OK, hang tight here. Apple have admitted that there is a fault with their new iPhone 4. A grip around the lower left side of the phone does seem to dip the signal for a lot of customers and, whether you’re right or left handed, it’s fairly easy to replicate. Apple states that it’s due to how the signal bars are displayed. They’ve posted this letter on their site which explains..
“..we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.”
Now, I’m try to resist the urge to say, “WHAT?!” at this stage. Apple, after all, have produced phones for quite some time. How they can suddenly forget how to add things up is a mystery, but that’s the explanation they’re sticking to. Just ignore the fact that Apple sell these bumpers that fix the problem too.
An update will roll in the next few weeks to change how the signal bars are displayed.
Link – Apple UK
Apple – Signal bars? Oh yeah. They’re not real.
July 2, 2010