“But they’re dancin’ fools, so things even out.”
Posted on 07/02/2010 11:54:40 AM PDT by for-q-clinton
For two weeks, Apple dismissed rumors of a faulty antenna in the new iPhone 4 as nothing more than scuttlebutt. Any phone has these problems, Apple officials said. Buy a case to fix it.
Friday, Apple came clean: The antenna works just fine. But the software that displays signal strenth doesn't. The company has been using a faulty formula to determine signal strength in its phones for years.
"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," Apple said in a letter from two executives posted on its website Friday morning.
The letter went on to explain that there are no problems with the iPhone's antenna -- the only problem is with software that calculates how many bars should be showing. And the software hasn't worked properly since the original iPhone was released three years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcbayarea.com ...
That’s a pretty revealing graphic. The results confirm reception issues. I wonder how the iPhone 3G performs in similar testing. I’ll have to give it a try when I get time.
It’s apple’s fault for not revealing the true nature of the issue. ATT was responsive in my area when I reported areas of dead zones. Within a few months they had a tower up to take care of it. I’m sure others complained as well, but still it takes knowing you’re in a dead zone to report it.
I suspect they are telling ATT I’ve got 4 bars and am dropping calls...so clearly your system is kicking me off. ATT is like WTF our tower isn’t even at capacity so they can’t fix the problem that is being reported.
Wow can’t upload when holding the phone. That means the antenna can’t send a signal to the tower!
I hope Apple doesn’t fix this by just upping the output power. Imagine what that would do to batter life not to mention the unneccesary radiation going into your body.
His post, quoting from his authoritative source. Let him answer that.
You still haven't apologized for saying I refuse to admit when Apple screws-up, and I gave you the post where I had already said this was a "screw-up." You were so ready to accept my apology when you thought I couldn't produce the post (to you no less) to back that up. Now that you have the proof, it's time to man-up.
Putting a smiley doesn't make it any less offensive, just shows you to be even more rude and trollish.
I think what they are saying is that some people are losing signal when they cup the phone, but they have 4 bars and don’t understand why they’d lose signal.
But in fact, with the phone cupped, the bars should be reading 0, because they aren’t getting signal.
I guess if the signal strength indicated that you had killed your signal, you’d use it to figure out how to hold the phone.
But they obviously can’t fix the antenna, and so they are stuck with “training” people to hold the phone “properly”.
Either that, or they are saying that in cases where it drops out because you hold the phone wrong, it’s because your signal was already low to begin with, but you didn’t know that because they were lying to you about how strong your signal was.
In any case, they screwed up the design of the phone, and can’t fix it now.
“But they’re dancin’ fools, so things even out.”
That's the way I read the article. So it will be interesting to see how they "fix" this. Do they lower all the iPhones to show less bar making ATT look bad. I'm sure HTC will pick up on this and show where their phones get better signal than iPhones.
Or does the iPhone update their software to "pick up" when someone is holding the phone and notices a signficant drop in signal do they just add more bars to make it look ok to the user. Afterall when talking it's not like you'll notice a bad call unless it drops. And when it drops it's ATTs fault and never the iPhone. iPhone users already blamed all their service issues on ATT so it won't be hard to keep that lie going. Remember all iPhones have this signal bug so they have been blaming ATT for dropping calls when in reality it was a poor signal that dropped the call which could be the iPhone or ATTs fault.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry over this because it's true. I bet there are a lot of macbots rethinking their beliefs and faith in their idol god Steve Jobs this week.
I don't think I've been on an apple thread where so many came out and spoke the truth about Apple. It used to be one or two speaking about issues with Apple and tons on the defense. It's completely switched in this thread.
Corbis images are not allowed for copyright reasons.
You have to understand that a device like this is about 90% software, 10% hardware (in terms of usage, user experience). Software is EVERYthing.
Frankly, this is a weaselly answer from Apple. Screwing up an algorithm that displays signal strength bars is one thing, but that does NOT cause their notorious “dropping of calls” problem. One has zero to do with the other. One is a functionality issue; the other is nothing more than a display issue.
I agree. Something else is going to come out on this I’m sure because it just doesn’t make sense to me.
That's pretty funny. I was talking with a fellow in my office who got one of the new iPhones about it. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who uses an iPhone without a protective cover is just asking for trouble. The thing just feels too darn fragile. If I had one, I'd be scared to death of dropping it and having the screen shatter. Of course, that doesn't excuse the silly excuse for quality control that let the phones make it to market with the problems they had, whether they are real or not. From what I understand, they didn't notice it because the majority of phones they were testing had a cover on them to conceal the fact they were the new iPhones, but that really isn't a good excuse IMO.
Know what I think? I think Apple fell prey to what so many other Smartphone makers have fallen prey to.
Their gadgets do EVERYthing, but they forget the one, key, primary use for the device over and above all else: it’s a PHONE. I have one like that. Does everything but shave you........and it’s a horrible telephone.
I have to say, the one company that has always made one hell of a good PHONE, hands down, is Motorola.
Good info here, from the study:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2
You hit it right on the nose, antiRepublicrat...
The problem is how they have (always) set the levels between bars, artificially making it look like 5 bars even when you've lost more than 20% of the max signal. Interval determination can be tricky when it comes to some things, such as shading (because the human eye doesn't see linear changes in shade in a linear manner). But this, however, seems to be an intentional trick they've played...but with the greater attenuation of the iPhone 4, they got caught because the signal dropped so much it was visible even with the scammed bars.
It's like a fuel gauge that doesn't drop very much at first, and then drops quickly. You can use half your fuel and not see much difference, so you say, "Wow! Great gas mileage!" But when you get to the lower amounts, the gas usage becomes obvious.
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