Letter from Apple regarding iPhone 4

[cbn]

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/07/02appleletter.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.

 

[tatteredpotato]

They talk about a "bar" like it's some empirical unit.

I'm kind of offended they think this "explanation" has anything to do with the iPhone 4 antenna problem.

EDIT: And by that I mean I'm offended they think I'm stupid enough to buy that.

 

[MJinZ]

I suppose Apple users should be offended.

 

[jpeyton]

So Apple has "cooked" their iPhone's bar display for years, giving users the illusion that the phone had better reception than it really did.

Now they are "shocked" to learn of their mistake, and are "fixing" the antenna issue by showing how shitty AT&T's network really is. AT&T's "more bars in more places" campaign is now DOA.

And their response to the five federal lawsuits filed against them about the iPhone 4's reception issue: they are putting a card in the iPhone 4 packaging showing how to "properly" hold the phone.

Instead of doing what they should have done in the first place: give everyone a free 25-cent bumper.

 

[shortylickens]

Just in case anybody doesnt already know:
BARS MEAN DICK!
If you can talk then you can fucking talk. Thats what the fucking phone is supposed to do for you. Ignore the god damn bars.

That is all.

 

[Spoooon]

Just in case anybody doesnt already know:
BARS MEAN DICK!
If you can talk then you can fucking talk. Thats what the fucking phone is supposed to do for you. Ignore the god damn bars.

That is all.

Bars inform you that you have the ability to "fucking talk."

 

[sswingle]

Do they expect people to believe that BS?

 

[dwell]

A lot of people who don't own iPhone 4s are mighty upset about this.

 

[rudeguy]

So Apple has "cooked" their iPhone's bar display for years, giving users the illusion that the phone had better reception than it really did.

Now they are "shocked" to learn of their mistake, and are "fixing" the antenna issue by showing how shitty AT&T's network really is. AT&T's "more bars in more places" campaign is now DOA.

And their response to the five federal lawsuits filed against them about the iPhone 4's reception issue: they are putting a card in the iPhone 4 packaging showing how to "properly" hold the phone.

Instead of doing what they should have done in the first place: give everyone a free 25-cent bumper.

I really, really want to join in the Apple bashing but the Nexus had even worse problems and Google never really did fix them. Expectations are way too high on these phones and no matter what there are going to be issues. The only thing is if it does come out that Apple knew about these issues and hid/ didn't tell customers about them.

But give people the stupid bumper for free for God's sake. Let them choose a custom color and be their freaking hero. Steve needs to read the "Give Them the Pickle" book.

 

[CurseTheSky]

So... they were skewing the numbers for quiet some time to make both the iPhone and AT&T's network look better, and now that a problem has cropped up that has brought the signal strength into question, they're pretending that they just found this "problem" and they're going to cheerfully fix it.

Sorry, but this has BS written all over it.

 

[Spoooon]

I really, really want to join in the Apple bashing but the Nexus had even worse problems and Google never really did fix them. Expectations are way too high on these phones and no matter what there are going to be issues. The only thing is if it does come out that Apple knew about these issues and hid/ didn't tell customers about them.

But give people the stupid bumper for free for God's sake. Let them choose a custom color and be their freaking hero. Steve needs to read the "Give Them the Pickle" book.

Don't worry, I'm sure senseamp will be posting stuff. You can live vicariously through him.

 

[pm]

I'm a bit surprised by the explaination too...

It's easy enough to get the dB values directly from the phone - dial the "field test code" *3001#12345#*). Once you dial the field test code, the display of bars switches to a dB display instead.

I will say that there is some small chance that this explanation of theirs will be tested in court - there's a bunch of class action lawsuits filed. Likely Apple will settle, but if not it will interesting (to put it mildly) to see how a jury handles this idea that the bars have been wrong all along.

As someone who doesn't own an iPhone 4 but probably will buy one at some point just because the battery life is substantially better than the 3GS and battery life is my biggest issue with the 3GS that I have - I personally think this is a "don't care". I always keep my iPhones in a rubber case and the first thing that I do when I get an iPhone is slap a screen protector on it and then put it in it's case and I don't take it out after that. So I'll have a rubber bumper on the antenna and it shouldn't matter.

Still the official answer seems odd... I don't know enough about how things are calculated in the GSM world to comment about whether it agrees with RF signal theory... but it seems like an odd explanation.

 

[theeedude]

This is like fixing a car with a blown engine and a speedometer stuck at 50 by just changing the speedometer to tell you you aren't going anywhere

 

[shortylickens]

Bars inform you that you have the ability to "fucking talk."

So you would be one of the people who didnt know.

 

[WelshBloke]

I'm a bit surprised by the explaination too...

It's easy enough to get the dB values directly from the phone - dial the "field test code" *3001#12345#*). Once you dial the field test code, the display of bars switches to a dB display instead.

I will say that there is some small chance that this explanation of theirs will be tested in court - there's a bunch of class action lawsuits filed. Likely Apple will settle, but if not it will interesting (to put it mildly) to see how a jury handles this idea that the bars have been wrong all along.

As someone who doesn't own an iPhone 4 but probably will buy one at some point just because the battery life is substantially better than the 3GS and battery life is my biggest issue with the 3GS that I have - I personally think this is a "don't care". I always keep my iPhones in a rubber case and the first thing that I do when I get an iPhone is slap a screen protector on it and then put it in it's case and I don't take it out after that. So I'll have a rubber bumper on the antenna and it shouldn't matter.

Still the official answer seems odd... I don't know enough about how things are calculated in the GSM world to comment about whether it agrees with RF signal theory... but it seems like an odd explanation.

When I set out to characterize and understand the iPhone 4's antenna issue, I noticed that reports online varied wildly. Some claimed that they were always able to recreate a reception issue created by cupping the phone, yet others reported no change at all squeezing the phone tightly. After acquiring my iPhone 4, the first thing I did was try to fire up Field Test via the widely documented *3001#12345#* dialer code. Unfortunately, like iOS 4 running on the 3GS and 3G, Field Test is absent from the iPhone 4. It isn't a matter of the dialer code, it's that Field Test has been completely removed from the applications directory in the filesystem.
For those that don't know, Field Test variants exist on virtually every phone for purposes of debugging the air interface and baseband. Quality metrics like RSSI (raw signal strength) usually in dBm are reported alongside a wealth of other metrics like SNR and even what adjacent towers are visible to the phone for handing off. It's a tool usually buried deep in every phone because the amount of data would overwhelm normal mobile users, but is useful for engineers and curious but savvy users alike to find out what's going on with the cellular network. For whatever reason, Apple really doesn't want anyone running that tool anymore.

Its a wierd fix to be sure.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Well remember that the iPhone bar/dB table is messed up to begin with so this needs to be addressed regardless.

This is something that SHOULD be implemented. Read the AT article. Going from like 91dB to 109dB means you drop from full bars to 0. That's ridiculous. The dynamic range just doesn't give you a good impression of what's going on.

First yeah this should be fixed... and if that meansy our STANDARD reception equates to 2-3 bars now instead of 5, so be it. Then the iPhone's antenna just flat out SUCKS. But users are being confused by dropping from 5 bars to 0 by holding their phone. It should be from like 4 to 2 or maybe 2 to 0. Something LESS drastic. But either way this is a step in the right direction to make bars more useful.

What can Apple do about a bad antenna? Nothing really... except recall. So I highly doubt much can be done and nor do I expect anything.

Futhermore, let's not recall the Nexus One has terrible RF to begin with, even if you don't hold the phone....

Anandtech concludes the iPhone 4 does better than the 3GS, so are we REALLY regressing with this new phone? Or is the attenuation issue being blown out of proportion?

 

[TheWart]

Futhermore, let's not recall the Nexus One has terrible RF to begin with, even if you don't hold the phone....

Anandtech concludes the iPhone 4 does better than the 3GS, so are we REALLY regressing with this new phone? Or is the attenuation issue being blown out of proportion?

As John Gruber puts it:

It really is a better antenna and gets better reception, overall, than any previous iPhone. That’s really the hell of this whole goddamn situation. It’s like a two steps forward, one step back design, except maybe more like three steps forward, because this thing is faster at downloading, 10 times faster at uploading, and most importantly is better at not dropping calls with a weak signal. But, yes, there’s that one step back, wherein it can suffer from unintended attenuation when you bridge the lower-left antenna gap with your skin.

Consumer reports -not exactly a corporate shill- says that "iPhone 4's supposed signal woes aren’t unique, and may not be serious"

That doesn't seem like it bodes well for the lawsuit...

 

[Fingolfin269]

You know, if you look at it another way it makes it look like AT&Ts network doesn't suck as bad as people think. People were probably blaming AT&T when they had 5 bars and their calls would drop when really that 5 bars didn't mean shit. I do understand that the network probably does still suck but it's apparent that at least some of the blame in terms of customer perception should actually shift back towards the phone.

 

[mmntech]

Just in case anybody doesnt already know:
BARS MEAN DICK!
If you can talk then you can fucking talk. Thats what the fucking phone is supposed to do for you. Ignore the god damn bars.

That is all.

Yep, it's digital. It either works or it doesn't. May have made sense in the analogue days but those are long gone.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

You know, if you look at it another way it makes it look like AT&Ts network doesn't suck as bad as people think. People were probably blaming AT&T when they had 5 bars and their calls would drop when really that 5 bars didn't mean shit. I do understand that the network probably does still suck but it's apparent that at least some of the blame in terms of customer perception should actually shift back towards the phone.

Actually I don't think the network sucks that bad. People just make it that way. The iPhone has terrible RF to begin with. All revisions have had issues. I'm not too clear about the 4, but my Motorola Milestone toasts all the others. My Nexus One had huge issues too. It's not just AT&T. It's the phones.

The Droid Incredible gets HUGE complaints and this is simply because it's like an N1. People saw N1 network issues. Not surprised the Droid Inc has the same issues.

AT&T has a lot of 3G coverage issues where reception would drop to 2G. This would in turn cause a lot of dropped calls... coupled with the fact that AT&T didn't really have a good spec on how smartphones communicate passively with towers and turning on and off channels until it got the spec from Apple which started mitigating the capacity issues which resulted in dropped calls/busy signal.

I think in terms of signal strength, AT&T does fine. Many of the signal strength issues are magnified by the fact that the iPhone just flat out SUCKS with its crappy antenna. Once again I cannot comment on iPhone 4. But with Apple's "fix" it will now show in terms of bars how good the iPhone's antenna is compared to most other phones.

 

[gsaldivar]

Dear Valued Customer,

We sincerely apologize for making it appear that AT&T's network doesn't suck as much as it really does.

Sincerely,

Steve Jobs

 

[Spoooon]

So you would be one of the people who didnt know.

I'm one of the persons that looks at their phone to see if there are bars or not. No bars, probably no phone call. Not sure what you think I do or do not know.

 

[Bateluer]

If Microsoft had done this, deliberately mislead customers with inflated signal strength indicators, there would be an angry mob with torches and pitchforks banging on Microsoft's digital gates. Where's the rage and customer anger towards the perpetrator now?

Even saw one video of a customer on Youtube plainly stating he was aware of the signal problem, aware of Apple's bumbling responses, aware of the design flaw in the iPhone 4, but was still going to purchase the iPhone 4. I must be old school, because in my day, we didn't buy products that were obviously and widely reported as defective.

 

[dwell]

If Microsoft had done this, deliberately mislead customers with inflated signal strength indicators, there would be an angry mob with torches and pitchforks banging on Microsoft's digital gates. Where's the rage and customer anger towards the perpetrator now?

Even saw one video of a customer on Youtube plainly stating he was aware of the signal problem, aware of Apple's bumbling responses, aware of the design flaw in the iPhone 4, but was still going to purchase the iPhone 4. I must be old school, because in my day, we didn't buy products that were obviously and widely reported as defective.

Uh, Xbox 360?

"I can't comment on failure rates, because it's just not something - it's a moving target. What this consumer should worry about is the way that we've treated him. Y'know, things break, and if we've treated him well and fixed his problem, that's something that we're focused on right now. I'm not going to comment on individual failure rates because I'm shipping in 36 countries and it's a complex business."

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3159284

How many people got their fifth, sixth, etc. Xbox 360 after getting the RRoD? And even after the three-year warranty how many people bought new ones to replaced RRoD launch units?

 

[dguy6789]

Uh, Xbox 360?



http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3159284

How many people got their fifth, sixth, etc. Xbox 360 after getting the RRoD? And even after the three-year warranty how many people bought new ones to replaced RRoD launch units?

Microsoft moved heaven and earth to make sure every 360 customer was satisfied. Apple is saying "there isn't a problem".