The antenna issue had to be foreseable. Touching metal antennas seriously changes the tuning characteristics, and shorting or grounding antennas can really screw things up. Every phone that I've ever had with an exposed antenna has been covered with an electrically insulating material. The iPhone 4 shoudd have a coating on the edge, BUT that wouldn't be anywhere near as cool to look at and touch....
Obligatory iPhone 4 Thread...
- Thread starter Grall
- Start date
It seems Steve Jobs responded to an email about the antenna issue saying:
So the community responded in kind ( http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/25/hey-apple-youre-holding-it-wrong ) :
We're only holding it in the way that you showed us.
Steve Jobs said:
So the community responded in kind ( http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/25/hey-apple-youre-holding-it-wrong ) :
We're only holding it in the way that you showed us.
A coworker just got one, so I stole it and played around with it. Bottom line: screen is awesome! Text clarity is much improved. Feels a little heavier than my 3G. Seems about as responsive as a 3GS.
Biggest improvement is the screen. Other than that, it's not really that much different than previous iPhones. Didn't make any calls so I'm not sure about the antenna issue.
Biggest improvement is the screen. Other than that, it's not really that much different than previous iPhones. Didn't make any calls so I'm not sure about the antenna issue.
I think the antenna issue is hysterical considering they could have used and ultra-thin nonconductive clear coat (q-dope) and eliminated it. The shattered glass pics are making a "bumper" case look mandatory. I'm still looking to the N8 for my next phone...pentaband 3G means it works EVERYWHERE and isn't locked down so I can use it as a wifi access point...yes, Symbian sucks for looks, but it's quite functional.
Ike Turner
Veteran
Got mine today. Walked into a local store and they had left overs from people who didn't want to wait in line yesterday. My previous was a 3G. Coming from a 3G, it simply does everything better, a lot better. The UI is very responsive. Most importantly, it can now keep up with my typing. The screen, as everyone mentions, is stunning. Well done apple. My phone doesn't suffer from blotches or severe signal loss (or any) so far, so that makes me happy.
ltcommander.data
Regular
Or we'll see whether the supposed iOS 4.0.1 update that responses in Apple's Support Forums said was coming soon, before the posts were pulled, fixes the issue like it's supposed to.
ltcommander.data
Regular
I think the hope is that the major problem is with iOS 4's ability to search for the best radio frequency and switch to it, which may have been implemented improperly. Reportedly iPhone 3GS users are seeing similar signal problems when strongly gripping the bottom of the phone more easily since the iOS 4 update, which would seem to point to something being up with iOS 4. iPhone 4's antenna design may only be a contributing factor that exacerbates the iOS 4 problem. If this is true, then hopefully after iOS 4.0.1, any performance degradation by gripping the bottom of the iPhone 4 will be more in line with what is seen in other phones that have bottom mounted antennas, which is most of them.
Uh, shorting an antenna to another shouldn't kill reception/transmission if the other antenna isn't active or grounded. I'll assume it's not grounded as it wouldn't work as an antenna so perhaps deactivating one radio when another is in use might be the answer and fixable via software. The bigger question is what radio does one sacrifice? Has anyone confirmed signal loss with Wifi OFF? All the vids I've seen so far have it on.
LOL. The band on the left is combined wifi/BT and all the videos of reception loss are with either wifi or BT turned on. So you have Wifi and BT trying to broadcast on the 2.4 GHz band with GSM/UMTS pushing 850 MHz on the same antenna. I'd like to see if the problem persists with Wifi and BT BOTH turned off.
Well...just so you know lots of people...myself included use BT headsets while making calls to/from our phones...
It's required by law and applys when driving a vehicle in some states.
Last edited by a moderator:
Yeah but if you're using bluetooth, you're not likely to be holding the phone.
Walt Mossberg's review said that in some areas, iPhone 4 showed no bars while iPhone 3GS showed a couple of bars. iPhone 4 was actually able to make calls in these situations so the software wasn't rendering the signal strength correctly. So that could be a software fix. But this case didn't involve shorting the antenna.
Others have suggested the problem only occurs in certain areas and maybe with sweatier hands.
Walt Mossberg's review said that in some areas, iPhone 4 showed no bars while iPhone 3GS showed a couple of bars. iPhone 4 was actually able to make calls in these situations so the software wasn't rendering the signal strength correctly. So that could be a software fix. But this case didn't involve shorting the antenna.
Others have suggested the problem only occurs in certain areas and maybe with sweatier hands.
Similar threads
