iPhone4

[petemc]

I've found mine seems to self clean by putting it in my pocket.

[petemc]

I've found mine seems to self clean by putting it in my pocket.

[Feek]

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010...pleletter.html

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same— the iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologize for any anxiety we may have caused.

[bam]

Originally Posted by Feek

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010...pleletter.html

So that does nothing to affect/fix any issue people are seeing, it just means that currently the phone shows a higher signal strength than it should?

[Will]

No it means that there is no signal issue what so ever which is what a lot of people who have I4s' have been stating anyway.

[divine]

That's clearly not going to fix problem truly, if that mistake has been present since the original iPhone, considering all preceding iPhones have had worse reception (assuming good conditions) then they would have been even more prone to this signal loss issue than the iPhone 4 is.

That 'fix' will in absolutely no way alleviate the current problem, I fear Apple are going to try and fudge this and hope they get away with it but frankly, when people are dropping calls, changing the formula that displays the bars won't achieve anything. Thousands of people aren't just imagining their calls dropping or their data cutting out and the fact they can cause the issue reliably enough to video the problem shows that clearly we have an issue that runs far deeper than how the bars are displayed.

They should really show the actual level in dB, out of a possible maximum or above a minimum, do away with the bars altogether.

The key thing to realise is Apple are still avoiding admitting there is any kind of problem with the fact holding your phone like that causes such a dramatic drop in the first place.

[Chuckles]

Much as though a love Apple gear, I don't see that as anything other than a deliberate lie. They clearly are now not going to admit there is a hardware flaw. They've probably sorted the issue in phones currently being manufactured and if anyone complains in an Apple shop, they'll do a swap out.

The idea of this is to fudge the issue and avoid calls for a mass recall.

Rich - If you didn't know, you could activate an engineering mode to show the actual dB level in all iPhones up to the current one. Hackers have gone through the filesystem and worked out that it's not that the magic code has been changed, the actual app has been removed. Make of that what you will.

[Knipples]

I went and had a play with one today........I think I want one again. Contract is up in 10 days so I need to have a think, and then hope they have stock in if I decide to get one.

[Will]

From what I've heard of people with the i4 it's been working really well, with much better reception and call quality.

[divine]

It's clearly not affecting all phones but the fact so so many people are reporting issues would suggest this is unlikely to be a few isolated incidents really.

If there was really absolutely nothing wrong, they wouldn't even have been looking at the signal display to start with, so in a way the fact it's even been looked at implies they're viewing it as a problem.