http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/23/apple-takes-on-droid-x-with-latest-smartphone-video/

These videos are hilarious. Maybe next they'll stick the phones in a Faraday cage and say "See, they all lose signal in those!"

When Apple is able to post a video of any of these phones completely losing signal and dropping calls when touched in a spot with a single finger like any of the hundreds of youtube videos showing happening on the iPhone4 then I'll be impressed.

Interestingly, my coworkers iPhone4 doesn't seem to have the issue, nor can I reproduce that video Apple produced on my X. Plus the phone is able to make crystal clear calls in my basement where the signal meter reads -110db. (Why don't they show the signal strength readout, not just bars?) Then again, I'm not Andre the Giant with size 10X hands like the dude in that video!

Given that the whole complaint is the phone is supposed to lose signal when held "normally," I'd say these videos are at least as reasonable as the ones up on YouTube ... the single-finger thing is a neat trick but kind of moot, if you ask me ...

But, meh, it's all a molehill -- like your coworkers, I never had an issue with my iPhone 4 when I was using it without a case, and honestly I have yet to run into someone in the flesh that has had unusual signal problems at all with it ...

Seeing how I hold my phone with my fingertips and always have, so for me my pinky finger hitting the antenna on the iPhone4 is a real possibility. The issue with the iphone isn't blocking the cell signal, it's shorting out the antenna.

Well, my point about the finger thingy was that if you're holding a phone in anywhere near a "normal" manner, you're going to automatically have at least one finger on the thing to begin with -- so the whole "look! it happens with just a single finger!" is more showmanship than anything else ...

I understood the issue with the antennas is that your skin can bridge the two and alter their reception wavelength, which screws with the connection. I'm not sure if that's the same as "shorting out," which to me conjures up scenes of smoke and acrid smells and actually damaging components =)

I think what is pissing people off so much is that you can create the problem on the iphone holding it in such a way that cannot be reproduced on any other phone. Apple is posting videos acting like it's a problem with simply blocking the cell signal, which is not the case - otherwise putting a case on the iphone isn't going to change anything.

So, by trying to deflect criticism from themselves onto other vendors, Apple is only continuously pointing out the defect in their phone - which in turns adds to the hype of an already overblown issue.

What I'd really enjoy seeing is someone post a video with several phones side by side showing signal meters measured in -dB instead of silly bars. Then death grip 'em all and see the results. All android phones give you this information already.

Like you said, it's way overblown since it appears to only affect less than 1% of iPhone owners to start with.

I tend to disagree.

1 - That whole side of the iPhone, well nearly whole side is the antenna. So one finger is not going to block a signal unless you finger is 5 inches wide.

Big Six has a good point.
The death grip is when your over lapping the (slit) between two different antennas. Bridging the single so to speak. So yes a case would help that 1% of people

Anyway.
Apple did post those videos and did show that other phones have a death grip as well. Maybe you could watch the videos again.

It is when one finger touches the point where the two antennas are close to each other. All you have to do is put your finger so that it touches BOTH antenna at same time. This interferes with the signal by bridging them together.

The issue with the iphone is as you say bridging the antennas, which yes, can be done with a pinky.

Can't do that on any other phone, you're simply blocking some signal.

Quite a lot of other sources have come forth and stated they can't replicate some of Apple's videos or the Droid either, namely engadget, PC world and a few others. The Droid has two cellular antennas (one for transmit one for receive I think), and while some have been able to get a 4-5 dB drop in signal, it doesn't match the 20dB drop they can get with the iphone - which is why I stated I'd be more impressed if Apple showed the actual signal strength instead of the silly bar readout. If the other phones dropped 20 dB of signal holding it like that, then there is an issue. A few dB, well so what.

Of course you can't though.. because Apple doesn't make that possible on the iPhone as you can on a Blackberry or Android phone. Unless there is a signal meter app out there?

Gotta find out how to put the phone in field test mode...



http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-10115756-233.html

I believe, it is not about blocking the signal per say.
Rather as mentioned before that some people carry more energy than others, mainly our bodies have an electrical charge and I think that whats get in the way of the signal when bridging the split. If not then everyone could duplicate the problem by simply placing a finger over the gap.

I feel that these 1% are the people who can walk across wool carpet and throw lightning bolts at the same time

I believe the problem relates to manufacturing, in that I read some phones went out without protective coating on the metal bodies that others had. Also, some people sweat more than others.

So very careless of them.

I saw that too. Apparently, Apple maintains there is a protective coating on the antennas and that a whole batch went out of the factory sans coating.

Source?
I can't believe anything I read these days.

Blocking by water mass and blocking by skin contact are certainly physically different processes, and this is indeed interesting. Apple’s not the first to use external antenna patches, nor to warn against touching them (Nokia has for one).

But the real-world RESULT is what any of it matters. The reality: I can hold a call (and simultaneous data) with a finger bridging the gap of my iPhone 4. Or a whole-palm wrap around. In areas where the signal is so-so. And see not one bar of drop.

I can also, in certain spots, make the bars drop! But I have not lost a call, or had a quality loss, as a result. I have seen, in certain spots, “No Signal” before a call, in an area where signal fluctuates, and I feel like I can have an effect with my hand. In theory, I might drop a call there, but it didn’t happen. I’ve run into a couple other 4 owners and they reported no problems either—even though they knew to watch for the issue.

Certainly there will be really borderline cases of weak signal (and a zillion other complex factors) where your hand could actually interrupt a call. This can and does happen on other phones too. Along with lots of other factors that can drop the occasional call. (In fact, in one video—a Blackberry vid posted by Apple maybe?--a single finger had this effect.)

The idea that this iPhone 4 issue is, in actual experience by the masses of users, vastly worse than what phones have always done, is fiction. People WANT to believe it, but it’s really a far tinier issue than it was made out to be. A shame? No—I got a free case out of the deal One more feature the iPhone 4 has: choice of case included. (I’m getting a bumper because I don’t WANT a back: it would trap grit and cause scratches. I know from experience.)

The fact that one finger CAN interfere with an iPhone is not very interesting—merely a handy sound bite--unless it’s actually a common cause of dropped calls. It’s not.

I never noticed my 3G having issues with grip... but it was all along. I tested and proved this—bars would sometimes drop--but I never noticed before “antennagate” came along. You notice what is pointed out to you. Given that, even if the iPhone 4 were the best (yet still imperfect) antenna design ever, thousands of people should have been reporting problems just because they were told to look for them.

Yet that didn’t happen. Actual user complaints (on forums and to Apple) have been amazingly rare. More often you had bloggers and “journalists” and “analysts” in a feedback loop “proving” some terrible crisis to each other, independent of hard facts.

(I believe the hard facts show an increase in dropped calls from the 3G to the 4. An increase small enough that the lack of case usage explains it? Very possibly. An increase small enough not to be a huge product flaw? For certain. At worst, the iPhone 4 is 100 steps forward and 1 step back. Even the antenna itself seems to be better on the whole! Just not in every instance. You’ll find that kind of situational difference between any two phones anyway.)

Huh what??

You don't believe me!!??

W/e


Google "iphones shipped without coating antenna" or some such. I can't remember where I read something 2-3 weeks ago.

And even if I found it.. would you believe it then??
Why?

Nagromme... I have also noticed that when I place it in a pound of hamburger the signal drops significantly.
What can I do to sue Apple about this?

No, it's not that I don't believe you (hardly, I trust the opinions here more than any news source, no w/e necessary), it's that after reading about this problem since the introduction, I just want to know the origin.
If iPhones were shipped without a protective coating on the antennae, wouldn't that warrant a recall? If new iPhones are shipped with a coating, wouldn't that prove a defect?

Yes... and yes.

Just curious.

I don't even own a cell phone.

The source I was hoping for was Apple themselves.
Have they officially said there is a protective coating?

The closest I could find...


http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/jobs-on-iphone-4-antenna-avoid-holding-it-in-this-way.ars

Yes that is correct

I heard some 100,000 phones where shipped without the coatings - which would account for the 1% of phones sold and 1% of the complaints.

Yeah, but this valid point you bring up is also the reason the videos Apple have posted are disingenuous and misleading. Bars mean zilch because they're not showing you the actual signal. The bars are simply an algorithm the phone calculates according to noise, etc. on how well it perceives the ability to make and hold onto a call to be.

I'm not harping on the Droid X video because I have one, but having one I have good insight into how the phone performs.

I can tell you as a fact in our plant (a big steel building that kind of acts like a faraday cage) I can make crystal clear calls in standing smack dab in the middle, where all the blackberries and iphones will drop calls, if they can make them at all. Doesn't matter if they're AT&T or Verizon, or Sprint.

My previous phone wouldn't make or receive calls, neither would my RAZR. Emails on this phone chime off the Droid call in the middle of the plant. My old phone, the wouldn't get to the phone until I came back to the offices. Sitting here at my desk, signal level is -87dB, and I have full bars. Outside, the signal is -47dB and I have full bars. Out in the plant, signal is -97db, and I have 3 bars. Doesn't matter, the phone still sounds like a hardwired phone. It's the best quality sounding cell phone I've ever used to make calls, and yes that includes the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4.

So if Apple really wants to display the death grip affecting phones, let's hear some audio! I guarantee you from personal experience that the call that Droid was making stayed clear and didn't have one single fluctuation in quality. Line up the phones next to each other, make a call and death grip 'em. First one to drop a call sucks, let's see 'em toss it against a wall and smash it.