Apple has announced that the iPhone reception problems are actually software problems:

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. 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.

At the same time, Engadget isn’t so sure that Apple’s software problems explain all the reception difficulties. Many blogs note that Apple is still looking to hire eight antenna engineers, which means that the problem might be on the physical side.

Apple is also saying that those Steve Jobs e-mails saying the iPhone 4 was “just a phone” are fake. Meanwhile, Consumer Reports launched an investigation and they determined that the signal problems “aren’t unique, and may not be serious.” (You can find another in-depth investigation here.) Now I don’t know what the fuck to believe.

13 replies on “iPhone 4 Woes Not as Bad as They Seem?”

  1. The antenna engineers, I am told, were the result of San Francisco passing some EMI ordinance, which basically requires OEMs to list ON THE PACKAGE the amount of radiation the device emits. You don’t need an antenna engineer, yet alone 4 of them to do this as Apple already knows what the EMI/RADS are and anyone can look it up on FCCs own web site. No, thats a job for marketing, not antenna engineers.

  2. 2³ engineers is the correct number for a software problem. For hardware, you just find the one engineer who knows the how to fix it and hire that guy.

    Also…

    Now I don’t know what the fuck to believe.

    Believe your heart, Paul. it will never lead you astray. Your heart says your darling little phone loves you and you love it. Everything else is a distraction.

  3. I haven’t had this problem with mine. I’ve tried holding it and squeezing it to varying degrees. Standing indoors, outside, on a bus on I-5. Never have been able to make the bars go down based on how I hold it. I even tried licking it down there. No dice.

  5. Paul – I posted the Anandtech link yesterday. They have real numbers backing up their analysis of attenuation. Check it out:
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-i…

    You don’t know what to think because your sources suck. Engadget? Rumor blogs? You’re surprised when the email purportedly from Jobs saying in part “relax, it’s just a phone” turns out to be fake? That’s some pretty smelly troll-bait.

    And Anandtech knows that these technical review strain the attention of the blogosphere, so they break them into pages – here’s the one that answers your questions:
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-i…

    You have to read better tech-blogs if you want to anything better than repost hysterics.

  7. It doesn’t particularly explain why the drop in bars correlates with gripping the phone, but hey. If the “high bars were never real in the first place” how does it know to correct them when you grip the phone?

  8. Again with this nonsense? Of course you will find problems with a new device with essentially new software when it gets in the hands of 1.7 million people.

    My issue is posting this on the slog. It’s not news, it’s technology gossip. Furthermore, several people responded to your non-informative post yesterday with experience about these “issues”.

    As the great Riley Freeman once said: “Hey you with the Afro! Give it a rest!”

  9. Only believe what the great and powerful Jobs tells us.

    Seriously, he knows best, better than we do for ourselves.

    My iPhone 4 hasn’t given me a whit of trouble, probably because I refuse to remove it from its packaging, keeping it in mint condition.

  10. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars.

    Oh, thank you for explaining that bit of single-digit subtraction for us, Apple! Do you always assume your consumers are this stupid, or only when you’re talking about math so simple that we can do it on the fingers of one hand?

  11. the iPhone 4 is a pretty radical hardware re-design. As good as Apple is, i think it probably makes sense to wait until v5 – which i’m guessing will further refine the new shape factor – to upgrade my 3GS.

    I do love the 3GS…don’t know how i ever did without it 🙂

  12. In other words: “no our antenna is just fine, its just that we have been tricking you into thinking you had more service than you did.”

    Every day I am happier and happier that I will be leaving my shitty ass phone and this joke of company very soon.

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