Archive for: signal
- September 13, 2010 8:09 pm
Well, since Apple is discontinuing It’s Free Case Program as of September 30, Consumer Reports released an article saying it will CONTINUE TO NOT recommend Apple’s latest iAwesome to the masses. Poor Apple, I mean, yeah, they released a product millions were going to swoon over, and yes, it had a few problems, not just minor problems, but problems that will make even the die hardest fanboy piss and moan. But come on, ever after they were giving away cases, not just Apple Bumpers mind you, other companies cases to anyone with an iPhone 4, that is doing some damage control. Yes, it took em some time to release a statement, and yes, their customer service was shotty at best about the whole situation, but I think it is time to stop dwelling on the negative of such a great phone.
I mean, before I put a Bodyguardz protective case on my iPhone 4, I NEVER, I’ll say it again, never had a reception problem, albeit, some issues, but none more than my iPhone 3G[s] or 3g before it. And you can read in numerous places people never having issues. But, some did, and many made a gigantic fuss over it. Oh well, do we still want to hinder the sales? Well, I know for a fact I never listen to Consumer Reports, but there are a lot of 50+ somethings that do. Does Apple and Steve Jobs want old farts using their phones? Yes! But, some aren’t because they might put their fat finger over a little ‘line’ on the phone and make their call drop when ordering medicine.
I think this latest article by Consumer Reports is stupid and should be retracted. I’m sure Apple has a plan in place after this September 30th deadline, maybe a newly designed outer ring, who knows. A Bumper welded on, who cares!!!
The phone is great. The phone is all knowing and all powerful. Buy it! Listen to Gadgetsteria, not stupid ol Consumer Reports!
Anyways, read more if you’d like!
Source: Consumer Reports
So you’ve probably seen the Apple emergency press conference or at the very least, some pictures that showed Apple showcasing several other smartphones from competing manufacturers dropping bars just as the iPhone 4 has. Since then, phone forums across the web have exploded with people on both sides of the fence — some able to recreate the dropping bars issue and some not. In the end, it’s a moot point. Signal bars displayed on screen are useless for precise measurement. The decibel reading is the only sure fire way to see how much signal you really have.
Consumer Reports did their thing and utterly fucked up. For a company who prides itself in giving nothing more than unbiased reviews, the whole iPhone saga was a theatrical display of failure. Nonetheless, an independent german outfit, Stiftung Warentest (Google Translated) has gone on the record testing the iPhone 4 against two other unnamed smartphones. Their findings: The other smartphones do display the same signal bar drop as the iPhone 4. But here’s the important part — the iPhone 4 dropped up to 90% of it’s signal when merely touched in the corner. The other two phones had to be handled in a much firmer grip and even then only dropped at most 25% of their signal. So again, Apple’s “brilliant” design was anything but. And their horse and pony show a couple Fridays back was constructed to do nothing more than confuse the public by trying to hide the truth…yet again.
It may seem like I’m out on some crusade to kill the iPhone’s reputation. In reality, I’m not. (Besides, Apple is doing a damn fine job of tarnishing the iPhone 4′s image and their own without my help). I love the iPhone 4. It’s easily the best all-in-one package (hardware/software/cloud) in the smartphone world. But Apple made a mistake by putting the antenna on the outside and is now trying to mask their fuck up by falsely marketing their issues as a common problem shared by all. Remember ALL the other manufacturers didn’t put an un-shielded antenna on the outsides of their phones because they knew it was a terrible idea. In the end, it’s just another blow to Apple’s image. They take their own customers for idiots, plain and simple.
The saddest part is that Apple is continuing to try and mislead the public with a recent Droid X update to their signal bar saga. But the Droid X example — just like the rest — completely sidesteps the issue Apple created on its own. Speaking of the Droid X video post by Apple, anandtech has an extremely detailed (read: extremely detailed) review of the Droid X and gets down and dirty with signal attentuation. Their find: while the Droid X did suffer some signal loss from being held as the iPhone 4 has been criticized for, the Droid X’s worst moments saw a -15db drop — compare that to the iPhone 4′s -25db.
Ranting aside, give the Stiftung Warentest a read (English or not) and let me know what you think.
Finally, function and form is coming together for the iPhone 4. Hardy hardy har…funny stuff. Ok, now that that’s settled, continue on with your day…
iPhone 4 signal issues be damned! While your grimy mits cause all sorts of attenuation issues with the iPhone 4, there are solutions. Apple has responded (rather grudgingly) to giving away free cases to iPhone 4 users. But what if you don’t like their cases? Buy another one. Finally, there’s a “buy your own fix” that doesn’t break the bank nor is it overpriced like pretty much every other $0.05 case out there — the iPhone Band Aid.
For $4.99 per pack of 6 multi-colored Band Aid’s, I find myself yet again asking: “Why didn’t I think of that?” Get yours now at Antenn-Aid.
Today was the day that Apple addressed the world regarding the iPhone 4′s antenna problems. But before they jumped into what really mattered, we got a nice little lecture on how great the iPhone 4 has been selling so far — a nice gesture if this would have been a regular keynote. But considering the issue at hand, it was annoying to say the least. Just get on with the answers Steve. On that note…the answers.
- Essentially, Apple went ahead and showed the same death grip = signal loss on several popular handsets, namely the BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris, and Samsung Omnia II. Why they chose older models that aren’t really that…”popular” (save for the BlackBerry Bold 9700) is beyond me. Maybe they were the ones that showed the greatest attenuation? Anyway, the general theme was that Apple is not the only one — all manufacturers have problems “getting around the laws of physics” as he put it. Perhaps the neatest part of the speech was the showcasing of Apple’s $100 million+ testing facility for wireless devices. As you’ll see in the pictures inside, it’s a huge room with all kinds of high tech equipment aiming to reproduce real-world wireless issues.
- After that, Jobs reiterated that phones have weak spots and no phone is perfect. Granted, I have yet to see such a drop on My DROID no matter how I hold it. (Though I’ll be sure to get a legitimate app that can show decibel strength and update this post later.) One other telling bit of information was the AppleCare call statistics regarding iPhone 4 signal issues and AT&T return rates. Specifically, 0.55% and 1.5% for AppleCare calls and AT&T returns respectively. Those are really, really low numbers. I don’t doubt the percentage would be low. The only real people raising a ruckus are the technically minded/gadget lovers. The general public doesn’t know or doesn’t care.
- The most stunning admission came by way of dropped call rates. Jobs declined to give hard numbers citing not wanting to give AT&T’s competitors some hard numbers of their own to chew on. However, he admitted that while Apple believes the iPhone 4′s external antenna is better all around, it does drop more calls than the iPhone 3GS. That’s a BIG admission coming from a company such as Apple. But on that note, Steve stressed that even dropping more calls translated into <1 per 100 phone calls. Tiny margins for sure.
- Next up, the answer everyone had been waiting for — Free cases. If you could call the bumper case a “case” that is. But it goes further than just the bumper case. Apple claims that they could never make enough bumper cases for all of the iPhone users potentially seeking them. So, Apple will be giving iPhone 4 users a choice between several different cases that they can pick up for free. Nice! All iPhone 4 users who’ve already purchased a bumper case can get a refund. Note: the case refund looks to be available on the bumper case only. The free case deal runs through Septbember 30th.
- And last not but not least, Apple has stated that they will honor 30-day refunds. Bring your undamaged iPhone 4 back within 30 days of purchase and the full purchase price will be credited back to you.
All in all, I myself feel Apple did a decent job of conveying some sympathy and answers to an aggrieved public. The free case, case refund, and full iPhone 4 refund are definitely the right moves to ensure that Apple fans stay Apple fans despite speed bumps. How does it affect potential Apple customers sitting on the fence, still unsure about what to make of the whole situation? All I can say is Apple made a very good attempt to right their wrong. Though as Steve noted, all smartphone’s have weak spots. It just seems like theirs got the most attention.
As to whether or not this issue is as widespread as Apple claims, I’m going to test my older phones that I have sitting around the house as well as friends and family members who have different devices and carriers. As good of an example as it was, showing off three phones (two old and outdated ones no less) and saying “all phones” is kind of misleading. Again, I haven’t noticed the death grip affecting my Moto DROID. But that was based of a quick glance at signal bars. And this whole drama has shown us just how unreliable those are. On that front, stay tuned for results.
It’s a lot to take in. What do the readers think?
With the drama surrounding the iPhone 4 and it’s glaring signal problems, the world at large has become a bit more paranoid it seems. I mean, why else would people randomly start death gripping (could this become a new verb?) their phones to see if it exhibited the same signal slaying losses the iPhone 4 experiences. Fear motivates folks.
With that said, a growing number of people are raising their voice over a slight signal issue affecting the Samsung Vibrant. Apparently, putting the death grip on said phone will also result in a loss of signal bars. Though in the video that I saw (video after the jump), while signal bars did tank, throughput didn’t appear to be affected very much, with download speeds still in the high 2Mbps/1Mbps range respectively. And same as the iPhone, there are people on both sides of the camp — those who can and can’t replicate the issue. But as we’ve seen with the iPhone 4 debacle, it’s all in how the real signal is transposed into signal bars. Perhaps its time for Android to get a signal bar adjustment of their own.
Rather decent download/upload speeds aside, it would be hypocritical of me to blast the iPhone 4′s signal issues and let another personally more favored platform slip past the radar in the shadows. So I call out to you Samsung Vibrant owner. Give the gift of a death grip to your Vibrant and let us know how it goes. Don’t forget to check out the video inside…
The day many an iPhone 4 user has been waiting for — update day. Well, it’s not technically available to the general public. Apple is pushing out iOS 4.1 to devs as we speak, which includes the highly debated software fix for the iPhone 4′s signal display. How does it affect that hardware side of things?
Shocker: It doesn’t do a single thing for the hardware related signal problem. Have a look at the video inside and see that the bars still drop. Yeah, the person is in a low signal area. But that doesn’t justify the level of attenuation that is being seen. Can’t hide the truth, Apple….
iPhone’s of years past weren’t exactly energizer bunnies when it came to long runtime. Unless you were what Apple or AT&T would call a “common” user, getting a full day getting anything more than 6-8 hours required a top-up at an outlet or battery addon of some sort. The iPhone 4 has mostly remedied those problems as it features a fairly heftier battery than iPhone’s of yesteryear combined with even more frugal hardware and optimized software. Still, power users may want more.
The Exogear iPhone 4 battery case aims to please. Featuring a 1,500mAh battery, the Exogear iPhone 4 case is claimed to “nearly double” iPhone 4 runtime away from the wall. Of course, personal usage and battery life will vary. I know that when I had my iPhone 3G plugged into an Incase Power Slider, I never got anywhere near 2x the run time despite the Power Slider featuring a battery that was 120% (1330mAh vs. iPhone 3G’s stock 1150mAh battery) bigger than the iPhone 3G’s built-in battery. As is usual, don’t take marketing claims too close to heart.
If anything, you’ll at least get a few extra hours of iPhone 4 enjoyment and fix that little hardware flaw relating to signal attenuation from grubby human hands. Two birds. One stone. Whoop whoop. $99 from Exogear
While Apple goes about pulling a cover over iPhone 4 users’ eyes in regards to the antenna issue, real people with real solutions are stepping forward and going where Apple fails to go — the truth.
Introducing, the iHand. Made out of authentic European beechwood, the iHand will stop that pesky signal attenuation from occurring when your mammally mitts wrap their greasy bits around it’s finely contoured bottom. And worry not dear reader, for the makers of the iHand have taken all colors of humans to mind, featuring colors such as: Caucasian, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Indian (red) and even Kermit. Yes folks, someone does care…
