Problem with iPhone IS Apple’s fault, just not what is expected

by iowa_spirit_walker

Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4
[Via Apple Hot News]

The iPhone 4 has been the most successful product launch in Apple’s history. It has been judged by reviewers around the world to be the best smartphone ever, and users have told us that they love it. So we were surprised when we read reports of reception problems, and we immediately began investigating them. Here is what we have learned.

To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones. But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.

At the same time, we continue to read articles and receive hundreds of emails from users saying that iPhone 4 reception is better than the iPhone 3GS. They are delighted. This matches our own experience and testing. What can explain all of this?

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, 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.

[More]

As I wrote the other day, the problem is not the iPhone itself, it is with how Apple has ‘calibrated’ the meter:

Apple has set the meters such that people think they are in much better reception areas than they are used to. That is, the reception of signal can vary over a range of 10,000 without seeming to change the meter. But a simple loss of signal by 50-fold could take the meter from 5 bars to 1.

So, a lot of people in strong areas are reporting seeing no change in the meter, because a 20 dB attenuation by holding the phone will not appear to change the meter much when it takes up to 40 dB to change it from 5 bars to 4.

Simply adjusting the meter, so that the signal strengths for each bar are set up differently would make the perception quite different.

That is exactly what they are saying today. They made a mistake in the equation they used for signal strength, giving the impression that reception was greater than it was. In effect, the meter was not displaying useful information. Either there were 5 bars or there was one.

Apple admits they did this wrong and now says they will change how the meters display signal strength:

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

I wonder if this will calm people down.