Further investigation into the iPhone in hand signal issues
by Justin Horn on Jun 24th, 2010 @ 8:12 pm
iPhone 4 antenna diagram
I looked into how the bumper case affected the signal loss problem earlier. It helped lessen the signal loss, but still lost a couple bars. I’ve been thinking about this issue all day and decided to dig a bit deeper to see what I could find.
UPDATE For those of you that don’t have this issue, my best guess…I wrote earlier today in my bumper case post:
I then tested in another room with less electronics. In this room I started with a strong signal of 5 bars. This time around, with or without the bumper, the signal held pretty much at 5 bars. This may explain why some people don’t seem to notice this issue. If you have really great AT&T service where you live, the in hand signal drop may not be as noticeable.
Watch the video of this phenomena.
Gruber agrees with this and here is my post explaining it in more detail.
Read the rest of this awesome article
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Antenna Issue, Featured post, iPhone 4, Speculation
Bumpers help prevent iPhone 4 signal drop
by Justin Horn on Jun 24th, 2010 @ 12:13 pm
UPDATE The final answer on how the signal is affected in hand vs in case.
After some tests this morning, it looks like the bumper case helps with the antenna issue we reported on yesterday. Keep in mind that I used the main 5 bar signal indicator as a reference, not sure how to get into field test mode on the iPhone 4. Also, as the signal can change anytime, for any reason, the results were not always the same. I just kept repeating (many times) the test and this was what I got on average.
No Bumper
Hands off: 4-5 bars
In hand: 1 bar
With Bumper
Hands off: 4-5 bars
In hand: 3 bars
So the bumper did keep the signal at 3 bars compared to it plummeting to 1 bar shortly after picking up the naked iPhone.
I then tested in another room with less electronics. In this room I started with a strong signal of 5 bars. This time around, with or without the bumper, the signal held pretty much at 5 bars. This may explain why some people don’t seem to notice this issue. If you have really great AT&T service where you live, the in hand signal drop may not be as noticeable.
Check out this video of this strong signal room.
The fact that the signal still dropped down to 3 bars even with the bumper on and that I saw no drop in the “strong signal room”, leads me to believe that a software update to boost the output power (like we got in the 3.x days) may help resolve the issue. Apple said a software patch was coming, so I guess we won’t have to wait long to find out…when will iOS 4.0.1 be released?
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Is the new iPhone 4 antenna design causing signal issues?
by Justin Horn on Jun 23rd, 2010 @ 6:25 pmUPDATE Add me to the list, same problem! Got a bumper though, hopefully it helps. …and it does seem the bumpers help though. Further investigation into the iPhone in hand signal issues.
When I first heard of the new antenna system on the iPhone 4, I thought it would increase the signal by getting the antenna out from behind all the other electronics. It later crossed my mind that by actually touching the antenna, with conductive skin, it could cause a weaker signal. I figured Apple wouldn’t have gone with this design if it was a problem, so the thought left my mind.
Things changed today…I’m hearing reports from a few different users that this is actually an issue. Not a big enough sample group to call it a major issue, but we should find out soon enough tomorrow when a ton more iPhone 4s hit the street.
Jeremy Sikora tweeted to let us know that Apple is claiming it’s a software issue. When I asked where he heard that and if there was an official press release he replied:
@justin_horn no but WM talked about same issue in his review. Apple claimed a software patch is coming.
NOTE: Jeremy isn’t just some random guy on Twitter, when he says something Apple related he is usually correct.
In response to our tweet earlier about the issue a little while ago, Loyal Moses tweeted:
Same Problem!
Loyal posted some videos of the problem on his blog.
Joe Wilcox tweeted earlier:
iPhone 4 first impression: Delightful device. Network sucks worse. I had better 3G on iPhone 3GS. “Searching” frequently.
Later, Joe Wilcox confirms this is an issue:
@justin_horn LOL, my mistake. Flat down on my desk, I see full bars. I hold the phone in my palm, bars slowly go down, like video.
Further evidence is one user who posted a video of the issue in action
Gizmodo is all over this, guess they are mad they didn’t get a test unit
(via @tarungangwani)
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Economy of scale
by Justin Horn on Jun 17th, 2010 @ 1:06 pm
From Wikipedia:
Economies of scale, in microeconomics, are the cost advantages that a business obtains due to expansion. They are factors that cause a producer’s average cost per unit to fall as scale is increased.
These three words sum up why we will not see a Verizon iPhone until 4G LTE is a reality.
Before we get into economies of scale, just think about how many hours of R&D go into the development of the iPhone every year. To make a custom iPhone for one carrier, in one country, seems like a wasted expense. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they have looked at or even done some limited R&D on what it would take to get a CDMA iPhone out the door, but it’s not a main focus.
Take the R&D expense out of the equation and the Verizon iPhone still doesn’t make sense. As Apple’s manufacturing partners ramp up production of the iPhone, the cost per unit is going to drop and Apple’s profit will go up.Why would they want to have a production line just for Verizon? Verizon is a huge company, but compared to AT&T and the rest of the world, they aren’t. They would have to make far fewer CDMA iPhones raising the average cost and cutting into their profits.
Continued from Wikipedia on Economies of scale:
Economies of scale may be utilized by any size firm expanding its scale of operation. The common ones are purchasing (bulk buying of materials through long-term contracts), managerial (increasing the specialization of managers), financial (obtaining lower-interest charges when borrowing from banks and having access to a greater range of financial instruments), and marketing (spreading the cost of advertising over a greater range of output in media markets).
I highlighted purchasing and marketing as these are the main factors that would influence Apple. They’ve put strains on world supplies of flash chips due to the huge production of their latest iDevices, so we know they can get some bulk buying discounts. To build the Verizon iPhone they would need to purchase CDMA chips on a much smaller scale increasing their cost. The marketing might overlap a bit, but they would need to tweak ads to make sure they didn’t advertise a feature, like talk and surf, as Verizon’s CDMA network can’t support this.
Go beyond the cost of the manufacturing and think about supporting the phone. This is one reason why Apple only makes one iPhone per year, compared to Motorola’s and Nokia’s hundreds.
What about that special Chinese iPhone? In this case all Apple had to do was disable WI-FI. I’m not an Apple engineer, but common sense tells me disabling a feature is monumentally easier than swapping out the main radio chip that makes up the phone part of iPhone. I’m betting the WI-FI chips are still in there and disabled via the hardware. As for support, it’s the same phone with one featured disabled, so one less thing to break.
What about AT&T’s generous early upgrade policy this year? You’ll remember last year they did almost the same thing, but only extened the upgrade elgible window through September. This year they only exteneded it an additional 3 months. The other difference this year is AT&T raised the ETF from $175 to $350 on all their smartphones, matching Verizon’s somewhat recent ETF rate hike. I know some make a case that these two events mean they are trying to get more people hooked on AT&T with a bigger penalty for leaving. It’s very logical argument, but I just think they raised the ETF to match Verizon and are offering the early upgrade to iPhone owners for the same reasons as last year.
We will see an iPhone on Verizon when Verizon is on the same wireless network technology as the rest of the world. This will happen when everyone goes to the 4G LTE networks. When the 4G network will be deployed on a large scale is another question. I’ve heard rumors of 2011, but something tells me we are still a 2-3 years away.
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With iPhone 4′s improved camera and HD video, should I go 32GB? (updated)
by Justin Horn on Jun 11th, 2010 @ 10:45 amCheck out the new post discussing the iPhone 4S photos & videos
UPDATE 6.18.10 Looks like my estimates below were pretty close. Leaked video comes out to 83.4 MB/ min and pictures about 2.6MB. (Read More)
One year ago today, I created a post to help those getting ready to buy the iPhone 3GS decide if going 32GB was worth the extra $100. Today I’m going to ask the same question of the upcoming iPhone 4 using the same template as last year.
Pictures
The iPhone 3GS at 3MP has an average files size of about 1.3MB. The move to 5MP should make the average size about 2.7MB. So assuming you have 500 pictures on your iPhone the difference between the 3GS and 4 would be about 700 MB, not that big of a deal for that amount of photos. So just like the 3G to 3GS, the improved camera isn’t a reason to grab the 32GB model.
Video
Video recording on the iPhone 3GS is VGA quality, 640 x 480 at 30 frames per second. This is the same as the new front facing camera on the iPhone 4. The calculations are assuming the same 24 bit depth as the previous models.
Using the same formulas as last year to calculate the size in kilobytes (KB) of one frame of uncompressed video:
Frame size K = ( [Pixel Width x Pixel Height x Bit Depth] / 8 ) / 1024
Where 8 represents an 8-bit byte, and 1024 equals the number of bytes per kilobytes.
To determine the file size of one second of uncompressed video, multiply the image size by the number of frames per second (fps).
To determine how compression affects file size, divide the file size by the compression ratio.
Me on the compression ratio last year:
Based on my research I found the compression ratio of standard MPEG-4 is about 30-40:1 and the newer H.264 (or MPEG-4 AVC) which the iPhone uses is about 1.5 – 2x better. For my cacluations below I will use a H.264 compression ratio of 60:1, just about in the middle of what I found.
This 60:1 ratio I calculated last year turns out to be a bit too high when looking at actual videos from the 3GS. Part of this might due to the fact that I’m not calculating the audio portion of the recording, but in practice a compression ratio of 40:1 is very close for the average recording.
NOTE This ratio might be off if the compression algorithm has been stepped up on the iPhone 4 with it’s speedier CPU, but this should be a pretty close estimate.
So let’s recalculate the 3GS size and compare that to the 4. This year let’s take a more moderate 250 mins of video usage vs the 500 I used last year. This would be about 50, 5 minute videos.
UPDATE A lot of comments I’m getting that 250 minutes is a crazy amount for a phone. This is just an example and assumes keeping videos on your camera roll and building them up over time. I know after 6 months or so my camera roll gets filled with hundreds of pictures and lots of videos. So yes, you can download them off the phone at any time, but I like to have videos and pics on my phone to show people. To make it easier to calculate how much you think you will use, I’ve added storage needed for 1 minute. So, for example, if you think you only need 30 mins of video on your iPhone 4 you are looking at: 89 MB * 30 mins…only 2.6 GBs.
iPhone 3GS video size for 250 mins:
( [640 x 480 x 24] / 8 ) / 1024 = 900 KB / frame
900KB/frame x 30 frames/sec = 27000 KB/sec
27000 KB/sec / 40 compression ratio = 675 KB/sec compressed
675 KB/sec * 250 min * 60 s / min * 1 MB / 1024 KB * 1GB / 1024 MB = 9.66 GB (39 MB / min)
This seems to be the wrong resolution, see updated version below
iPhone 4 video size for 250 mins:
( [960 x 720 x 24] / 8 ) / 1024 = 2025 KB / frame
2025 KB/frame x 30 frames/sec = 60750 KB/sec
60750 KB/sec / 40 compression ratio = 1518.75 KB/s compressed
1,518.75 KB/sec compressed * 250 min * 60 s / min * 1 MB / 1024 KB * 1GB / 1024 MB = 21.73 GB (89 MB / min)
UPDATE In the comments below and elsewhere people have been questioning my use 960 x 720 for the iPhone 4 HD resolution because the standard 720p is 1280×720. I was assuming Apple would stick with the same aspect ratio of the iPhone 3GS for video, 4:3. 720 in 4:3 ratio is 960. The new digital camera still shoots in this 4:3 aspect ratio as seen in the sample pictures on Apple’s website. So really I think this could go either way, but below I present the amount of storage that would be used if the iPhone 4 were using true 720p HD quality.
UPDATE 2 Watching the demo in the keynote, it looks like the video is in 16:9 aspect ratio. Guess all my naysayers were correct, but I’m happy to be wrong on this one…I’ll take letterboxed playback on the 1.5 aspect iPhone vs the weird 960 x 720 resolution I was thinking.
iPhone 4 video size for 250 mins if true 720p (1280 x 720):
( [1280 x 720 x 24] / 8 ) / 1024 = 2700 KB / frame
2700 KB/frame x 30 frames/sec = 81000 KB/sec
81000 KB/sec / 40 compression ratio = 2025 KB/s compressed
2025 KB/sec compressed * 250 min * 60 s / min * 1 MB / 1024 KB * 1GB / 1024 MB = 28.97 GB (118 MB / min)
If a higher 60:1 compression ratio is used by the more powerfull iPhone 4: 79 MB / min
So as expected more than doubling the resolution more than doubles the size of the video. So with the HD video recording even 64 GB could be a limiting factor. Hey Apple, were is our 64 GB version of the iPhone 4?
Conclusion
So like last year, the jump in the still camera mega pixels won’t affect your space enough for you to warrant an upgrade to 32GB if you are currently happy with your 16GB iPhone, but if you are planning on shooting a decent amount of video…that’s a different story. When you factor in all storage you’re already using for apps, music, and pictures you aren’t left with much. Even with a 32GB model most people won’t be able to hold anything near my calculated 250 mins which would take up about 60% (more like 90% with true 720p) of the total storage. So with this in mind I can’t recommend saving the $100, just go for the 32GB!
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Featured post, iPhone, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4
iOS multitasking explained, again
by Justin Horn on Apr 19th, 2010 @ 11:51 amRelated Post: Almost 2 years after I wrote this post, the debate continues. Here’s a great post from Fraser Speirs, backing up my point (aka the truth), “iOS Multitasking in Detail”
There is a lot of confusion surrounding iPhone multitasking. John Gruber of Daring Fireball kicked off the latest round of debate with his article Mobile Multitasking. After reading his article and others like it, I decided to jump into the OS 4 multitasking write-up game.
Most of the multitasking talk centers around the fast app switching dock. I’m going to cover that later, but before we get there I want to review the different app states: closed, suspended, and background.
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