THE BUSINESS AND CULTURE OF OUR DIGITAL LIVES, FROM THE L.A. TIMES
Apple to replace false iPhone reception reading with another clever exaggeration
Mark Milian July 2, 2010
Months after an Apple employee left a pre-release iPhone in a pub, a different kind of bar is giving Apple headaches.
The fix for that first bar incident, when Gizmodo got its hands on the never-before-seen breed of iPhone, brought in the lawyers and a police task force.
For this new issue, which had Apple on the legal defensive, the smart phone maker admitted Friday -- a good time to get things off your chest before the long holiday weekend -- that every iPhone sold in the last three years has been overstating signal strength. Those bars in the top left corner? Liars.
The repair this time is to issue a software update in the next few weeks that corrects the signal-strength reading.
While that software update reduces the reading to an accurate level, Apple will employ a sneaky design trick to distract users who may be frustrated when seeing fewer bars at any given time. The shortest three bars will experience a bit of a growth spurt, Apple said in a statement, "so they will be easier to see." Because we probably won't be seeing their big brothers as often.
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**** Moderator's Note *****
I am shocked - SHOCKED - to think that a reputable company like Apple would willingly deceive its customers. After all the fanatical loyalty the MacAddicts have shown, after all the "LookitMe" trendsetters cuddling their new iPads like babies, after every CEOWannabee has stood for minutes in front of the executive elevator thumbing her nose at the stodgy underlings who still use keyboards.
Sigh. In today's San Francisco Chronicle (and online at this URL:
)
the "Tech Chronicles", a blog by Ryan Kim, is entitled "IPhone 4 display update not likely to fix reception problems" and there are some really interesting photos and a chart based on Ryan's tests.
I cannot reproduce the chart to fit within the bounds of this posting, so feel welcome to view the page at the above SFGate URL. The article is fairly short so I'll copy'n'paste it below with each line prefixed with a double-quote:
" While Apple is sticking to its software update as a solution for " its iPhone 4 reception issues, it's hard to see how that will fix " the problem. " " Apple said Friday the signal strength meter on the iPhone 4 and other " previous models was inaccurate and made people think that the normal " reception problems that occur when you hold a cell phone in the wrong " way was worse on the iPhone 4. A new software update will more " accurately communicate a user's signal strength. " " But I've been testing an iPhone 4 this morning without regard to the " signal strength bars and just focused on download and upload speeds " and the time it takes to open a website. The meter, which Apple says " is faulty, does fluctuate some. " " But the real issue is that performance drops off significantly when " you hold the iPhone while covering that left bottom corner, " specifically that gap in the stainless steel band where two antennas " meet. This is, by the way, how I often hold the phone when I'm " calling or surfing the Internet. " " Here are the results I got after a series of tests covering holding " the iPhone "correctly" and also holding it while covering the bottom " left hand corner. I also repeated the same tests while using a $29 " bumper case from Apple. " " { chart is in the article at the above URL } " " The good news is that the bumper solves a lot of the reception " problems. Download speeds were just slightly slower than if you " left the iPhone uncovered and held the phone without touching the " corner. Uploads speeds using the bumper, however, did seem to " suffer. In terms of opening a web page, I got a slightly faster " time using the bumper though the difference was negligible. " " And the phone overall is extremely fast. I knew the iPhone 4 was " speedy but when you hold the phone without cradling it, I'm getting " download speeds of almost 3 megabits per second. That's faster " than the iPhone 3GS. " " But when you hold the phone with your left palm rubbing against " the bottom left corner, that's when things go sideways. When " it's my skin covering that corner, the speeds drop to the point " where it can sometimes fail to load a page. I got an average " download speed of less than 20 kilobits per second. " " I did get one fast load time for the web page while covering the " corner but that was the only speedy result. In most cases, load " times were several times longer than when I did not hold the " corner of the phone. " " The upshot is that this problem, which plagues all cell phones " to some degree, is acute with the iPhone 4 because of its external " antenna design. Most phone have their antennas down toward the " bottom of the phone but when you create a layer of plastic or " rubber in between, as we see with the bumper case or with normal " phones with internal antennas, much of the attenuation or " detuning problems go away. " " But because the antenna is external, it is really vulnerable to " reception issues when your hand covers that bottom left corner. " A signal display software update will minimize the effect of " dramatically losing bars but it won't cure the reception issues " for many users. " " Apple can still try to ride this out by telling people to hold " their phone differently or buy a bumper case. But I don't see " how new display software will fix something that's baked right " into the hardware design of the phone. A bumper case would go " a long way in solving the issues but Apple doesn't seem " interested in going down that road, at least for now. " " Posted By: Ryan Kim, July 06 2010 at 01:28 PM
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