iPhone 4 left hand signal loss dependant on the quality of your 3G coverage

UPDATE The final answer on why some see the drop and some don’t, spoiler alert: What I said below was dead on.

I know I touched on this already in my bumpers help prevent iPhone 4 signal drop post, but I thought it warranted highlighting this in it’s own post.

From my bumpers 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.

In addition to this sweet spot, last night I tweeted:

Out for a late snack, first time out of my house since getting the phone and nothing I do lowers the 5 bars. Very strange.

And then tweeted when I got home:

Back home and back to touching bottom left corner and losing signal.

John Gruber also believe the signal strength could be the cause:

My best guess at this point is that the issue pops up in areas with spotty 3G coverage. With nothing covering the antenna, the improved reception of the iPhone 4 gives you more bars, maybe even up to 5. But when you cover the antenna in these areas with poor coverage, the phone is unable to get a strong signal. I’ve seen several reports from people who can reproduce the problem, but only from certain locations.

I think the problem is “the bars”. They serve their purpose for the most part, but when trying to do a test involving signal strength we need more detail. I would argue that 5 bars in one area is not necessarily equal to 5 bars in another. Start with a “weak 5 bars” and you can see the signal loss represented by the bars dropping.  Start with a “strong 5 bars” and the signal may be getting weaker, but never below the 5 bar threshold. In this case it appears to the user that they still have the same signal strength and it goes unnoticed.

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Antenna Issue, iPhone 4, Speculation

Further investigation into the iPhone in hand signal issues

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

Is the new iPhone 4 antenna design causing signal issues?

UPDATE 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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Featured post, iPhone 4, Speculation

iPhone 4 glass not so scratch proof?

Twitter user @ryan (from gdgt) just tweeted this picture of an iPhone 4 with some nice scratches on the back.

Uh oh.

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iPhone 4, Speculation

Apple reported the 4th gen iPhone stolen

Wall Street Journal reports:

Stephen Wagstaffe, the chief deputy district attorney for San Mateo County, said Apple contacted authorities and “advised us there had been a theft,” which led to the search warrant and an investigation.

This is probably what prompted the search warrant for Jason Chen’s home. This also leads me to believe that the journalist shield laws will not apply to Gizmodo. In California property is considered stolen if it’s found and not returned to the owner or police. It’s also a crime to buy stolen property.

The shield law would only protect Gizmodo from giving up it’s source (the guy that found the iPhone) of stolen iPhone pictures.  The only person who would have broken the law at that point would be the finder, but once Gizmodo bought the iPhone they also broke the law.

(via Cult of Mac)

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iPhone, iPhone 4, Speculation

WWDC date to be announced tomorrow?

UPDATE WWDC 2010 June 7 – 11

Gruber fit the following tweet into his stream tonight, in between the Gizmodo/Gawker tweets:

Sorry, I’m too busy with this Gizmodo/Gawker legal thing to coyly hint that WWDC will be announced tomorrow.

For Gruber to say this, I think it’s 100% guaranteed. Now the question is when will it be? I’m going with June 15th, but I’m wrong 100% the time.

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iOS 4, iPad, iPhone, iPhone 4, Software, Speculation