Is this a joke that I'm not getting? Scotch tape? Really? "This problem isn't real, but here's how you fix it."
He also completely dismisses public perception. Did everyone forget Toyota's mess so quickly? If there's a perceived problem with your product, then there's a problem with your product.
Really? Are you seriously comparing maybe 2 bars of lost reception that many people have been unable to replicate, IF you hold the phone a certain way, to a product that could kill you. And not in a "cigarettes can kill you" sort of way, but in a firey ball of death sort of a way?
I would certainly prefer that the phone did not lose any reception no matter how it was held. It is worth complaining about so that maybe apple will fix it. It is, however, in no way comparable to Toyota's mess. Not even close.
I actually think Toyota's mistake was taking the complaints too seriously and responding with such concern. Apple's approach, of dismissing the 'problem' and blaming it on the user, seems much more likely to help the whole thing blow over.
When you express too much concern about a possible problem, I personally have found that it legitimizes the problem to those observing the situation.
Although, this comment would be much more interesting if I had any data to back it up.
Except that there is no problem. I have an iPhone 4 as does my wife and I can cover the WHOLE metal band with my hands and not drop any bars.
It's mass hysteria and whining. Get over it.
Could you imagine buying a brand new Mercedes CL550, finding out that if you grip the steering wheel with your left hand it will shut the car down, and then having Mercedes insist that there is no problem and that you should buy a steering wheel cover?
This is so far beyond unacceptable for apple. I cannot believe (well yes, actually, I can) that they're not doing a recall on this or, at the very least, providing users with a free case.
The other tragedy of this whole thing (or maybe it's just brilliance on behalf of apple) is that the stories about the antenna issue are all overpowering the issue that 3G users are having with iOS4. V4 renders the phone slow and buggy. Opening SMS messages will sometimes crash the SMS program. Things are slow, opening the ipod function can take upwards of 10 seconds sometimes.
Really really really really bad form apple. The last 6 months have been terrible for them.
They've sold a million IPads a month, are on track to sell that many Iphone 4s, untold millions of Ipods, etc. and the press is gushing over them like they're the newest teen idol sensation. I want to have a terrible 6 months like that!
In this example the Mercedes also costs the same as a Honda, right?
Look, Apple sets expectations super high, and to a certain extent that's their fault. But they're also innovating like crazy and, unfortunately, there are bound to be some missteps. Would you rather they slow things down a bit? I wouldn't.
I heard Mercedes said to solve the left hand issue is to just not steer using your left hand. Using the left hand for steering has serious side-effects such as not looking as cool, limited window waving abilities, and inability to ash a cigarette out the window while driving.
Actually, when the Mercedes A-class showed up, and the motor press were able to tip it over, Mercedes did pretty much exactly the same thing. Of course, the A-class isn't a CL550, but then again, it still cost a whole lot more to buy than an iPhone. :)
Am I the only one confused by the combination of "this happens to every phone" with fixes, including both this and the official one(s), which are workarounds to prevent shorting the exposed antennas, which no other phone has?
RF energy is strange stuff. The coupling to your hand will change its radiation pattern and reception sensitivity. For any phone, where you put your hand changes its RF abilities. The engineers try to make it so common hand holds aren't too bad.
If you are old enough to remember analog TV and "rabbit ears" then you might remember the frustration of trying to adjust your rabbit ears to get good reception on a station. Sometimes it would be great while you were standing near the antenna, but bad when you walked away. Sometimes people would resort to distorting the patterns directly with aluminum foil tags on the rabbit ears.
The same thing happens to phones, though the distances are much smaller because of the frequencies.
If you want to experiment, remember that the direction to the current tower is also important in this system. There is no reason to believe your phone receives uniformly well in a polar pattern about your vertical axis.
Go someplace with less than full bars. Get a grip. Turn 360 degrees slowly enough for the bars to respond, record data at various angles. Try a different grip. Repeat.
Like my idol, Léon Theremin, I will use this "defect" to develop a special app that allows the user to play music by stroking and caressing his/her iPhone on its various "sensitive" radio receptors.
Then we can sit back and wait for our very own Clara Rockmore to emerge...
I've always held my 2G at the top of the phone, primarily to avoid attenuating the wi-fi noticeably, but also to reduce the energy being absorbed by my hand.
Carrying this over to the iPhone 4.0 appears to completely avoid this 'problem'.
It's a shame, because the phone is fantastic and in the areas of magazine-like screen quality, running multiple apps, speed and build, has exceeded my expectations wildly.
This is sad in a way: people just spent a few hundred dollars on a shiny (literally) device and now they need to tape it in a very visible place so that it works consistently.
All this fuss over the perceived problem of the antenna, it reeks of premature optimization. Has anyone actually observed this being a problem while on a phone call? I'm not talking bars, since bars are a very loose indication of signal strength.
Phone calls generally work even with very bad reception. More important here is the data transfer over 3G which has been observed to slow down significantly. The "death grip" is exactly how you would hold the phone when browsing.
My iPhone 3GS (and probably all of them) have a somewhat similar problem: when I hold it at the bottom I cover the microphone with my palm and the other side can't hear me. When they start asking me to repeat, I change the way I hold it. Not sure how I discovered this is the problem, maybe other people think they have poor reception.
But there was no media hype about this one. Maybe if Steve Jobs didn't mention the innovative antenna design, no one would have noticed.
[+] [-] rriepe|15 years ago|reply
He also completely dismisses public perception. Did everyone forget Toyota's mess so quickly? If there's a perceived problem with your product, then there's a problem with your product.
[+] [-] rauljara|15 years ago|reply
I would certainly prefer that the phone did not lose any reception no matter how it was held. It is worth complaining about so that maybe apple will fix it. It is, however, in no way comparable to Toyota's mess. Not even close.
[+] [-] ryanjmo|15 years ago|reply
When you express too much concern about a possible problem, I personally have found that it legitimizes the problem to those observing the situation.
Although, this comment would be much more interesting if I had any data to back it up.
[+] [-] Readmore|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martythemaniak|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blhack|15 years ago|reply
This is so far beyond unacceptable for apple. I cannot believe (well yes, actually, I can) that they're not doing a recall on this or, at the very least, providing users with a free case.
The other tragedy of this whole thing (or maybe it's just brilliance on behalf of apple) is that the stories about the antenna issue are all overpowering the issue that 3G users are having with iOS4. V4 renders the phone slow and buggy. Opening SMS messages will sometimes crash the SMS program. Things are slow, opening the ipod function can take upwards of 10 seconds sometimes.
Really really really really bad form apple. The last 6 months have been terrible for them.
[+] [-] CapitalistCartr|15 years ago|reply
They've sold a million IPads a month, are on track to sell that many Iphone 4s, untold millions of Ipods, etc. and the press is gushing over them like they're the newest teen idol sensation. I want to have a terrible 6 months like that!
[+] [-] j_b_f|15 years ago|reply
Look, Apple sets expectations super high, and to a certain extent that's their fault. But they're also innovating like crazy and, unfortunately, there are bound to be some missteps. Would you rather they slow things down a bit? I wouldn't.
[+] [-] jsz0|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrinterweb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MWinther|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jws|15 years ago|reply
If you are old enough to remember analog TV and "rabbit ears" then you might remember the frustration of trying to adjust your rabbit ears to get good reception on a station. Sometimes it would be great while you were standing near the antenna, but bad when you walked away. Sometimes people would resort to distorting the patterns directly with aluminum foil tags on the rabbit ears.
The same thing happens to phones, though the distances are much smaller because of the frequencies.
If you want to experiment, remember that the direction to the current tower is also important in this system. There is no reason to believe your phone receives uniformly well in a polar pattern about your vertical axis.
Go someplace with less than full bars. Get a grip. Turn 360 degrees slowly enough for the bars to respond, record data at various angles. Try a different grip. Repeat.
[+] [-] commieneko|15 years ago|reply
Then we can sit back and wait for our very own Clara Rockmore to emerge...
[+] [-] watmough|15 years ago|reply
Carrying this over to the iPhone 4.0 appears to completely avoid this 'problem'.
It's a shame, because the phone is fantastic and in the areas of magazine-like screen quality, running multiple apps, speed and build, has exceeded my expectations wildly.
[+] [-] pierrefar|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Geee|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ntoshev|15 years ago|reply
But there was no media hype about this one. Maybe if Steve Jobs didn't mention the innovative antenna design, no one would have noticed.
[+] [-] coned88|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nirmal|15 years ago|reply
For those who want to make a clearly visible statement about their antenna woes. :)
[+] [-] mkramlich|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattmcegg|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]