iPhone 4 Solution: The Part That Doesn’t Make Sense

Unfortunately some of Jobs’ presentation didn’t make sense to me, specifically where he said all smartphones suffer signal degradation when you hold them the wrong way.

Steve Jobs gave another iPhone 4 presentation today. This wasn’t as joyous as his first because he was trying to undo the damage from a small technical problem that Apple milked into a large PR problem.

The solution to Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna woes is free cases for all! Even Consumer Reports was hoping for that solution. Who am I to not approve?

Unfortunately some of Jobs’ presentation didn’t make sense to me, specifically where he said all smartphones suffer signal degradation when you hold them the wrong way.

  • The iPhone’s antenna is external–actually part of the case
  • Holding the phone with your finger in the wrong spot on the antenna detunes it attenuating the signal
  • A plastic or rubber case/bumper will solve the problem by moving your finger off the antenna

But Steve, the other smartphones already have plastic around their antennas because all the other smartphones have their antennas inside the case.

Either

  • A case solves the iPhone’s problems
  • or

  • The other ‘pre-cased’ phones really don’t suffer this problem.

It doesn’t seem like it can be both. It’s not a big deal, but I still feel like I’m being spun. I hate being spun.

3 thoughts on “iPhone 4 Solution: The Part That Doesn’t Make Sense”

  1. As any good RF engineer will tell you, blocking a radio signal with your hand attenuates (degrades) the signal to some degree. Jobs was making the point that some other phones lose a lot of bars when you hold them a certain way, plastic covered or not. It was the lamest part of his presentation today and felt a bit like a kid in class pleading “but I wasn’t the only one who misbehaved.” The Nightline story that aired tonight was what they should have showed at the press conference.

    1. Thanks Kirk. I added the link as the video is now available.

      To me the problem stems entirely from what Apple sells: trouble free perfection. If that’s the case (and it seems to be) then they can’t say “other smartphones” nor play it down any more than Intel could when its early Pentium chips had a seldom replicated math error.

      The customer is always right.

      http://bit.ly/9l2bBZ

  2. Heh, I’ve had several “smartphones” that flat lost the nice strong signal when brought up to my ear after dialing. And the WORST one had an obviously external stubby antenna…

    We all get to do the cell phone twist, bob and weave to get a decent signal sometimes–it’s a fact of life at the frequencies they use…

    Maybe my head is denser than average? Or more likely, signal strength really varies a lot depending on where you are, the orientation of the antenna, and luck. I don’t think it’s just Apple’s problem, realisticly.

    That said, I’ll certainly take the free case/bumper. I figure it can’t hurt, and may save the phone from breaking when I drop it. Glass and I don’t have a lot of luck together.

    Yeah, Apple tries to sell ‘perfection’, but that’s not why I buy the occasional Apple product. They are better than the average techie product item, but by no means perfect.

    Should be interesting to see how this shakes out in the long run, after the hype and silliness runs its course.

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