Apple: there is no problem, and we are going to fix it with a free case
by Volker Weber
The much anticipated press event is over, and if you strip away the reality distortion field, it's pretty simple:
- Antennas don't want to be touched. The iPhone 4 has two antennas around the phone, so you will touch them. And if you bridge the two antennas by touching them with a conductor (a moist hand), the signal will go down.
- Other students have bad grades as well. [This did not work for my father, it does not work for me.]
- Lesson 1: Current phones (not the iPhone 4) have their antennas in the lower part. Hold them by the upper part for best reception.
- Lesson 2: Avoid touching the metal band. Or use a case to wrap it.
- Apple will give you a free case if you ask for it, starting next week on their website. Much better than paying them $29 for a rubber band.
- Apple can have millions of phones made, but not millions of
rubber bandsbumpers. Therefore they will source other cases as well and give you a choice. - Apple embellished their reception. For years. They can no longer figure out, how that happened. In German: Lügen haben kurze Beine (lies have short legs).
- 1.7% of 3 million iPhones returned. That's about 50,000 or 2,500 a day, right? Only 0.55% called with reception issues. 16,500 people, that is one every two minutes. Some may have been unable to place a call. ;-)
In any case: there goes the design.
[Recommendation for Belkin VUE Case removed.]
Comments
After reading your recommendation for the Belkin Grip Vue TPU case for the iPad, I bought one for my iPad. It is a perfect fit for the iPad. Last Wednesday I received Belkin Grip Vue TPU case for the iPhone 4. Unfortunately the case was unusable with the iPhone 4. With the TPU case attached to the device, I wasn't able to use the on/off switch on the iPhone 4. I can't recommend this case all.
Thanks, Abdelkader. I removed the reference. Why oh why did I break my rule not to endorse stuff I have not tested. :-(
You are welcome, Volker. Maybe I just received a TPU shell from a defective batch? As I didn't want to spend another 25 Euro on a Belkin TPU case, I couldn't verify this. Tomorrow I will try to get a Bumper from the Apple Store in Frankfurt. When I was there last Wednesday, they still had a few available.
I ready that, if you bought a case, Apple will reimburse you. Does that include 3rd party cases?
That Q was asked in the Q&A. The anser was "no".
I think SJ's most important point is missing: It's not really affecting a lot of people in real-world situations. Same is true for me and probably 90% of all people who really *have* an iPhone 4.
Peter, "not really affecting" is Job's reality distortion field. If you have great reception*, you can live with a 20something dB drop. If you find yourself in marginal conditions like on a train or deep inside a building, you are more likely to experience difficulties. You know what to do in that case: see above for lesson 2. Could I live with that? Certainly so.
*) Given enough thrust, even a piano flies. If you see five bars, even if you bridge the antennas, your cell tower isn't far.
Volker thanks for your statements to this problem. In the last days i thought you are caught in a reality distortion field too, because i do not see a critical statement from you about the PR disaster of Apple. Maybe Apple will learn that the best design is nothing without function.
All iPhone 4s I've seen so far did not have this problem. OK, I used them in an urban environment, with no reception issues at all. Might be that in some remote locations reception might drop significantly. But I don't see that reality distortion field you guys are talking about.
What puzzles me more is, that bumpers are free until 30th Sep., "then we might have a better idea". Bad news for everyone buying an iPhone 4 before October.
All this endorses the old rule: You never want Version X.0.
Not even from Apple.
It is OK for early adopters who are able and willing to to circumvent the problems.
I had occasional reception problems with all my mobiles, so there is nothing new under the sun. I see an analogy with the Pentium FDIV bug: While it didn't really bug people the press pumped it up and finally intel had to replace the processors.