You know, the iPhone's been out in Canada, and I have seen most of my friends get it, but no one seems to experience the death grip or the pinky of doom...WTF?
@kapanak It's because the problem was minor, but blown out of proportion. Don't get me wrong, I'm not excusing Apple for the odd design choice. But the mainstream media (CNN, etc) and the Android fanboys ran with a story that they didn't really understand. It's a problem to some (anyone with piss poor at&t coverage), yes, but it's nowhere near as bad as it may have sounded. That's the one and only reason I give Apple a slight pass for their sort of childish Youtube videos.
@Nishanth No, this hasn't been blown out of proportion. Every iPhone 4 I've played with and hearsay from the people I know with iPhone 4s has shown the death grip to be EASILY replicable.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a fine device otherwise but it is Apple that has handled this situation the wrong way. It should have simply said to its customer (who they supposedly love so very much) that they made poor engineering decisions (i.e. looks over functionality) and that they will look to fix it in either the current iteration or the next instead of pointing fingers at every other phone which has a MINOR version of the death grip.
@yyandrew But that's where the whole mix-up happens. The problem isn't the dropped bars (if anything, Apple has shown that bars mean nothing). I can replicate that fairly easily on my iPhone (and just as easily on my friend's Captivate -- 1 finger). The problem lies in how it affects daily usage. I'm willing to bet an overwhelming majority of iPhone 4 owners would say they haven't noticed anything significant, and that they probably wouldn't have noticed the dropped bars if they didn't hear about the "death grip" (I'm mostly referring to the non tech-blog reading crowd here). That's why I think the problem has been blown out of proportion.
That said, I agree that Apple handled the situation terribly. I don't think they needed to say it was a bad engineering decision, but they should have been faster and less patronizing.
Not to beat this dead horse, but...Apple said this antenna design improved reception. AT&T said they doubled network capacity in New York and San Francisco. So why did Apple say the iPhone 4 drops slightly more calls? If the reception and network are better but you're dropping more calls, obviously their is a real life problem somewhere? If it's not your pinky finger, where is it then?
Back to topic. Nice to see the unlock - would mean more to me than the jailbreak (yes, I know jailbreak is needed for the unlock), but I gave up on the cat and mouse game with Apple and just got an Android phone.
@etwashoo2 1 in 100 more dropped calls compared to 3GS where 80% are housed in cases....yep, terrible!
I can get my iPhone 4 to drop a bar, and if I rarely only have 2 bars, I can't get it to lose signal....or if I have 1 bar in some remote area out of CBD, it still doesn't lose reception. What a huge issue this was!
You are a sample size of one. Statistically insignificant.
I only used Apple's own numbers because connecting the dots it proves they fail at antenna design. We will probably never know how many people are affected, but studies (Stiftung Warentest, which I believe over any YouTube, Apple, or even Consumer Reports info) show a dB drop in signal with the iPhone 4 far beyond any phone tested-you can't argue that. Weak enough signal = drop call. Many people won't ever experience weak signals, but some will. Not really interested in "bars," they're useless info. dBs are all that matter.
@Cats Two points where your statement is in error:
You imply that 1 in 100 more dropped calls over the 3GS is not significant, but you can't say that without knowing how many calls the 3GS drops. If the 3GS drops 1 in 100 calls, then the iPhone 4 drops 2 in 100 calls... Twice as many! If the 3GS drops 1 in 1000 calls, then the iPhone 4 drops around 10 times as many! Hardly insignificant. That "1 in 100" figure was put forward by Steve Jobs to *sound* insignificant without actually meaning *anything*.
Despite Steve Jobs trying to imply otherwise, the percentage of iPhone 3GS's in cases is irrelevant, as cases do nothing to improve the reception of a 3GS.
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You know, the iPhone's been out in Canada, and I have seen most of my friends get it, but no one seems to experience the death grip or the pinky of doom...WTF?
@kapanak
It's because the problem was minor, but blown out of proportion. Don't get me wrong, I'm not excusing Apple for the odd design choice. But the mainstream media (CNN, etc) and the Android fanboys ran with a story that they didn't really understand. It's a problem to some (anyone with piss poor at&t coverage), yes, but it's nowhere near as bad as it may have sounded. That's the one and only reason I give Apple a slight pass for their sort of childish Youtube videos.
@Nishanth No, this hasn't been blown out of proportion. Every iPhone 4 I've played with and hearsay from the people I know with iPhone 4s has shown the death grip to be EASILY replicable.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a fine device otherwise but it is Apple that has handled this situation the wrong way. It should have simply said to its customer (who they supposedly love so very much) that they made poor engineering decisions (i.e. looks over functionality) and that they will look to fix it in either the current iteration or the next instead of pointing fingers at every other phone which has a MINOR version of the death grip.
@yyandrew
But that's where the whole mix-up happens. The problem isn't the dropped bars (if anything, Apple has shown that bars mean nothing). I can replicate that fairly easily on my iPhone (and just as easily on my friend's Captivate -- 1 finger). The problem lies in how it affects daily usage. I'm willing to bet an overwhelming majority of iPhone 4 owners would say they haven't noticed anything significant, and that they probably wouldn't have noticed the dropped bars if they didn't hear about the "death grip" (I'm mostly referring to the non tech-blog reading crowd here). That's why I think the problem has been blown out of proportion.
That said, I agree that Apple handled the situation terribly. I don't think they needed to say it was a bad engineering decision, but they should have been faster and less patronizing.
@Nishanth
Not to beat this dead horse, but...Apple said this antenna design improved reception. AT&T said they doubled network capacity in New York and San Francisco. So why did Apple say the iPhone 4 drops slightly more calls? If the reception and network are better but you're dropping more calls, obviously their is a real life problem somewhere? If it's not your pinky finger, where is it then?
Back to topic. Nice to see the unlock - would mean more to me than the jailbreak (yes, I know jailbreak is needed for the unlock), but I gave up on the cat and mouse game with Apple and just got an Android phone.
@etwashoo2 1 in 100 more dropped calls compared to 3GS where 80% are housed in cases....yep, terrible!
I can get my iPhone 4 to drop a bar, and if I rarely only have 2 bars, I can't get it to lose signal....or if I have 1 bar in some remote area out of CBD, it still doesn't lose reception. What a huge issue this was!
@Cats
You are a sample size of one. Statistically insignificant.
I only used Apple's own numbers because connecting the dots it proves they fail at antenna design. We will probably never know how many people are affected, but studies (Stiftung Warentest, which I believe over any YouTube, Apple, or even Consumer Reports info) show a dB drop in signal with the iPhone 4 far beyond any phone tested-you can't argue that. Weak enough signal = drop call. Many people won't ever experience weak signals, but some will. Not really interested in "bars," they're useless info. dBs are all that matter.
@etwashoo2
Still haven't dropped a call with my iPhone 4. So that's at least an N=2.
It's an awesome device. I'm still on the fence about jailbreakinh until I hear th multitasking kinks are worked out.
@Christopher02
In the few weeks I've had it, I've dropped one call, which is a better record than my 3G. So that's a sample size of N=3.
The antenna issue is significant, but still overblown, yet handled poorly.
@Cats Two points where your statement is in error:
You imply that 1 in 100 more dropped calls over the 3GS is not significant, but you can't say that without knowing how many calls the 3GS drops. If the 3GS drops 1 in 100 calls, then the iPhone 4 drops 2 in 100 calls... Twice as many! If the 3GS drops 1 in 1000 calls, then the iPhone 4 drops around 10 times as many! Hardly insignificant. That "1 in 100" figure was put forward by Steve Jobs to *sound* insignificant without actually meaning *anything*.
Despite Steve Jobs trying to imply otherwise, the percentage of iPhone 3GS's in cases is irrelevant, as cases do nothing to improve the reception of a 3GS.