Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
“allows engineers to test reception in real-world settings”
I understand the Apple campus has the best AT&T coverage in the nation!
Nice facility. So we can assume that the iPhone 4 was quite thoroughly tested, but somehow it never crossed anyone’s mind that users might hold it differently. A classic oops.
It’s amazing what you can build in a week.
I don’t get why they are showing off this facility.
“Yes we have a 100 million dollar antenna testing facility and we still can’t build a reliable product”
Seems like you are just admitting to massive incompetence.
Great place to be when the great CME hits the planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection
#4: Exactly. They probably hired some company to build an expensive anechoic chamber, but they didn’t test to see if the chamber really worked.
As others have said: FAIL.
The iPad has reception problems too… with the WiFi.
“Apple engineer Ruben Caballero, who was the subject of a Bloomberg report yesterday claiming that he had warned Apple CEO Steve Jobs early in the iPhone 4 design process that the antenna design could cause reception problems, a claim Jobs today called a “crock” and “total bullshit”.”
“Hey, boss, the new design has a major flaw that will cause serious reception issues.”
“Shut the fuck up and go away, I’m still counting the cash from those idiots who bought the iPad.”
The facility is impressive. Perhaps other phone makers will show theirs now. Apple seems to be interested in some transparency and disclosure.
A few things that need to happen now:
1. Restore field test mode access. We cannot keep comparing bars with other phones. We need the granularity of actual dBm values. Apple’s videos comparing with other phones do not do engineering justice to their $100M testing facility.
2. Show the antenna test pattern of the iPhone 4 antenna. I’m yet to see one for any mobile phone, but you can see them for just about any other antenna. I expect this will be considered proprietary. It should not. The gains of these antennas are not higher than 1-3 dB at most, and their patterns are likely near omnidirectional in one plane. What’s the big deal? Just show us. Use your anechoic chambers to show us some real engineering results, not crude videos of bar graph changes.
3. Standardize the “bar vs dBm formula”, including time averaging interval, used on ALL new mobiles by mid-2011. This is easy to do, as it is an algorithm in software, mapping a measured value range to a bar graph. Apple modified theirs in 2 weeks. If this is not done, any comparisons between dissimilar methods are meaningless. The FCC could spend more useful time getting agreement on this matter.
4. Modify the iPhone 4 design to insulate the antenna inside the case, basically back to embedding it in the case structure. Use a transparent insulating material if the metal look is that important aesthetically. This may be better than inside 1-2mm of plastic, like the rest of the pack.
The best facilities, equipment, and personnel won’t matter if management doesn’t listen !!!
And yet they couldn’t find that flaw which means that facility has two distinct features:
1.- The tester was a complete fanboy and was busy stuffing his anus with the iPhone4 and thus couldn’t care at all about the phone’s antenna.
2.- Apple’s facilities are like their products: 75% looks and 25% functionality.
John F:
Why average received power over a time period? If people saw the instantanous power level on the graph, they would have figured out the “correct” way to hold and use the phone by themselves.
In fact: by indicating the direction to the strongest cell tower (via direct line of sight, or via most effective multipath direction) users could maximize the chances of maintaining a call in a marginal area. Such an App would be useful.
I frequently try to hold my G3 in a way that prevents loss of signal in a marginal area, but I’m only guessing what the phone needs me to do.
It is good to read the analysis of some experienced in these issues. Please post more thoughts if you can?
I also would like to point out that spending 100 million on a “world class” antenna testing facility, rather than spending 1 million on a “world class” antenna, is a fool’s errand.
Testing doesn’t substitute for good design, testing costs money while good design earns money.
There are companies that specialize in antenna design, including fractal antenna design.
I’m surprised that no one has noted that you do not test antennas in an anechoic chamber, you test them in a Faraday room. Anechoic chambers are for audio testing.
Oh, I almost forgot about this one
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple
# 10 Angel H. Wong said, “The tester was a complete fanboy and was busy stuffing his anus with the iPhone4…”
Actually, Angel, I have it on good authority that holding the phone with one’s anal sphincter actually reduces reception. On the good side, hardly anyone asks to borrow your phone…
#15. @Animby. Trying that.
#16 sargasso_c :
Let us know how it “comes out.”
“The best facilities, equipment, and personnel won’t matter if management doesn’t listen !!!”
Aye, there’s the rub.
Another and much more serious manifestation of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
“Roger Boisjoly, the engineer who had warned about the effect of cold weather on the O-rings, left his job at Morton Thiokol and became a speaker on workplace ethics. For his honesty and integrity leading up to and directly following the shuttle disaster, Roger Boisjoly was awarded the Prize for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Many colleges and universities have also used the accident in classes on the ethics of engineering.”
Kenneth, the antenna engineer, couldn’t get the right frequency.
So they spent $millions to test equipment in “lab” conditions. And it never occurred to them to try it down the street at Starbucks.
Or maybe that apple guy who lost his iPhone4 in a bar was actually doing field testing, and not just getting drunk. Unfortunately, by testing it in a 3GS case he completely missed the problem.
I expect that Microsoft Vista was thoroughly tested in a lab many times before it was released. Testing in the real world is difficult.
I have a black one from the summer and I love it! I don’t like these new designs.
Why are they showing this to us? If they have such a great testing lab, they should have caught this antenna problem. Which says to me, either they are total incompetents or they knew and did give a rats ass.
I wonder is the “suicides” at the production factory have anything to do with the antenna problem?