iPhone 3G reception just fine say curious Swedes with engineering degrees
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Aug 25th 2008 5:40AM
posted Aug 25th 2008 5:40AM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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iPhone FTW!
yeah right, it was the worst choice in my life to get it
now I actually look forward to trade it for an HTC touch pro, even if I have to pay any amount of money, I just want it out of my life.
Mine works fine (so far) but I have the same problem I did with my Dash on T-Mo. I'll be holding my phone with full bars, the phone never rings and I get a VM from someone who just called. WTF!
Doesn't this mean that its Apple's crappy software which is responsible for the dropped calls and the inability to hold onto 3G connections?
So this categorically proves that it is not the antenna that is responsible for the crappy reception. Therefore what is the real reason for iPhones having crappy reception.
I had been ready to put this down to Apple's suppliers, but I suppose Engadget, that you are saying that this is Apple's fault.
@Surur
No. It means, if the test valid, that there is nothing wrong with the iPhone, at least nothing wrong with it that isn't wrong with other phones.
@Izzy
yeah that's seems to be AT&T BS. i get the same thing on my HTC Touch and my Treo 650 before that.
why was my comment low-ranked?
Neither am I a windows-mobile fanboy nor apple, I was just expressing my thoughts.
and lets face it, the iPhone is a pretty cool gadget to own but its far - and I mean really far - from being practical, it's just my opinion, weather it gets low-ranked or not, Thank you.
Those other phones reception must be quite poor as well. When I use the same SIM in my SE K850 or my friends Nokia N81 the 3G reception goes through the roof, but as soon as I pop it back in the iPhone it has to struggle just to get one bar. And considering I live in Gothenburg which has great coverage I find it a bit odd...
Article says :
If you are in Gothenburg and have an iphone with a bad 3G connection, not just that there are few signal strength bars, but that calls are disconnected and downloads are interrupted, let us know. Maybe we can do some more turns in the test chamber.
Maybe you should drop and and have them run some tests with your phone.
Please do let us know the results.
Testing a perfectly fine iphone3g, does not represent all of the defective ones. So this article is sort of a blanket statement, giving those who actually have a defective one a false sense of "nothing can be wrong with mine then".
zeph: What people are claiming is that Apple's 3G chipset is systematically bad - both in design and firmware. This disproves that theory at the very least.
Now whether or not the manufacturing of said chipsets is defective is anyone's guess...
I had never thought they were all bad, just a large batch of them, and that is definitely true from what i have researched.
"Whether they exist or not is largely irrelevant in a world dominated by sound-bite driven perceptions."
"Of course, who's going to let a few facts stand in the way of contrary opinion and litigation, eh?"
Interesting how Engadget is suddenly this critical of public perception, cheap soundbytes, shoddy journalism and populair opinion versus fact. I've never seen them express these concerns while, for instance, ripping on other products, or when placing large Mac versus PC ads on their pages.
Spot-on.
Indeed.
Cant remember the last time some Swedes pulled out the stops to defend another product from the "opinions and soundbites" brigade.
Nice double standards Engadget authors involved.
"Phfft! Facts. You can use them to prove anything." -- Homer Simpson
Wow Fred, who pissed in your Cheerios everyday... having a quick look at your history of posting a vast majority of them are bashing 1) Engadget 2) Apple 3) other Engadgeters.
Do you really have to take so much time and bash this much to make yourself feel superior to others?
Fred's just being an idiot again, like usual. Notice how he skips the whole issue at hand, namely that the iPhone does in fact have reception comparable to other 3G phones, and instead chooses to rip on Engadget for posting their opinion on their own blog. And what does being interested in fact have to do with ad placement? I mean are you just that stupid, or are you grasping at things to bitch about?
Zak's just being an Apple fanboy who ignores the problems with the iPhone 3G, as usual.
@Gus: I have to wonder about the kind of person who would take the time to browse through the entire post history of people he disagrees with on the internet. Maybe we -both- have problems.
@Zak: I don't care about iPhone reception, nor do I know anything about it, so why would I address that issue? Apparently you feel otherwise, but I find it pretty moronic to talk about stuff one doesn't care or know about.
Testing in a controlled environment doesn't really tell you jack about using it in real life situation, other than giving it a thumbs up (or down) on paper. IMO "good reception" is to make it reliable in a place that may not be as reliable, not throwing it in a tin can and say "oh yes this is teh win."
Absolutely. A lot of dropped connection problems can occur when on the boundary of two cells or whilst moving between two cells. Laboratory testing like this can't test either of these two scenarios.
I was wondering the same things about this supposed "test environment". Did the test environment actually travel more than 10 feet in any direction to experience the usual variance in signals one can get when doing something as simple as walking around the house?
From what I can see in the article, things "moved around" within the chamber, but that chamber can't be much more than 2' x 2' x 3' - definitely not a good "moving around" indicator. Even just within a house, one talking on a cell moves around more than that. I'm not even going to get into traveling around a metropolitan area on foot or by car.
For example, I have some crappy VHF microphones here at work. They'll work beautifully in certain locations, but in others, they pick up insane amounts of static. So if I just test the mics in an area in which they happen to work just fine, does that mean I've concluded that they'll work fine in all cases, everywhere? Of course not.
I don't have to have an engineering degree to know that the tests these "curious Swedes" carried out can't come even close to mirroring real world functionality.
All three of you fail the comprehension test. The test wasn't specifically about mirroring real world usability, it was about testing the iPhone's reception RELATIVE to other phones. It doesn't matter which tests they ran as long as the tests were exactly the same for each phone. And since it was a reception test I'm assuming they would have tested it in conditions with less than perfect reception... why do the tests at all otherwise? Again, the point was to test the iPhone's reception relative to the other phones to establish a baseline.
As it turns out the iPhone's reception was as good as the other phones' reception in the same conditions. That's why this test was useful.
@ Zak
This tested the relative signal strength between the three devices in one location. Just because the three were similar IN THAT CHAMBER does not mean that all three will remain similar in every environment.
I'll bet that these guys hear from some local iPhone users that are having reception problems. Wouldn't be surprised at all if there is additional testing with different results posted.
bjsguess: And if they do hear from local users complaining of iPhone reception problems, who's to say other 3G phones aren't having the exact same reception problems in that area? Wasn't that the point of this test? Until we have some proof proving otherwise, this test is the definitive answer for the cause of the iPhone-related reception issues; namely, it's the carrier and not the iPhone itself.
Am I the only one who read the name of the author as "Eva Green" ?
wow, that text must've been auto-translated to english, the grammar is horrible!
Personally I think the main cause for complaint is the iPhone 3G has made a lot of users realise just how poor their carriers 3G coverage actually is - they just don't realise it's the carrier not the phone.
A major cause for confusion is that in an area with strong GSM (2G) signal but only mediocre UMTS (3G) signal the phone will connect to the 3G signal (That will still perform better than the stronger 2G one - especially for data). So the user used to getting full bars in that area on a 2G only phone will think their phone is getting a weaker signal than normal.
There are problems here however... the phone might get a good enough 3G signal to switch to 3G from 2G, then lose it as the phone is moved out of 3G coverage causing a possible dropout/dropped call, even though the whole area is well covered by 2G. Again, this is not unique to the iPhone and is caused by spotty 3G coverage and up to the carrier to improve coverage. If you live in an area with spotty 3G coverage - turn 3G off until you need it.
Another thing to keep in mind is everyone judges their signal on how many 'bars' are displayed. Bars displayed share a very loose relationship with the actual signal strength, for example a signal at -90dB (medium strength) might be displayed as 4 bars on one handset and 2 on another, despite being the same strength on both phones.
That would make sense if the problems were limited to North America. However, problems have also been seen in Europe - where 3G is ubiquitous and most users already have a 3G phone.
w00t, I think your comment is right on, in looking at the AT&T 3G buildout it was in many places timed to coincide with iPhone 3G's rollout, thus not being a mature 3G network yet. How about Apple coming forward with this info? Maybe they dont at risk of making their U.S. carrier partner look bad.
@W00t: This doesn't explain the people who are get a weak signal on their iPhone but get a strong signal on an alternative 3G phone in the same location.
@SteveK: You can't guarantee a perfect 3G signal in Europe either. Here in London I'll occaionally drop down to GPRS or UMTS because I can't get a good HSDPA signal.
I live smack bang in the middle of London, and so far I have had perfect 3G coverage every where I've been. :)
Sweden has 98.5% 3G coverage (population wise) and most major cities have full HSDPA coverage and many of those with data rates as high as 7.2mbit. The user complaining about bad reception with his iPhone 3G in Gothenburg, are located in one of these "superplaces" with Gothenburg being the second largest city in Sweden. From personal experience using HI3G as my operator, there is NEVER a moment in gothenburg or a 50 km radius, where I do not have full 3G coverage on both my Nokia 6110 and my HSDPA broadband modem. 3.6mbit connection and super download rates as far out as 100 km's from gothenburg center, and within the center a constant 7.2mbit connection and extremely good download rates.... ofcause... I expect the user to be using Telia as the operator as those are currently the only reseller of iPhone in Sweden, but I hardly believe their coverage can be much if any, worse.
I thought it was supposed to be "more bars in more places"?
I think it has lots to do with the network than the phone. Here in Canada Rogers 3G is spotty to the point where the phone switches to Edge because of weak 3G network.
see, the funny thing is that despite all these reports about dodgy 3G reception on the iPhone I've had literally zero connection issues on Telstra here in Australia.
I'm kind of wondering how many of these complaints are coming from people who have bad 3G reception regardless.
Steve Jobs said the reception issue effects only 2% of the iPhones in distribution. Engadget enough with the attitude, just the facts please.
This is a global issue, and please, if anyone, even the most avid Apple fan believes SJ's 2% figure, they must be crazy.
Here in the UK, *everyone* i know (around 20 people) with the new model iPhone is suffering the sorts of reception/call reliability issues we thought we'd left behind years ago. I love this as an all-round device, but seriously, as a PHONE, it is a disaster. Something has gone seriously wrong here, and Apple is just being slow, lazy and frankly dishonest in not cleaning up its house.
Seriously, hop on over to Apple's forums... has anyone *ever* seen support threads running like the ones on these reception issues??? This is not a minor problem.
Right, because Steve Jobs is an unbiased, transparent source of information about Apple products.
I suppose that's possible, 2% means greater than 20 thousand defective units. I'm just assuming they sold 1 million, how many have they actually sold?
@MW
2% of 4-6 million iPhones is 80,000-120,000 phones. 2% of a lot is a lot. Also most of the complaints are from UK (o2) and optus in Australian which I think are know for not having the best networks.
The iPhone issue rate is 2%. MobileMe works for almost everyone but a select few. Macs are better than PCs. Keep soaking it up iSheep.
We are in the same boat :(
The issue I have is not related to signal strength at all. Mine switches between 3G and 2G like a bastard, and that motion screws up my connectivity to email........ Hmmm. maybe I will try and disable 2G and see if that helps.
This is the price Apple pays for being so secretive. When you release a patch that says "bug fixes" people will speculate and make judgements based on their feelings and perceptions rather than actual fact. If people feel as if apps are crashing more often, or feel like reception is better/worse, or if weather just happens to decrease reception on patch-day, they will convert their gut instincts into "facts" to fill the void left by secrecy.
If Apple doesn't want people to report feelings as facts, they should be more open. If not more open with the platform, at least more open with information about it.
Well duh, it's going to be fine if you are testing a non defective one.
Well no shit. Why would you use a defective one?
Because what is the point of only testing a good one, and not comparing it to a defective one? If you tested both, that would give everyone a true sense of "There are a lot of bad ones, but there are a lot of good ones too." More lead to throw at Apple to get them to fix the ones that ARE bad.
Finally! This article proves it ---- wait a minute, never mind this is a really stupid thing to post, Engadget. If you are going to target an article towards users in the US, which this is the US version I am reading AFAIK, maybe show a test comparing the iPhone to phones that A US CARRIER SELLS. I can't remember the last time I walked into an ATT store and picked up a N73 or P1. Oh, and maybe have the test take place on the carrier that sells it in the country that sells it. No, you're right Engadget, all of these people complaining about reception issues are MAKING IT UP. Most people that read this site are aware of the fact that 3G overseas beats the shit out of US HSDPA coverage-wise. NEXT.
This test occurred and was reporting on. We don't exactly get to pick which phones were tested. Nor are there simply dozens of similar tests for us to all to chose from, one of which compares the US-market phones you'd like to see.
I can't speak for anyone else that's having problems with the iPhone 3G, but in my case (in the Chicago suburbs) the problem hasn't been reception so much as 3G to 2G handdown. There are places where the 3G coverage is great, four or five bars, and the phone performs excellently.
The bigger problems I've seen is that when there is only one bar of 3G service, the phone will sit there and grind trying to set up a data connection or fail to make a voice call, when I know full well there's plenty of 2G available. I've even seen the phone say "No Service" when I know there's a 2G network there. I can then go turn off the 3G in the settings, and the phone will work.
Maybe there are other people who have defective phones that have poor reception because of some hardware or software issue. In my case, it seems like my "unreliability" is caused by an unwillingness of the phone to hand down to 2G. It means that when I only have one bar, I never know whether the darned thing is going to work or not, and that, in a word, is maddening.
>>Of course, who's going to let a few facts stand in the way of contrary opinion and litigation, eh?
What fact??
I think people need to get over it and remember that this isnt the Jesus Phone, its the iphone.
Its funny how EVERY little thing is scrutinized when its the iphone, but every other device...no one cares.
If everyone would stop whining and remember its just a friggin phone, we could all get back to life.
American carriers are known for having poor 3G networks, so have a whinge at the people who can actually FIX the problem..AT&T.
I cant wait till i get my HTC Touch Cruise. An iPhone would of been nice, but the risk of it getting stolen and gawked at in my area is too high.
Engadget do have a Mac bias, that much is obvious, but so what, this is a blog, not a newspaper, heck even newspapers have bias.
I can tell you that Verizon Wireless drops calls all over my neighborhood and yet, they deny it and when pressed they tell me that they honestly dont care.
If anyone thinks that these companies have any other interest other than getting your dollars, on a recurring basis, then you're all on dope. They care ZERO about you, me, the customer. Want to send THEM a message, one that doesnt drop? FIRE THEM.
I agree completely with w00t. I've heard endless reports coming from the USA on how poorly 3G coverage is. With an ounce of luck, a full moon and if you all hop on one leg, I expect the US operators will slowly get round to implementing decent 3G coverage.
Here in Australia, as well as most European countries, 3G has been around for years. In 2004, 3G coverage here in Melbourne was pitifull and people complained to no end about how patheic it was. Coverage is now excellent and I've found 3G works brilliantly on the iPhone (and my Nokia... pretty much anywhere in the city or suburbs.
Its pretty simple, I have an iphone 3g, and I drop calls ALL THE TIME. Its pathetic. I love EVERYTHING else about the phone, but the dropped calls is rediculous@!
I just don't get it. I'm in New York City with full bars and 3G and I can't load the simplest website unless I'm on wifi. I've reset and updated and it just doesn't help. Maybe mine is defective, but how would I know? Email and everything else seems to work just fine. (except that some of my MP3 won't play - which is very strange as they play just fine on my iPod).
I wouldn't say the phone got "worse" with 2.0.2, but certainly it seems more honest about switching to edge or loosing connectivity.
I stood in the Nokia store on day 29 playing with the E71 for hours, but finally just went home. I hope they (At&T, Apple, the Yankees?) fix this, because I'd hate to be stuck with an internet phone that can't use the internet for the next two years.
It sounds like the real issue is the handdown to 2G, and not the 3G reception itself (I concur with the notes by many that how many bars your phone shows as compared to some other phone is completely irrelevant, since the other phone may simply show more bars for a weaker signal than the iPhone 3G does, or vice versa). The good news is the hand down is the problem then a firmware update should be able to fix it - just hand off to 2G sooner. Perhaps have the threshold as as settings option. They need to get such an update out the door ASAP.
I live in Hong Kong, and I've never had a dropped call on my iPhone 3G... It does switch to 2G sometimes, but that's normal for wherever it drops to 2G. For example, in some of the MTR (subway) tunnels, it drops to 2G, which is normal for other phones too.
Nobody I know here is having any sort of connection or signal problems.
I work for another mobile company, and I test 3g all over the US, and
I can say easily that 3G coverage is really not that bad in the US..
Maybe 20 miles outside a metro city it can get spotty, but on our
phones, the 3g coverage is just fine. I'm talking tethered ftp
downloads of 500 MB while driving all around the city, and not a
hiccup.. I was beginning to wonder how apple was cramming so many
antenna's into one, I guess they had to make a few sacrifices..
Oh and not to mention just looking at those pictures there seems to be a few problems with their anechoic chamber.
Test all over the city all over the US, eh? 500 MB tethered downloads? Here's the only test I need: does it work for me?
I was a happy Verizon customer for 6 years, but my love for Apple is the only reason I switched to the new iPhone 3G. What a freakin' disaster that was.
I'm a real estate agent in the Washington, DC metro area. I live and work 10 minutes outside DC in Virginia. There was not a single bar of service at my office, and no 3G service at my place, despite the AT&T Coverage Map showing that I'd get 5 bars. I only have one friend who has AT&T (now I know why!); he lives in Baltimore -- he brought his Treo 680 and his girlfriend's BlackBerry Curve. Neither one got signal at my office. Do you know how much that sucks? I had clients calling me, and I had to either call my voicemail or drive to the McDonald's down the street just to make some calls from my cell phone. AND I LIVE IN DC!
I travel a lot throughout the suburbs and the city since I show houses all over the place; with Verizon, I never had an issue with signal. I never saw the "No Service" signal on my phone, not even on the Metrorail. With AT&T, I only saw full coverage once. There were times where I was actually in crowded parts of the city and I had no signal -- again, I'm not in the middle of nowhere...I'm in the nation's capital. It was incredibly disappointing.
Don't get me wrong -- the iPhone is a sweet device. It's probably the greatest PDA phone I've ever used. But it's like having the greatest cell phone in the history of mankind...that only works in Japan. Am I going to move to Japan to use it? No, I'm going to switch back to Verizon.
And I'm happy with my spotless 3G EV-DO coverage.
Verizon works for me. Would I like more phone selection? Sure! But what good is a phone if gets no signal in your town? I don't know what works for you, but that's the only thing you should ask yourself: does it work for me?
I guess everyone dropping calls is just making it up then, huh?
Seriously, could you sound any whinier?
The test they conducted just says the 3G antenna doesn't seem to be the culprit. They didn't claim there wasn't an issue, and they didn't claim you were "making it up". Just that the antenna performed similar to two other phones.
Judging from the comments so far, it's sounding like the problem might not be entirely the iPhone's fault. It sounds like AT&T's 3G network is causing the iPhone to flip out. From a programming perceptive, this is a definite possibility because if you design your product to except one thing and you get that one thing plus all these other unexpected things there will be issues. So the patch that fixes the problems might not change how the iPhone works but takes into account the things AT&T's 3G network is not doing right.
Maybe Apple uses the same test chamber.
I just love these "perfect world" tests that people preform & then they expect us to take it as fact. This reminds me of the M$ “Navajo” test where people were exposed to "Vista" in a perfect world. Do people really think we're going to change our mind just because of a controlled environment test..
Really world variables / influences is what a true test should involve.
You fail. The test was done to determine WHERE the problem is, not IF there's a problem at all. And the test results showed that the iPhone's reception was as good as the other 2 3G phones they tested it with in the same controlled environment. This is troubleshooting 101, it eliminates possible causes of reception issues, and it appears to have shown that the iPhone itself is not the cause of the reception issues people are complaining about. Barring any hardware malfunctions, obviously.
I bet it's real hard to keep a 3G connection going if you keep going in and out of a 3G region, people seem to forget 3G isn't nationwide at this moment
My iPhone 3g reception & speed blows! It's the only drawback I see with the phone. My Sprint PPC-6800 with the EVDO Rev A was twice as fast, literally(not to mention I had bluetooth tethering support). My message to ATT, stop bragging about your 3g rollout until you can back it up, playa! Verizon & Sprint are slapping you silly...
Im happy to report that today I'm returning my Crappy 3G Iphone
I got tired of the:
- Dropped calls
- Horrible 3G signal here in the silicon valley ( their own backyard )
- Slow keyboard
- Stupid predictive texting that YOU CANT turn off ( Very annoying )
- Crashing apps
- Get "CALL FAILED " Errors and have to redial up to 4 times before the call goes through
- GPS is slow to pick up the blue dot with your location.
- Contacts list gets stuck for like 4 seconds before you can even scroll.
I love apple products. And have a mac book pro and almost every generation Ipod but this phone has got to be the worst phone and the phone with the most problems that I've ever had.
GOOD RIDDANCE !!!!
I had high hopes for the Iphone 3G but stupid apple really needs to work out the bugs!!
2.0.1 and 2.0.2 took care of most of those problems for me. Except the predictive text thing which works fine for most users.
sorry to break it you but switching to another phone won't improve 3G coverage, failed calls or make GPS faster. the crashed apps issue has been fixed, or so i hear, and an on-screen keyboard will always be slower than a physical one. if you want to get even slower, try a WinMo phone (i should know, i have one).
@ tonicboy - apparently not everything is fixed. Check out the posts around the 2.02 update. Still major issues.
Here's my WM experience:
-- Couple dropped calls (I blame Sprint's coverage in my area for this)
-- Great HSI connection speed when hooked up to EVDO-A
-- Virtual keyboard loads up fine
-- I turn off predictive text
-- Don't experience call failure issues
-- GPS locks to at least 6 sats within 10 seconds (works nice with TT7)
-- Contacts works just fine without any lag
You should definitely consider WM. I should know, I have one.
Apple has test chambers too. The issue isn't performance in test chambers. The issue is performance in real life.
I know people who know people who work on the iPhone, and even they say it drops calls too often. Whether Cingular, Apple or Infineon is at fault, it amounts to a poor user experience and that's not good for iPhone users or Apple.
Interesting survey results on the iPhone 3G at Wired - they surmise network issues moreso than the device.
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/08/global-iphone-3.html
At least someone is starting to do actual quantitative testing to get to the bottom of the problems, instead of just endless reporting based solely on rumors and speculation. (*cough* Richard Windsor of Nomura Securities *cough* )
but where is it the scientific method?.
i put in the chamber a good iphone 3g, a nokia and a sony ericssons. All phones show no troubles with the signal.
Next, i put in the same chamber a cat (called Mittens) and a dog.
Conclusion:
Any iphone 3g have good reception and all cats are called Mittens.
Bad analogy. The study wasn't trying to prove that 100% of iPhones are problem free (because nothing is 100% problem free - nothing). What it was trying to prove (and succeeded in proving) is that the iPhone's reception is as good as other 3G iPhones. That's it. No extrapolation needed.
Therefore if your iPhone reception is bad, that means one of two things:
1. Your iPhone is faulty, maybe one of the 2% Jobs mentioned, or for some other reason
2. The problem is with the carrier, and not the iPhone.
It's really not any more complicated than that.
Never had a reception problem with mine. Maybe it is a Spokane, WA thing but all of my friends and customers I talk to have awesome reception here.
I dislike my iPhone for several reasons, reception not being one of them.
Thank god for eBay.
I would be very interested to see another 3G iPhone speed survey, similar to Wired.com's, that also included:
- Week of build (5th & 6th digit of serial number)
- Time of day
This would address 3G chip manufacturing defects and to what extent the number of users is affecting service.
I think the problem is a combination of both hardware and 3G service implementation. That's why the debate will always bounce back and forth. And to make matters even more difficult to troubleshoot, suppose it is a chip defect - a type of defect that causes intermittent problems? Here in Las Vegas NV, on average I get 400 kbps with 5-6 bars of 3G service showing on my week 28 build. HOWEVER, I travel a large part of the city everyday. I've used testmyiphone.com and got results up to 1300 Kbps in the late evenings. But I've read posts from Vegas users who get on AVERAGE, 1500 Kbps. WTF? At my place of work I get 1-2 bars with speeds averaging 45 Kbps to 300 Kbps - no matter the time of day. If 2.1 doesn't remedy my situation, it's back to Verizon for me.