Really?? I’m putting the BS meter on this one until it can be verified or whatever.
Thousands of consumers have complained that when gripping the phone around the lower left-hand corner of the device, the signal degrades or calls are dropped.
[…]
Now the company says its engineers have made a “stunning” discovery. People may be finding that their reception is poor and that calls are being dropped not only because they’re holding the phone wrong, but also because they think they have a better signal than they actually do. In the statement, Apple says that it had made a mistake in the formula that calculates the number of bars that display the signal strength on all of its iPhones.“We were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong,” it said in a statement. “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.”
[…]
“If the only thing that Apple is changing in this software fix is how the bars are calculated, then this is simply a pacifier for people who like to watch bars,” said Spencer Webb, president of AntennaSys, an antenna design firm. “And signal ‘bar watching’ is a dangerous way to draw technical conclusions about a phone’s reception.”
i think this is one last way apple is gonna jab ATT before the big announcement of the Verizon iphone. they come out and show that ATT network really does suck just after the rumor mill starts grinding with this. so much for the ‘more bars in more places’…
The whole bar representation has to go. Signal-to-Noise Ratio is what matters anyways. As long as you have signal 8 DB or higher above the noise floor it will generally be solid.
What’s so difficult about having a numerical representation? “12:1” “Looks good.”
Of course, that would also expose the telecoms for misrepresenting how good the service is where the customers have that, so, win-win I’d say.
madtruckman, ATT is horrible. When I’m roaming in the US I can use either ATT or Verizon. My iPhones and Androids all have better signal strength and consistency on Verizon especially in SF and Manhattan. Haven’t got an EVO yet – but I’ve heard the signal strength is great.
BTW, I’m not a phone junkie – I just write software for phones so I have lots of gadgets for testing. 😉
DON’T WORRY!!!!!
BE HAPPY!!!!!
(BTW, my iPhone 4 works great… or so I think it does!)
You know when are people going to learn that any product made in China has to be flawed in some way. Even Apple’s products are made by people who only dream of spending money on a iPhone. Mostly they are just trying to not be so depressed as to kill themselves!
#13 honkytonkwillie
Is this necessarily a bad thing, controlling user experience? If the glass is half full why not encourage this perception?
Actually, I can think of a lot of times I wish folks would focus more on user experience. Think about sitting in a restaurant or standing in a retail queue. Not at the expense of “substance,” simply in addition.
After all, this is why someone buys a luxury product like Apple, isn’t it? The premium in cost covers the massage.
…Now about that second chakra…
From an iPhone 4 using the 3G network only:
Hands away: 2524 Kb/sec Down; 1267 Up.
Hands surrounding but not touching: 2410/1201
Hands on, bridging all strips: 2357/1125
Big fizz.
Over and over and over, this sort of proportionality appears. Just to be clear: The whole issue, at least applied to this iPhone 4 is a big So What.
If there was an error in the math, who among us…