Posted on 06/24/2010 1:10:28 AM PDT by PugetSoundSoldier
This is a reader video found on Macrumors forums illustrating something weird. When the guy holds the iPhone in his hands, touching the outside antenna band in two places, he drops reception. Placing the phone down gets him 4 bars.
We're not sure if he's doing something particularly weird, like holding the metal antenna in such a way that it's shorting out. But it is strange. Or, it could be just a bug in the software, showing no bars and no reception even when you do have reception. But, he does hold the phone with the glass, and it doesn't have this reception issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
See. For me a ‘cellphone’ should be a ‘phone’.
Not a mini computer.
But, that’s just me.
I have a plain vanilla cellphone and am totally happy using my computer at home when I need to go online.
Just a phone. No texting, no internet, no camera. Just a phone.
:0)
The reason this problem made it through usability testing was exposed by the $5000 prototype phone that Gizmodo paid for. Apple, not wanting anyone to know iPhone 4 even existed, dressed the prototypes up in cases that made them appear to be iPhone 3GS’s. The cases had the additional effect that they never allowed the band around the phone to be touched by the user’s hands.
This is an epic fail on Apple’s part.
Nah...to the Apple fanbois/girlz, this is a feature.
Constant calls from bill collectors? Is your girlfriend ringing you every 5 minutes? Just grab the phone the right (wrong) way, and goodbye annoying call!
Remember...Apple can do no wrong! :-)
Apple has a touch screen keyboard on the Ipad that does not have up or down cursor keys. What does one expect? Certainly they have designed this product so that it is held in the “Steve Jobs hand position” and if you just hold it that way it will work fine.
Seems to this poster, that was a major flaw with the “real world” testing apparently done by way of using the new phone inside a clamshell camoflaged as a prior gen iPhone.
(the one which was allegedly lost in the bar, which caused all the controversy)
So it’s tested with the external antenna shielded from contact with the user, by the clamshell disguise?
Now the production version is out - the external antenna is no longer shielded by the disguise, and holding the phone interferes with the effectiveness of the antenna?
Seems like a sophomoric mistake, if that’s what happened.
>”Seems like a sophomoric mistake, if that’s what happened.”
It was tested by Liberals. What else would you expect?
No macbots yet? I need to know what the story is on this before I can know how to spin this when someone tries to attack Apple products.
Does anyone have the PR points from Apple yet?
I wonder if they’ll have a recall? Man I’d be pissed if I paid for a new iPhone and a 2 year contract to get this crappy quality.
I wonder if that’s a “feature” and the phone is actually extending battery life by lowering power. Hey that may be the macbot spin. everyone knows you only need one bar to get a call while it’s in your leather case. And no one really wants to talk while holding it they will typically lay it on the table and use speakerphone or handsfree bluetooth. This is really a great feature that makes us do this because it’s safer when driving to not be touching the phone while you talk. And who on earth would drive with the phone in the leather case? You’d want that on your dashboard so everyone can see your pretty iPhone. It will only make your car look better anyway.
That's what the Obama voters thought they could do in 2008 election. Unfortunately they didn't realize they signed a 4 year contract.
I’m not sure Android is the right answer either. They are too fragmented and when they update their OS they break existing apps.
Winmobile 7 looks to not be it either. They are following the apple model of a closed ecosystem where you can’t do the same things as you can with winmob 6.5. Maybe in 2 or 3 years winmobile 7 will be better, but by then the next iPhone will be out and there will be all sorts of andoid phones.
Right now the cell phone market isn’t perfect and there is no magical device that does what I need. I personally like the android and winmob6.5 for MY use, but it’s deinfitely not as friendly for the consumer. Apple has that edge. Winmob 7 looks to take away the power user and go for the dumb user as the iPhone does. This will only leave android in the power user space.
Out of the box iPHone is clearly the easiest to use. Winmob 6.5 after massive tweaks and ROM flashes winmob 6.5 is the best phone. But most users won’t go through all that trouble.
Assuming that the gap on the Antenna is only on the left-hand side, this is clearly a conspiracy against left-handers!
Actually as a rightie I use my left hand to talk so my right hand can be free to write.
So it’s a conspiracy against righties. This proves apple is nothing but leftists.
Yeah.. You ‘lefties’ are all alike!
lol~!
Are you serious? I never heard of that! That is the definition of EPIC FAIL...
That makes perfect sense. It's like those mockup/extra-body-panel cars that Detroit drives around. But somehow I think Detroit also tests the cars without the extra parts.
I think you've nailed the reason this was never caught!
Have you checked WinMo 6.5 on the HTC Touch Pro 2, running SPB Mobile Shell? It's a whole different UI, AMAZINGLY simple and easy, totally 'drag and drop' customizable, and downright sexy.
There's a 14 day free trial of SPB Mobile Shell, and I'd highly recommend trying it. It's what a mobile phone OS should look and operate like. And you still get the most powerful mobile OS out there (WinMo 6.5) to operate on.
I have the tilt 2 and am running SPB Mobile Shell. I do love it, but most aren’t going to buy a custom shell. The defeault windows shell sucks and the HTC shell is cool but not very functional.
Plus the phone has some bloat on it that makes it slow from time to time. WinMobile 7 will fix that by not allowing every app to multitask. Once again losing a power user feature when compared to 6.5; however, I can see the need because they need to control battery life and responsiveness of the phone. Howver, my tilt2 has had the best battery of any phone ever. I go all day and remain above 80% battery. I’m truly amazed by it.
In line to get mine right now. Don’t connect the iPhone with the disgusting pervert Algore. Remember rush loves his iPhones too.
My thoughts exactly. I told the WinMo guys they should just continue to add real OS features to WinMo 6.5 and then hire a company like SPB to do the entire UI. Get out of the UI business altogether and hire someone to do it for you (one of the smartest things that Linux does - makes the clean break between the UI and the OS).
I know it was slow sometimes on my Samsung i760, but HTC Touch Pro 2 screams with it, even when I have Google Maps, Skype, WM WiFi Router, and Windows Media Player running simultaneously.
The key, I've found, is to install ALL apps to phone memory, but set it to save all data to the micro SD card (encrypted, of course). REALLY speeds up operations.
My battery life isn't as good though; that beautiful screen (800x480) with GPS and Bluetooth always running (I use Ageye's G Profile, a VERY slick way to make your phone switch profiles based upon location, handy when at places like church, or client offices, etc) I get it down to 30% by the end of the night. Picked up a spare extended capacity battery in China, though (for $30) and I have all the backup I need.
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