Updated 2: Apple now doing a silent recall. New iPhone 4's have nonconductive coatin?

[Bateluer]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/07/consumer_reports_cant_recommen.html

We reached this conclusion after testing all three of our iPhone 4s (purchased at three separate retailers in the New York area) in the controlled environment of CU's radio frequency (RF) isolation chamber. In this room, which is impervious to outside radio signals, our test engineers connected the phones to our base-station emulator, a device that simulates carrier cell towers. We also tested several other AT&T phones the same way, including the iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre. None of those phones had the signal-loss problems of the iPhone 4.

All this puts Apple in an awkward spot. One of the most trusted consumer publications in America just said its flagship product is defective and, in the bargain, just implied that Apple made up its excuse for the problem.

Ouch. That's gotta hurt. Consumer Reports is generally a trusted and respected publication.


http://www.ifixit.com/blog/2010/07/is-apple-silently-fixing-the-iphone-4-antenna-issue/

 

[DivideBYZero]

Does not need another thread.

 

[Fingolfin269]

It's kind of a black eye but I doubt many consumers even care.

 

[shortylickens]

Ouch. That's gotta hurt. Consumer...lp you maintain. Also, the iPhone 4 sucks.

 

[TheWart]

hah well I guess this will go down as one of the best-selling items that CR decided to pass on.

it is funny given the iPhone 4 tops the list of best smartphones....a list compiled by...CR

lol

per CR:

The signal problem is the reason that we did not cite the iPhone 4 as a "recommended" model, even though its score in our other tests placed it atop the latest Ratings of smart phones that were released today.

The iPhone scored high, in part because it sports the sharpest display and best video camera we've seen on any phone, and even outshines its high-scoring predecessors with improved battery life and such new features as a front-facing camera for video chats and a built-in gyroscope that turns the phone into a super-responsive game controller. But Apple needs to come up with a permanent—and free—fix for the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone 4.

 

[abaez]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/12/consumer-reports-confirms-iphone-4-antenna-problems-and-so-do/

Ouch.

 

[Bateluer]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/12/apple-deleting-mentions-of-consumer-reports-iphone-4-piece-on-f/

In case Apple has somehow managed to perfect the art of selective disremembrance across a wide population, here's a refresher: Consumer Reports has thrown down the gauntlet, stating that it "can't recommend" the iPhone 4 until the antenna issues are fixed, issues that its labs and ours have verified quite substantially. Apple apparently isn't happy about that, and has taken to deleting threads about the Consumer Reports article from its support forums. Now, Apple deleting threads from its support forums is nothing new; outside of "regular" moderation, the company routinely deletes discussion of hardware flaws that it's not ready to 'fess up to, or just generally negative lines of thought about its products. Good thing the internet's a big place, and if Apple's not going to admit the antenna issue, there are plenty of ways to gripe about it. Feel free to express yourself in the comments below, for instance!

Did we expect anything else? Apple isn't the only company that selectively purges support forums of negative feedback on their products, but its disappointing every time.

 

[jpeyton]

Thumbsup to Consumer Reports. The iPhone 4 has a major design flaw and everyone knows it.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Apple's response shouldn't be all that surprising. They do sleep with the devil.

 

[DivideBYZero]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2089276

 

[Bateluer]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2089276

A mod can merge these threads and move NFS4's into the correct forum if they wish.

 

[MrX8503]

I'm glad Consumer Reports did this. Maybe it'll make Apple do something about it.

 

[dwell]

Also, the iPhone 4 sucks.

Even with the over-blown reception issues it's the best smartphone out there, hands down. The competition is still catching up with the 3GS and iOS 3.x.

 

[Bateluer]

Even with the over-blown reception issues it's the best smartphone out there, hands down. The competition is still catching up with the 3GS and iOS 3.x.

Err, wut? The competition passed those phones long ago, in screen size, screen resolution, CPU power, RAM, storage, battery, and OS capabilities.

Edit - For a device to be considered a smartphone, it needs to be able to make a phone call. Thanks the design defect in the 4's antenna, in combination with AT&T shoddy network, the iPhone 4 struggles with this.

 

[Phobic9]

Even with the over-blown reception issues it's the best smartphone out there, hands down. The competition is still catching up with the 3GS and iOS 3.x.

The iOS notification is still pretty lackluster IMO. I'd say this is one example (of many) the competition has surpassed the iPhone.

 

[dwell]

Err, wut? The competition passed those phones long ago, in screen size, screen resolution, CPU power, RAM, storage, battery, and OS capabilities.

- Bigger screens, worse displays (hold and EVO up to the iPhone4)
- Who cares about CPU power when iPhone runs faster overall with better battery life? Even my 2G iPod Touch runs smoother than the current Android devices under 2.2
- Same goes for RAM
- Storage: Android just got the ability to write to memory cards and as of now only one apps supports it.
- Battery: Are you kidding me? When is Android going to get decent power management?
- What OS capabilities in particular?

 

[zsdersw]

Even with the over-blown reception issues it's the best smartphone out there, hands down.

.. says you. You're not an authority on the subject, though.

 

[dwell]

.. says you. You're not an authority on the subject, though.

I have both phones so I have more authority on the subject than most of the posters here. iPhone 3GS and the N1 running 2.2.

 

[zsdersw]

I have both phones so I have more authority on the subject than most of the posters here. iPhone 3GS and the N1 running 2.2.

It's a safe bet that more than a few posters here have both iPhones and Android devices.. or have used both extensively.

 

[Dulanic]

- Bigger screens, worse displays (hold and EVO up to the iPhone4)
- Who cares about CPU power when iPhone runs faster overall with better battery life? Even my 2G iPod Touch runs smoother than the current Android devices under 2.2
- Same goes for RAM
- Storage: Android just got the ability to write to memory cards and as of now only one apps supports it.
- Battery: Are you kidding me? When is Android going to get decent power management?
- What OS capabilities in particular?

The android can run for days on a charge. Doesn't take much to do so...

So, how are the numbers? Quite remarkable. With my usage (see "context" at the beginning), I first charged the Evo 4G on a Friday at 11:20pm. It needed a new charge on the next Monday at 5:45pm. In a second instance, I charged it on a Tuesday at 2:15pm and it died on Thursday at 12:28pm. So that's about two days of moderate use and I think that it's just great. Some of the credit has to go to the power widget, so let's check it out:

If people are not using the wifi, why keep it on, etc... it turns on and off with a flip. Adroid has decent power management. When is iPhone 4 actually going to work as a phone?

That's right, I want an iPhone. It has 3Gs and the wifis. I want an iPhone.

I'll take a phone that you can actually talk on, thanks. I don't understand how people can go on defending the iPhone 4 when it has been proven that Apple is lying to all of you and just puts in a change to lower the bars lol.

The previous iPhones were fine, nothing wrong with them besides being over hyped. But the iPhone 4 is a failure of a device and is already out dated.

 

[zerogear]

iPhone 4 is crappy I enjoy aspect of it, but a Phone that drops signal is not a phone. If I wanted a platform without the phone, I would've gotten an iTouch.

 

[dwell]

The android can run for days on a charge. Doesn't take much to do so...

Let me ask you this... Out of the box, or by running utilities like Juice Defender and Advanced Task Killer?

I ask because it seems Apple has but a lot of work into power management, where this is an area on Android which has not gotten a lot of attention from Google, even under 2.2.

 

[Bateluer]

- Bigger screens, worse displays (hold and EVO up to the iPhone4)
- Who cares about CPU power when iPhone runs faster overall with better battery life? Even my 2G iPod Touch runs smoother than the current Android devices under 2.2 Because every iteration of the iPhone, up until recently, has had no multi-tasking ability. Its only doing 1 thing at a time. If I kill everything but essential processes, any Android phone is very snappy. Since I upgraded to CM, I haven't even experienced the notorious Android menu stuttering.
- Same goes for RAM Does Apple even tell you how much RAM the iPhone has, without the development/hacking/jailbreaking community finding out? Android phones have a range of RAM, below, equal to, and greater than the iPhone 4. User's choice on how much they're willing to spend.
- Storage: Android just got the ability to write to memory cards and as of now only one apps supports it.Uh, any app can be moved to the SD card, but that's not what I was referring. Most Android phones, at least, the high end ones, have effectively unlimited storage through the use of SD cards. And at a lower price than the 32GB+ models of the iPhone.
- Battery: Are you kidding me? When is Android going to get decent power management? Long time ago. Totally stock, a Moto Droid should get 12 hours pretty easily with average use. If the user gets less, then they've been web browsing, downloading, or some other task that's keeping the screen and 3G radio powered up. With CM5, I got 24 hours pretty easily. Still testing with CM6 though, probably will surpass that. Still, Android battery life is weaker than the iPhone's, the price of having truly multi-tasking.
- What OS capabilities in particular? Allow me to flip this to you, what can the latest version of iOS do that the latest version of Android cannot?

I'm not a Google/Android fanboy, even though I may sound very pro-Android. Its just irritating to see so many consumers with blinders on, buying a one-size-fits-all product with a well documented design defect, then proclaiming its the greatest thing since sliced bread and that no other phone can do what it does, etc. Microsoft is still getting flak for when it did this ten years ago with Windows Millennium. And Apple comes out smelling like guest room soap.

 

[Dulanic]

Let me ask you this... Out of the box, or by running utilities like Juice Defender and Advanced Task Killer?

I ask because it seems Apple has but a lot of work into power management, where this is an area on Android which has not gotten a lot of attention from Google, even under 2.2.

With regular usage it's so so if you don't keep every feature under the sun enabled when not needed. Obviously adding apps/utilities for power is going to help that as is the case with most phones out there. Apple's original way of keeping power was to prevent running multiple apps. HTC will improve upon it over time also and integrate some of the battery saving features.

I am not saying the EVO is perfect, it isn't. However, the issues can be fixed with software where as iPhone 4's issue is hardware. The software can be added extremely easily and doesnt require a custom ROM or anything.

 

[MrX8503]

Err, wut? The competition passed those phones long ago, in screen size, screen resolution, CPU power, RAM, storage, battery, and OS capabilities.

Edit - For a device to be considered a smartphone, it needs to be able to make a phone call. Thanks the design defect in the 4's antenna, in combination with AT&T shoddy network, the iPhone 4 struggles with this.

The iOS notification is still pretty lackluster IMO. I'd say this is one example (of many) the competition has surpassed the iPhone.

The antenna sucks and the notifications suck. Aside from that I only see other mobile OS's barely catching up.

CPU, RAM, Storage, blah blah, almost all smartphones are similar in those aspects, but when it comes down to OS finesse, most mobile OS's run like a rusty gate.

I don't understand how anyone can tolerate such clunky software. Remember that its just as or even more difficult to have an OS that runs smooth as butter. This is the difference between eating a TV dinner vs a home cooked meal.