Nice selective edit. From the very same article:
Dell is nearly my most hated company (barely second to Comcast). My Dell’s motherboard went bad one month out of warranty. And looks to be going bad again. I will never ever buy another thing from Dell. (the last company I boycotted in the is fashion was Circuit City - and where are they now?)
My parents’ house is in the geographic center of Las Vegas. When I visit them, I have to step outside to make a phone call because there is no signal. ATT is awful.
I get good signal almost anywhere in Canada that is not outright wildnerness; my job takes me to some pretty rural areas and I can usually get signal. I’ve found one dead spot in the last seven years.
The problems AT&T iPhone users report in the USA are without comparison here - lack of coverage IN urban areas is ridiculous.
There’s no reason to think putting a thin dielectric around the antenna would entirely mask the attenuation and detuning caused by wrapping a largely saline human hand around it. It’s not how RF currents work. Duct tape would have even less impact.
- This is a thread about the problem with iPhone 4’s exterior antenna dropping calls when touched in a specific spot. Yeah, the iPhone works fine - when you’re not touching it in that particular spot or when you’re wearing the antenna-protecting bumper cover. Who cares? This is not a cheerleading. “We luv the iPhone!” thread.
The point of the thread is that the signal drop is for real, it’s reproducible, and it’s preventable by wearing the bumper or by insulating the antenna in someway. (And it’s aggravated by the fact that Apple’s been misrepresenting signal strength all this time.) My quote supported all that.
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I specifically mentioned that Anandtech suggested everyone wear the bumper case and also that I suspect Apple’s ultimate solution will be to hand out bumper cases for everyone.
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It’s true that bumper cases make the iphone work better - but telling everyone to buy this $30 case from the Apple Store is not really a win for Apple, in the “Apple is Magic!” department.
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Pro-tip: A LiveStrong Bracelet makes a serviceable bumper case replacement, though, for those in the market.
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All of this points up the fact that it was dumb of Apple not to insulate the antenna to begin with. If they’d applied an insulating coating or just made the bumper case built in, they’d have gotten better reception and sidestepped the whole Death Grip issue.
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Sometimes choosing Form over Function -will- bite you in the ass.
I am not an antenna/RF engineer, but from what I understand, a simple insulating coating would do nothing. A thicker dielectric (bumper case) would be needed - think of the difference between zip cord for speakers and Coax for TV - they are not interchangeable. This article points out the lack of effectiveness for a thin insulating tape layer.
Right, but there are 1,000,000 other suppliers of PCs you can buy from- or you can build one yourself. When Apple effs up, there’s nobody else to buy from.
I think this a fairly big blow for the iPhone because it has been under serious pressure from Android phones in the last six months so Apple really needed the iPhone 4 to be a hit. And it looked good with fairly strong reviews and excellent early sales. Now the reception problems are at the very least a big PR hit particularly damaging in the US because they feed into existing concerns about AT&T’s network. This is especially a problem because Apple basically releases one new phone a year so if there is a serious problem with it there is no alternative. With Android if you don’t like ,say, the Incredible you can always buy the Droid X.
It's become something of a cliche but I think the history of the personal computer in the 80's and early 90's is going to repeat itself with the smartphone with Android playing the role of Windows and beating a much more closed platform by Apple. It will probably happen more quickly this time too.Well, I think Apple is going to have to take a step away from the “New Phone Every June” business model they’ve been playing with the last couple of years. It makes them predictable and beatable, in that the competition can see what Apple comes out, then put a superior phone on the market within a few months. All by simply tweaking their specs a bit.
I’m kinda seeing the same thing with the iPad. It is basically, storage, memory and processor wise, a large iPhone 3GS without part of the phone (and the camera). Then a couple of months later they come out with the iPhone 4, which has a better processor and more internal memory (ram) than the iPad. The iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS also got the upgraded OS, where the iPad is stuck with the older OS for another couple of months until Apple tweaks it for the iPad. All of which seems backwards to me. The iPad should have had the faster processor, better memory and better OS coming out of the gate, then made ready in time for use with the new iPhone.
It’s funny, my some of my fellow engineers and I, three of whom have and love our iPhones, were having this exact same conversation on Friday. We came to a similar conclusion too.
It is odd - I have been thinking about this very comparison lately. I’ve been surprised that they’ve been on top as long as they have - especially with the iPod.
Yes, but its the same crappy parts (built with cost as the ultimate consideration) running the same crappy operating system that is prone to hacking, viruses and security attacks and crashes. How many people (percentage of the market) want to, or can, build a machine by themselves? I used to do it and gave up because it was too big of a hassle. How many people (percentage of the market) want to buy a no-name machine and then have to worry support and repair? The big name, well known computer makers have absolutely failed their customers. I’ve purchased dozens of machines and been through Dell, Compaq and HP. I don’t want anything to do with any of them again. I junked two HP printers less than 2 years old in the last week. I junked a top end HP computer that was still under warranty (with supposed in-home service, which was total BS) because I couldn’t spend anymore time on the phone talking to somebody in India with no authority to fix the problem. My time is too valuable.
As imperfect as Apple is, I’ve gotten my use out of their products and replaced them at my choice rather than having them fail me.
That’s the difference.
Brand can be a powerful thing.
Of course, it can also fall apart very quickly indeed, which was sort of why I wrote the OP. If I’d told you guys four years ago that soon Nintendo would re-establish its supremacy in home gaming consoles and knock Sony into a deep 2nd/3rd place you’d all have thought me insane. Then the PS3 was late, and expensive,
I like Apple products, but their recent product releases have just a hint of laziness and reliance on brand. The iPhone is not going away anytime soon, but these are the sorts of errors that sometimes add up. Steve Jobs isn’t infallible.
I’m afraid you’re wrong, Rick. Steve Jobs is infallible, and when it appears he isn’t, reality is wrong.
Reality Distortion Field, remember?
And now there are reportsof problems with the proximity sensor on iPhone 4. Overall it does look like a pretty serious quality control failure on this device.
Oh, get lost. I liked the phone when I saw it in person, and the Apple Store near me had some left over at the end of the day, so I bought one. That doesn’t make me one of those people.
What are you talking about? There are at least hundreds of companies that make cell phones. It’s true that you can’t buy an iPhone from anyone but Apple, just like you can’t buy a Droid from anyone but Motorola, and you can’t buy a Mustang from anyone but Ford.
It often seems like there’s nobody else to buy from but Apple because their competitors’ products are such pieces of shit. So, what are you doing, blaming Apple for making their competitors look bad?
That’s old news and a pretty rare manufacturing defect. The antenna things is a design issue that will affect every phone under the right circumstances.
I dunno, they ship it off for two weeks to some place in Texas and when it comes back I can run it on Verizon. Apparently you can only do this on the original iphone.
I love my iphone as well, hate AT&T reception.
Suuuure. 
There’s nobody else to buy Apple OS computers from, genius. Did you not read his post? He was talking about computers.
As far as the “hundreds of companies that make cell phones” bit, thank you for making my point for me: there are hundreds of companies making Symbian (and, to a lesser extent, Android) phones, and just one making iPhone OS phones.