# Apples iPhone reception "fix". Real or bullshit? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 3, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397 "2010-07-03T04:43:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/1 "2010-07-03T04:43:22Z")
So now apple is saying they have magically discovered the issue with iPhone reception and it is simply a matter of how the bars are calculated. I’m surprised that this fix was found after all the leaks about Apple dismissing customer complaints about reception outright. Now all the sudden it’s " silly us! You don’t have bad reception, its just displaying wrong on the phones. Here, well just fix that by changing how the signal strength is shown instead of addressing the ACTUAL signal strength…" I think it reeks of scandal. What say you? ---
**Author:** ![sharding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90db22/32.png) [@sharding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sharding)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2010, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/2 "2010-07-03T05:23:49Z")
I say the iPhone 4 reliably works noticeably better for phone calls than the iPhone 3G did, regardless of how I hold it, and regardless of what kind of signal area I’m in, so I don’t give a damn what the bars say. This problem is so overblown it’s ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2010, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/3 "2010-07-03T13:10:23Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > What say you? This imbedded antenna designer’s blog has been really useful: [Blog — AntennaSys, Inc.](http://www.antennasys.com/antennasys-blog/) Also if you’ve been wondering why a piece of scotch or electrical tape over the antenna wouldn’t do anything to fix the problem he has a very clear explanation of RF vs. DC currents. > [@http://www.antennasys.com/antennasys-blog/2010/6/26/hey-hold-the-phone-like-this.html](#): > > Now I want to rant a bit about the “experimental method” people have been using. The iPhone 4 has been out for roughly 24 hours before people were publishing the results of “tests” proving that it had inferior performance. At my company, when I get to hook my fancy laboratory gear up to my client’s equipment in very controlled circumstances I can’t do it that fast. Folks, there are a couple of reasons that you need to give this product some time before jumping to conclusions. > > First, we have no earthly idea what those little bars in the upper left corner of our screen really represent, yet we are staring at them like they’re going to help us find out what those damn numbers on LOST meant. Steve Gibson of Gibson Research ([grc.com](http://grc.com)) did a great piece on the meaning of the signal bars; I am a huge fan of his, and his measured approach to technical challenges are worthy of our respect. We don’t know what the bars mean, beyond more is better and less is … less better. We also don’t have a handle on the time constant of the bars, which is to say we don’t know when the bars change with respect to when the signal changes. And worse, we don’t know if it’s consistent. After all, it’s controlled by software. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2010, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/4 "2010-07-03T14:14:51Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > I’m surprised that this fix was found after all the leaks about Apple dismissing customer complaints about reception outright. Now all the sudden it’s " silly us! You don’t have bad reception, its just displaying wrong on the phones. Here, well just fix that by changing how the signal strength is shown instead of addressing the ACTUAL signal strength…" Keep in mind that back in iPhone OS version 2, Apple published a patch recalibrating their bars display so it would show more bars for weaker signals, making it look like you were getting better signal strength. They weren’t shy about it either, it was right there in the patch notes. What basically happens is that the display is set up to show full bars for a longer percentage of time. Hmmm. I’m not saying this right. Ok - four bars, you’d think each bar represents 25% of maximum possible signal strength, right? Except it doesn’t. Apple got it set up so you get something like 4 bars for everything over 50% strength, then 3 bars for the 25%-50% range, and so on, so that when you’re getting one bar, it’s not at 25% power, it’s just barely scrapping by. (I forget the actual percentages. That’s the idea, though.) So the user thinks there’s more signal strength than there actually is. So when they grip the antenna in such a way that it forms a circuits and disturbs the signal, the already weak signal craters and the call is dropped. Apple’s saying the problem is their display doesn’t show the genuine lack of bar strength - if people saw that they had crappy reception they wouldn’t be surprised when their call gets dropped. Instead, thanks to Apple’s boosted bar display, it looks like the phone goes from working to non-working with a simple touch when it reality it was barely working all along. Anandtech’s guys have documented the loss of signal range pretty well. It’s a measurable drop in signal strength greater than one would expect from just gripping other phones. They tested the iPhone 4 against other models, including Nokia & HTC, and the iphone 3G. What they found was that the overall the signal reception on the iPhone 4 was better than previous version - but if you touched The Spot reception dropped down to the significantly worse than all the other phones. So Apple’s attempt to blame this on their bar display algorythim is both true and false. Their over-generous bar display is contributing to user perceptions of the problem, but at the same time there is an actual hardware problem involved as well. Side note: remember how, a few weeks ago, when Steve was demoing this phone on stage and all of a sudden it stopped working, and at the time everyone thought it was a network problem and several respected columnists used it as an opportunity to rail about America’s substandard wireless network? Even odds - Steve touched The Spot. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/5 "2010-07-03T18:24:20Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Side note: remember how, a few weeks ago, when Steve was demoing this phone on stage and all of a sudden it stopped working, and at the time everyone thought it was a network problem and several respected columnists used it as an opportunity to rail about America’s substandard wireless network? Even odds - Steve touched The Spot. He was on wifi, doing networked data things on the phone - NOT making a call. Someone in the audience made the joke “switch from AT&T!”, and he responded “it’s the wifi”. Those “several respected columnists” were morons. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/6 "2010-07-07T07:41:31Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > He was on wifi, doing networked data things on the phone - NOT making a call. It uses the same antenna system, does it not? ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/7 "2010-07-07T11:04:59Z")
> [@Red\_Barchetta](#): > > It uses the same antenna system, does it not? From what I read it wasn’t the antenna, it was the sheer mass of reporters overwhelming the hotel’s wifi system. They had to ask a lot of people to turn off their wifi connections so he could get connected for the demo. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/8 "2010-07-07T12:30:58Z")
> [@Red\_Barchetta](#): > > It uses the same antenna system, does it not? No, it does not. However - I was under the impression that the separate wifi antenna was internal, but it seems it’s just the left side of the metal band, while the right side is the cell antenna (or the other way around), so that could have been it. > **[CNET: Product reviews, advice, how-tos and the latest news](https://www.cnet.com/)** > > Get full-length product reviews, the latest news, tech coverage, daily deals, and category deep dives from CNET experts worldwide. I’m amazed they don’t have a wireless router directly behind the stage set up only for Jobs and other on-stage displays to avoid that issue - which makes me question if that really was the reason. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/9 "2010-07-07T20:11:28Z")
[This Wired article](http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/07/apples-clean-hands-may-have-dirtied-iphone-4-signal/) suggests that sweaty hands would contribute to reception problems. And clean hands during Apple testing may have kept them from realizing that. I’m also reminded of the stolen iPhone, wasn’t it in a case to disguise it? So if the new iPhones did leave Apple, they probably didn’t leave “naked.” ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/10 "2010-07-07T20:19:08Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > So now apple is saying they have magically discovered the issue with iPhone reception and it is simply a matter of how the bars are calculated. > > \ > > What say you? I say you totally misunderstood Apple’s claim. They aren’t claiming that this is a fix to the antenna attenuation issue at all. I switched from a 3G to a 4. I can definitely replicate the loss of signal issue. Even with that, I am getting better reception and reception in more places than I ever did before. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/11 "2010-07-07T21:39:46Z")
They were artificially showing high bars because AT&T has shitty coverage and they were trying to make AT&T look good. Then this thing with the “death grip” came out and uncovered it. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apples-iphone-reception-fix-real-or-bullshit/545397/12 "2010-07-08T08:33:53Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > No, it does not. However - I was under the impression that the separate wifi antenna was internal, but it seems it’s just the left side of the metal band, while the right side is the cell antenna (or the other way around), so that could have been it. That’s what I meant by “system” (perhaps I could have used a better word)–it uses the metal band around the phone as the antenna, if I understand correctly. I wonder if holding it affects wifi in a similar way to the cellular signal.