings.
Anyone who doesn't have this problem or thinks it is overblown is an Apple fanatic, obviously, and of course they're all yelling all the time.
> There's already someone in the HN comments on this story who says it can't possibly be true because he's never had the problem with his iPhone. Seriously.
I can't seem to find that. Weird.
> I think that if one believes they are fudging the numbers, either duplicate their effort, or contact Consumer Reports and ask for more details on how the experiment is run.
Nobody said they were fudging numbers, nobody even implied it.
> (...) and with another face, they're hiring RF and antenna engineers.
Ah right, that whole conspiracy theory.
> There are real people who paid at least $200 for this phone who are having real signal issues, but I shouldn't believe them because AT&T's coverage in Philadelphia is so widespread that I can use my iPhone underground in the subway?
I haven't seen any comments recently (here or on reddit) which suggest that the problem does not exist, only that the problem does not affect them.
Further down the page http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1508566
> The iPhone 4 antenna attenuation issue will be remembered as one of the biggest avoidable but unforeseen design errors of all time, I think.
The comment you're linking is a response to the above:
> iPhone 4 owner as of day 1 and I haven't had an issue. I can't imagine that this is true.
Seems obvious that the "I can't imagine that to be true" is a response to "remembered as one of the biggest avoidable but unforeseen design errors of all time"
Thats what bothers me - where is the data? And furthermore, is CR testing signal attenuation, or an actual loss of functionality? Not having a phone myself (but knowing someone who is quite happy with hers) I remain unconvinced that there is a fundamental issue until I see data correlating hand position to actual dropped calls or reduced data throughput. Anything else has the feel of weather prediction.
From the article: "When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side - an easy thing, especially for lefties - the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you're in an area with a weak signal"
They are testing both signal attenuation and an actual loss of functionality.
I agree, actual data would be nice. What gives me confidence in the report is that, to quote Wikipedia, "Consumer Reports does not print outside advertising, accept free product samples, or permit the commercial use of its reviews for selling products" and that they've been doing this since 1936.
Bose and Sharper Image have in the past attempted to sue Consumer Reports for showing some kind of bias or for presumably using inaccurate methods in their reviews - both lost their lawsuits. There are good reasons why CR has the reputation it has, and that's why I'm willing to take what they have to say at close to face value, even without raw data being published in the same blog entry.
I do think they have a Pro-"Get everyone talking about Consumer Reports again" agenda though.
How do you make that happen? Make a splash with a polarizing article making the case for why the object everyone is in love with sucks.
It's sensational journalism 101.
They show their hand by recommending people buy the now mostly inferior 3GS instead of the 4. It's like their way of saying "We still love the iPhone!" Because duh.. it's obviously already a huge success.
Two of my favourite things about the iPhone are that it's slim and looks nice. The suggested fixes (in my view) compromise those things.
Plus, in the bumper case, 'cheap' isn't really good enough -- you're still paying extra money to make the thing work as it should.
1) Dither around like they're doing now. Blame AT & T, the software, etc.
2) Acknowledge the issue. Offer a free piece of plastic to all users who want one. Their cost no more than $5 per phone. Most people won't bother because they'll get their own case.
Which do you think in the long term will be more beneficial to the company? To their user's loyalty?
I'd think suggesting they over reacted is quite a stretch, yes.
If a product doesn't perform its core function (making phone calls) without spending $29 more than the base price and the manufacture doesn't tell you that when you buy it, then it is a defective product and doesn't meet their standard for recommendation.
> But Apple needs to come up with a permanent—and free—fix for the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone 4.
If this was a piece of software wouldn't we all demand a patch?
This is why I am still considering the iPhone 4 despite being aware of this flaw, as for everything other than making calls, it is arguably the best device in its class.
I hear a lot of developers bitch about the app store, but from an end-users perspective it has been one of Apple's best moves to-date.
I don't doubt that some Apple special sauce makes it easier to ignore the crappy apps, or that they are removed, but to imply that Apple's fart machine apps are better because you can't freely tether your device with 3rd party apps is just silly.
I believe that tethering is native to the OS, I remember doing some simple hack on my first 3G iPhone that enabled it for a while until a software update wiped it out. Other carriers (non-US) support it (a quick link I found re: Rogers: http://scilib.typepad.com/techreviews/2009/06/rogers-iphone-... )
So, your tethering restriction argument seems kind of straw-man to me. Additionally, it's not surprising that there are some bottom-feeder (fart) apps. Of course, the "fart-machine" apps are hardly the majority of the eco-system, but even so I could pretty much guarantee you that the fart apps would work 100% of the time on iOS, and probably 50% of the time at best on Android. As the app gets more complex, the probability of it working properly on all supported iOS devices, and NOT working properly on some subset of Android OS and hardware increases.
Also, the fragmentation argument is weak and old, I won't bother refuting it or answering it here. APIs are backward compatible. If you target 1.6 you work on 95+% of devices out there, etc, etc.
Heh, I would say Apple's refusal to accept Netshare, PDANet, oh any other tethering app, etc pretty well shows that they won't accept tethering apps. I'm kinda shocked that this is news to ... anyone really.
My personal experience with Android apps (Moto Droid and now HTC incredible) is that a decent percentage of apps (mostly (but not exclusively) games and odd things like "LED Flashlight Strobe" type stuff) do not work universally across all devices. Reading the comments on some of these apps supports my personal experience, so I think there is still a general problem with any random app on the Android store not offering a 100% consistent or "functions as expected" experience across all Android devices.
Perhaps there's something to be said for the "app store jail".
The solution is to make the good stuff rise to the top, not to suppress the crap. Luckily since Android apps can be distributed on the web, we can fall back to tried-and-true search techniques when the built-in Market app isn't cutting it.