One of Apple's anechoic test chambers.
Okay, let’s start off with a roundup of links:
- Official Apple video of the press conference.
- Jason Snell’s liveblog of the event for Macworld.com, which includes the press Q&A.
- My own summary of the event, plus my reactions, on the Chicago Sun-Times site.
- Apple’s new website touting their antenna design and test labs. The page from wot I stole the above photo.
I think I said nearly everything I had to say in my Sun-Times piece. But my main goal was to get something useful online within the next hour or so, and my secondary goal was to beat my career high score for grammatically-correct sentences (28%). So maybe I can still add a few bits and pieces.
First, let’s see how well I did with my predictions this morning. I definitely got the broad strokes right. The prepared presentation was short. There was no product recall; Apple defended the iPhone, chiefly by offering hard numbers that indicate that the antenna problem — whatever it is — is being talked about far more than it’s actually being experienced by real users.
I didn’t think Apple would offer free bumper cases. I also thought Apple would give some airtime to all of the iPhone’s spiffy new features, making the point that the iPhone 4 is way more than just a radical new antenna design. But nope, they stayed on the message of the antenna.
I score myself a B+.
On the whole, I think Apple did great. I can’t get myself worked up about the antenna issue. I’m simply not seeing the widespread user complaints that I normally associate with a functional defect in a product. Nobody understands if it’s a design problem, a firmware issue, or just the same articulation of the old problem that all iPhones experience with AT&T coverage in spotty areas. I certainly don’t think it’s a big enough issue to forego all of the iPhone 4′s advantages. I don’t experience the issue when I hold it normally. Plus, when you slap it in any kind of case, the problem disappears entirely.
I do fault Apple for pressing the “all phones have this problem” button so hard. They showed video of several other phones losing signal when gorilla-gripped. Fine, but I experienced this issue with the iPhone 4 moments after unboxing it and I couldn’t reproduce it with other phones. It probably would have been smarter for Apple to simply note that all phones have “dead” spots, and then move on. Though I appreciate that it suits Apple’s purposes to have actual video of other phones losing signal
To Apple’s credit, they did acknowledge that the iPhone 4′s dropped-call percentage is higher than the iPhone 3GS’s, citing statistics they got from AT&T a few days ago. It seems like a marginal difference (it’s worse by one call in a hundred, according to Apple), but it’s definitely there. And if you live in a poor coverage area, the iPhone 4 can be the difference between a phone that rarely drops a call and one which does it frequently.
I’d also say that in retrospect, the post-presentation Q&A was a mistake. They should have deliverred their message, ended the show, and then sent everyone outside for complimentary coffee and danish. During the Q&A, Apple said a lot of things that seemed defensive. Nobody likes it when the prom queen complains that everyone hates her because she’s so very pretty and popular.
Jobs also complained about how the press has handled this story. He did make some valid points, though, and with fresh memories of the head of BP complaining that he “just wanted to get his life back,” I think it has to be kept in perspective.
(Steve did haul his ass away from a Hawaii vacation. Hell, he could have FaceTimed this one in.)
It was…interesting…that he described the publication of his emails to customers as “rude.” I suppose that could be true, on the basis that these people have been sharing his personal emails. But did he honestly expect people not to brag about getting a personal response from the CEO?
Onward:
Steve Jobs didn’t fall to his knees, rend his garment, clasp his hands together, and beg for forgiveness from users and stockholders.
This has upset many people.
These people are idiots.
Consumer Reports, for their part, hasn’t changed their position on the iPhone. They’re still “not recommending” the iPhone 4. I don’t think they’re idiots. But I do think they’re wrong. They’re pointing to antenna tests in which they can cause the iPhone 4′s signal to drop to zero bars by bridging the famous gap between the antennas.
Swell. That fact needs to be reported. But is that the whole story?
Questions:
- Does Consumer Reports understand the nature of the problem? They claim to have tested the antenna scientifically but haven’t (as far as I can tell) broken any new ground beyond “If you bridge the gap, you lose bars.” Is it a hardware issue? A software issue? A mere ergonomic issue?
- It’s a repeatable, reliable demo. But are iPhone users likely to encounter an actual problem? I did a 20-minute phone interview with PBS this afternoon and I did it on an uncased iPhone 4. I didn’t even think twice about it.
- Assuming that a specific consumer regarded the antenna problem as a dealbreaker: if there were a way around the problem, would the iPhone then be worthwhile? I say yes, absolutely. Take away “there’s a slightly greater chance that it might drop a call” and you’re left with a phone with a huge laundry list of advantages over every previous iPhone and most other phones. Including, might I point out, better reception than the iPhone 3GS.
- Is there a way around the problem? Yes. Put it in a case, which is something lots of people (myself included) were going to do anyway.
On that basis, I think Consumer Reports’ stance is extreme. Though in their defense, there’s a difference between “we’re not recommending it” and “we’re recommending that people not buy it.”
Reading their followup coverage, it appears that they can’t evaluate how well “iPhone with a case” works until they develop a separate test protocol; their standard test policy is to test the phone as-shipped by the manufacturer.
This is why I have occasional problems with Consumer Reports reviews. I think this is another instance in which the magazine is showing more loyalty to their standardized test procedures than to their readers.
Okay. So that’s another thousand words I’ve written about this thing today…on top of about 90 minutes of talking about it. I’ve done it.
And when I say “I’ve done it” I don’t mean “I’ve produced complete and thorough coverage of this interesting tech news story.” I mean “I am finally sick of hearing my own comments about the iPhone 4.” I hope I got there about 400 words ahead of the rest of you.
Thank you. I’m so tired of people treating this like the gulf of Mexico. It’s not the people who own the phone who are upset. It’s the media, and no one else.
The anecdotal evidence thrown around drives me crazy, as apparently it does the “engineering-driven” Jobs.
Is it really an outrage to be told to move your finger? I have nothing more to say that Louis C.K. has not already:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8m5d0_everything-is-amazing-and-nobody-is_fun
Why the increase in dropped calls compare to 3GS? I’ll bet it’s because of all the people doing the gorilla grip test and trying to drop calls.
Thanks, Andy…as usual, you’re the voice of reason.
Well written, level-headed writing on this subject. Mr. Ihnatko you are a breath of fresh air. This story is being over reported, especially by non technical press with an apparent axe to grind against Apple. If you have an iPhone 4 and have troubles while actually using the phone, take advantage of Apple’s free case offer, and if still doesn’t work, return it. Case closed.
Andy,
I thank you for a well reasoned discussion on the topic. I agree with your points save one. Apple absolutely needed to have the Q & A after Steve’s presentation. To do otherwise would have looked like they were hiding something. Granted, if I were Steve, I would have left the questions for the staff and retired back to my office.
I also find the emphasis on the testing facility interesting. This after many people were saying, “Of course Apple didn’t have a problem with the signal. Cupertino gets great AT&T service!”
Andy, it has been a pleasure to listen to you/read you for all these years. I appreciate your reporting and agree with you 100% – I have owned an iPhone since the original (which I affectionately call my OG), and currently have a 3GS with no plans to upgrade to the 4 soon (not because of any of this but because of personal economics). As a former Apple employee, it still gets me going to see the pig pile occur as it has the last few months (first Google with their IO nonsense and now this). No company is perfect, and Apple is far from it, but I think a lot of the criticism lately is sour grapes from some who feel Apple should not have made it this far (and should have died in 1997). At least when it was Mac vs PC, the spirit of the debate seemed less vitriolic. I have been a Windows users for many years now and the iPhone is the only Apple “kit” I own, and to be honest, after trying Android and publicly blogging my experiences, I much prefer the iPhone and really could care less if it came from Apple, Google, HTC or anyone else. It just works for me, as both a phone and a pocket PC. I think we all need to move on (and maybe you can get Leo to finally shut up about it next week on MacBreak – he is getting long in the tooth with his Android love). He’s another one who needs to shut up and turn his phone in if he hates it so much.
I guess Windows let me down on that last post -mouse magically moved to another part of the comment post and inserted “car” at the end of my name – really funny actually that my Windows PC messed up my pro-Apple comment. Better get out the chicken bones and re-joojoo this thing. Cheers
Well, there’s always iPhone 4 hardware rev b that’ll be out this fall. They stopped short of basically announcing it.
There’s so many facets to this that it makes my head spin. However, there’s some snippets in the Q&A that explain a few things.
Apple didn’t see any problems because they have their own cell tower for all providers, and had a good signal. People (like Leo Laporte) have problems in areas with a horrible signal strength. So what Apple missed is more than likely due to not having the ability to test in a crappy environment… something Consumer Reports apparently does.
So? Apple needs the data from AT&T’s “Mark the Spot” app, finding where those weak spots are. I’ve give a few that I’ve been sending: Along the Amtrak Northeast Corridor (NEC) between Odenton, MD and Baltimore, MD (not in a tunnel), especially around BWI Airport station and the MTA Maryland MARC Halethorpe station; also, around the MTA Maryland Light Rail Cherry Hill station.
What do the need to do in those weak spots? Well, get signal measurements, find out how the iPhone 4 works in those conditions, and try to replicate them back “home.”
I’ll post more musings into my Livejournal.
Andy:
I don’t think this is rooted in what you term Consumer Reports’ “loyalty to their standardized test procedures”. If anything, the decision not to recommend the iPhone 4 is at odds with the results of their standardized tests—by those tests, it was the highest-rated smartphone they tested. The “death grip” issue was only found by looking specifically for an already-reported effect, something they have not done (to the best of my knowledge) with the other phones they’ve tested.
The fact that something they’d consider a deal-breaker of a problem isn’t reflected in the results of their standardized tests demonstrates either a significant gap in their test procedures or an editorial decision to play up a particular angle at the expense of their test results. Either way, it reflects as poorly on Consumers Union as anybody.
I have an iPhone 4g and it does drop calls, more than on my 3g, not dramatic but still when I buy something labelled as a PHONE it should accordingly be able to be used as such. I have never experienced similar problems with any of the PHONES I have used so far. If I go into a supermarket and wnat to purchase Ketchup, I expect to get ketchup and not mustard with the sidenote that if I add some tomato paste it will be like ketchup.
Otherwise I like the design of the bare iPhone, I don’t want to destroy this by adding a harnass/case or whatever you call these things… I don’t whinge here, I don’t whine either I think as a consumer I should be able to make these points without being referred to as an idiot!
@Jan – Oh, I certainly wasn’t calling you (or anyone else who’s experiencing dropped calls) an idiot. The only “idiots” I referred to were people who were specifically expressing outrage that Jobs didn’t apologize for the problem.
Call drop numbers are nice. I’d like the full statistics (how many dropped calls, what is the deviation, what is the p value). Does the bridged iPhone 4 perform worse, the same, or better than other phones?
This is all that really matters.
Andy,
I watch the Macbreak Weekly show religiously and think you are one of the lesser of the Apple “Fanboys” on the show. Honestly, the show should be renamed to “I’m in love with Apple and I don’t care about anything else”. Alex L even stated that he once asked to buy whatever Apple was selling without even knowing what it was: Unbelievable!
Heres the problem. It’s still is a phone (no matter what Alex Lindsay says) and this hardware version does have a design flaw. No matter how you spin it, it is a problem. And…because this is Apple, a company with incredible brand loyalty, many of these loyalists will defend it–no matter what. And…you cannot say, well if this was HTC, it wouldn’t be a problem. You cannot put yourself on a pedestal and then compare you to others like HTC or Microsoft that you believe is lower than you when it benefits you. This is the problem with something like this happening to Apple! Apple wants to be at the top and now must be perfect. When something goes wrong, you just have to take the shit and eat it. In this case, Apple didn’t. Nobody should care that this issue can be duplicated on other devices. That was a diversionary tactic.
While I do consider you in the “usually” pro-apple camp i think you’re about as fair as they come. I do think most people are blowing this out of proportion. I’ve owned the iPhone 4 since the Monday after it’s release and I’ve dropped 1 call. In an elevator. I do have a case but i I’ve had a case for every iPhone, iPad, portable HD, and of course for all my cameras. The product is the product. The accessories make it mine.
In my own death grip tests I’ve gotten the bars to drop from 5 to 1 but doing so while running speedtest app I’ve seen data speeds go from 2k/400 to 1800/100 (pre 7/4 weekend it was 4k/800 but i didn’t do a death grip test. Grr AT&T)
I think apple did as well a job as they could have. Apple’s had a bullseye on them for a while now and people will use anything to make a big story.
Bottom line, loving my iPhone and so does everyone who plays with it.
Keep up the good work Andy.
Hey Andy,
Great piece and coverage of this ‘issue’.
For me, it’s a non-issue, as it seems to be for most iPhone 4 owners. My wife, who upgraded from a 3G, says it is the best phone she’s ever had and if I tried to take it away, I’d be sleeping on the couch. High praise for a ‘defective’ product.
Regarding MacBreak Weekly, I have to agree with some of the other posters – it’s felt more and more like Leo just reads headlines and not stories for his ‘show prep’. A lot of his statements are riddled with inaccuracies which are really frustrating to hear spouted as gospel. I alternate between looking forward to the show and not being able to stand listening without fast-forwarding.
Not that I expect you to throw your friend under the bus, just wanted to say that I’m glad you’re often setting the record straight on the show – it’s clear you’re actually engaged on these topics in a major way.
Cheers,
Hunter
I think that ultimately this is a very YMMV problem. For most iPhone 4 owners I know, it might occasionally show up, but is not much more than a nuisance. For some people (especially the left handed) it is a serious and real issue.
And that is what makes this so hard to cover. There is a great demo, and great facts on both sides. Apple gets to say that this happens to all phones, while glossing over the fact that they designed their phone in such a way as to make it a bit more likely — for some people.
It is the people for who this is a real problem I have the most sympathy for, because while a minority, they got talked down to by Apple. They get a solution, but they are also implied to be the whiners.
So while I agree that Apple did pretty much the right thing, I can’t help but feel there should have been a little more subtlety to it.
I also hear from many sources about real technical problems and issues, and in this case I have heard many ‘talk’ about the problem but not report having it as an issue. I was able, in a particular situaton, to dramatically cause the problem but I’m not ‘having’ or suffering from it at all.
I think that the uproar is more a backlash against the Apple fanboys. Their ‘holier than thou” attitudes and insistance that Apple is perfect and makes no mistakes has brought on a clamor when one small mistake is actually detected.
The way I see it, we have anti-fanboy people clutching this weak issue as a way to deal with their negative feelings about something else. It may even be an attribution error, where they feel that their internal unhappiness (about fanboys) is actually caused by this weak antenna issue (pun intended).
Good work. I think that Steve’s own pet theory about the 80% of 3GS users walked out of the store with a case is HUGE. I have had a 2G iPhone and now have a 3G iPhone. I have always used them with a case for protection. I drop things and I don’t like them to get scratched.
I now have a reservation for an iPhone 4 and had already bought the Apple bumpers case (which has arrived already). I’m glad I’ll get a refund for the case, but the media really did try to turn this into a BP and Consumer Reports was less than helpful.
Keep up the good work!
It’s clear that Jason Chen and the Gawker people have an axe to grind against Apple, so they were among those fanning the flames.
Glad to see you helping to straighten them out, Andy. I also agree with others here – Leo is getting too out of touch with real users, as he mistakenly thinks that Android is ready for average people. It’s still too geeky and difficult to use for real people. (I’m a programmer, and even I get infuriated with its horribly designed UI.) The only reason it’s taking off is that it’s available for Verizon and other carriers. What will kill the iPhone is if Apple continues exclusivity with AT&T.
The people at Consumer Reports ARE IDIOTS.
That is why I stopped my subscription more than a decade ago.
So, has the iPhone antenna reached the “Buttafuco Point” yet?
”if u see a bumper, u blew it.”
Thanks, Andy, for calling those people out as idiots. I admit I never tried it before but I checked my Nokia cell which has dropped only 1 call and I found a spot where I can go from max bars to 0 just by touching.
It’s clear from the hard data shared this is looks like a minor problem in the real world which probably reflects Apple’s surprise and frustration with the extreme and often misleading coverage.
As a consumer, I’ve learned a lot about who is reliable and level-headed and who just wants page hits. I’ve been shaping my news & info consumption accordingly.
I gave up on listening to Consumer Reports when I worked representing a very large Japanese electronics company (through a marketing firm that hired me) at a big box electronics store. People would bring in their latest issue of Consumer Reports asking to see a certain model video, or still camera, and I could not comply with that request because the company stopped making that model a year or two (or even three) before. I saw many a sad faced person because they couldn’t make a decision without the help of their precious Consumer Reports.
My mother got seriously peeved at Consumer Reports this year when shopping for a new car. She picked up their “New Cars” issue and found they said things like “based on our tests of the 2007 model…” Seriously Consumer Reports? Just because a car was good (or bad) in 2007, you are going to make recommendations?
Andy, as always, a superior job of jam-forcing reason where once there was none.
One thing I can say – iOS4 is wreaking havoc with my 3G. Could just be my older phone. Could be that I have long felt my phone is a little buggy anyway. But among the many issues I’ve had since the update is a total trashing of my reception. Or at least more than the usual spottiness courtesy AT&T. I get about half the bars I used to.
STrRedWolf: I will try not to sound insulting. However, your suggestion that a rack of test equipment like Apple has means that they only tested iPhone 4 in good test conditions demonstrates that you don’t know what their test equipment is for or how RF testing is done.
Testing phone handling under poor signal levels is likely what they spent most of their time on. Handling weak, low power signals is the hard part. All RF engineers know this. Their rack of fancy Rhodes+Schwartz test gear can simulate low power signals, no problem. I priced one of their spectrum analyzers for a project at work. $80 to $120k. We ended up getting a cheap no-name one for $40k.
it’s more than obvious that a really high-quality smart phone is subjected to more than ordinary scrutiny. A small problem with antenna receptivity can be compared to Android or Nokia or HP phones that have might have similar receptivity problems, and poor software (apps) and an inconsistent OS. Is this really going to work? Shall we apply standards of our dreams on Apple, and let everyone else off the hook? You put things in perspective, Andy, though some of us already see where you’re going, without being blind fanboys.
* I did the sensible time-management thing, stopped listening to Laporte two years ago. I just hope Andy is well-compensated for his participation.
* I feel @Colin M is harping too much on the PHONE part. (Given all its myriad capabilities it is rather unfortunate that the device was named iPhone.) When one’s predominant requirement is voice communication the sensible move is to get a Nokia or other dedicated PHONE and save hundreds in the process.
* I have never understood the fanboi phenomenon, nor the intense unbridled hatred against Apple. I bought my first Mac in April 1987 and remain a loyal Mac user. My mp3 player and my phone are not from Apple. “Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer choice.” But apparently I’m not the only one with way too much free time.
* I don’t always agree with Andy (what’s with the food photos anyway? :-) ), but I cannot fault his commitment to good journalism.
cheers
Is it not the case that the thing that is broken is the American Cellphone industry. If AT&T had real competition then they would have to put up some more cell towers to improve coverage. You can have a go at the EU for a lot of things but they sometimes get things right. All of the iPhone 4 coverage I have seen in the UK has been on the American experience, perhaps because we have so many different carriers the problem is not so obvious.
It’s not only in cellphones where digital transmit ion of signal is not generally understood. DVB either works or it doesn’t. People aren’t yet used to a perfect picture breaking up because of weather. They don’t see that they live in an area where the signal is too close to the minimum and that a little attenuation will put it into fail mode.
Perhaps the American media should concentrate on getting better cell coverage and real choice for the American people.
Scott, I don’t think it’s necessarily a “move your finger”, people have held their phone a certain way for a decade (and Apple ads showed the same “wrong hold”) and a new phone comes along demanding a new (and IMO, less comfortable) way of holding it?
John Maliga, I don’t think people are harping on the phone part too much, it’s one of the three pillars of the original original iPhone presentation. I don’t think people buy iPhones just for a phone, but is it really too much to expect to have one of its fundamental features work well? Do you never take phone calls with your smart phone?
All said, it sounds like most of this was an overblown media circus (it made great drama though), apparently most people don’t seem to experience that much of a problem.
Steve was coy about the drop rates for earlier phones (“AT&T won’t let us release it, it’s top secret, I can understand that.”), but the figure has been widely reported as 1 percent.
So an extra 1 percent on top of 1 percent. Okay, it’s only 1 percent more. Or it’s 200 percent of the previous drop rate. Typical Jobs spin. Andy, remember the “Top selling academic workstation” claim during his NeXT days? He can work the statistics like a master.
Consumer Reports is a third party, despite not having a guy spinning around in an anechoic chamber.
Apple’s engineers who are looking into the problem are the very guys who designed the antenna. If Apple wants a true test, call in some outside consultants and tell the Apple engineers to give them whatever they ask for.
I think Consume Reports’ hardline stance was rooted more in Apple’s fairly poor early PR handling of the case than it was in the actual fault itself. We heard nothing official from Apple beyond that flippant Steve Jobs “you’re holding it wrong” email (which was a disgrace, in my opinion) and the “ZOMG THE BARS THE BARS” press release a few days in. Then, for over a week as the story built momentum, nothing.
Had Apple been giving more assurances, I think we may have seen more moderate tone in CR’s writings. But as Apple appeared to be doing everything they could to bury the issue, I think CR felt they had no choice to raise the biggest stink they could. I’m not sure I disagree with that approach.
Andy, I love listening to you on MBW and on MacNotables. You have a great way of composing sentences.
I think Steve tried. Ery hard to tell people that there is no way to fix this. A recall? No, they’ll look into the design and let us know. By the end of September. Why can’t they put that little notch at the top of the phone where no one is going to hold it? I’m not an engineer and I don’t have a 100-million-dollar testing chamber, but I think I just solved the problem.
I started listening to Leo Laporte in January, but I’ve gotten bored with him pretty quickly. He seems like a very nice guy, but I always get the feeling he is trying to think what most of his listeners are thinking, and then he says that thing.
People aren’t mad that Steve didn’t apologize, because he sort of did. They’re mad that Apple still hasn’t conceded there’s a problem, that while all phones are subject to some attenuation, the iPhone attenuation is different problem. Despite people calling it the death grip, it really only requires a light touch in the right conditions. Holding my phone normally (for me), I’ll try to post this right now. Nope, didn’t work.
Ultimately, I won’t return it, because I like the new display, the video camera, etc. I will probably end up using a case, but won’t be happy about it because every case I’ve seen us ugly as hell. Steve should have said that the new antenna design is generally awesome, but comes with a price. He didn’t.
Do we have enough information about the dropped call rate to decide that the increase is “marginal?”
For instance, if the old rate was 1 call dropped per 200 calls, that was 0.5%.
One more call dropped per 100 would bump the rate to 1.5%.
Which is three times the number of dropped calls seen previously.
(Yes, I’m making up numbers. My point isn’t that there’s a problem. My point is, the figures we have don’t tell us enough to know if a problem exists.)
My first iPhone was the first phone I actually liked, rather than simply endured. I have since handed down my first iPhone to one of my daughters and upgraded to the 3GS. In all our family has seven iPhones in current use and my original iPhone will soon be passed down to another daughter to be replaced by an iPhone 4 which will bring the total to eight. We all use cases. We have had as much success making and receiving calls with the iPhone as we have had with any mobile phone we have owned. We switched from Verizon to AT&T to own an iPhone. At this point other mobile phone brands are little more than a curiosity. I say all this to simply state that the publicity generated by giant rumor mill that is the “blogosphere” is irrelevant to our family. Our biggest issue at this point is that iOS 4 runs much slower on my wife’s 3G than did iPhone OS 3. That too is of little consequence, since she will soon be upgrading to an iPhone 4. I, like Consumer Reports, do not recommend the iPhone to any outside our family. I simply do not want to position myself as a convenient target in this culture of blame. The fact that I use an iPhone and plan to do so for the foreseeable future is endorsement enough. I must say from my perspective the loser in all of this is Consumer Reports, which I once held in high regard.
These apologetic articles are quite insulting and usually convey only half truths. The problem with the antenna bridge is real, and it’s not specific to making calls only. While I myself don’t hold the phone with that black strip covered, when making a call, I do (or did) hold it in such way when browsing web, writing email and going everything else besides phone calls. I grip it with my left hand and use my right hand to type this particular message, for example. And I’ve had to figure out a way to hold the phone and not bridge that gap.
People who argue that this is a non-issue are, apparently, also living inside the Apple’s reality distortion field.
What a big circle jerk of apple fans, you people should get into gay porn, you are all fucking hilarious :)
Thanks Andy,
Living in Melbourne and will be at the Apple shop on the 30th to pick up the 4.
Never had a dropped call with my current 3G. My service is good.
Cannot wait to my new toy arrives with all the new improvements
Thanks again
Andy,
Overlooked in all the hullabaloo about antennagate is the disaster that is iOS on the 3G. No doubt you replaced your 3G with a 3GS long ago (and now with a shiny new iP4), but hundreds of thousands of us still have 3G phones that are tied to contracts. Problems with iOS on the 3G are rampant: sluggish performance, loss of user data, batteries sucked dry in hours, lost calls, frozen apps, broken features…
Once upgraded to iOS, we can’t go back. Apple refuses to provide a downgrade path back to 3.1.3. Unlike new iP4 owners who can return the phone within 30 days if they’re unhappy, 3G owners are stuck with malfunctioning phones for the duration of their contracts. In some geographies, the contracts are three years long, and the iPhone 4 isn’t available (even if one could afford the usurious upgrade charges).
Don’t take my word for it: check out the “hard data”.
Nearly 110,000 views of the thread titled “iPhone 3G OS4 problems” on Apple’s Discussion forums, and growing by the day. Over 76,000 have viewed “Iphone 3G slow after update to IOS4″. Over 33,000 views of “iPhone 3g iOS4 Battery life”.
To be sure, views of forum postings don’t map directly to numbers of affected 3G users, but they are certainly an indication of the depth and breadth of the problem (which is probably due to the limited 128 MB of RAM on the 3G).
Given the attention that antennagate has attracted, it’s odd that the press and industry watchers haven’t jumped all over the 3G situation. Perhaps you’re too enamoured with your new toys? Yesterday, Jobs stated “We want to make all our users happy”. “We care about every customer”. I’d sure like to see him make good on that promise and restore happiness to the 3G installed base.
Well said. After wanting an iPhone for three years, and having had a Verizon Blackberry inthe interim, despite how good the blackberry was as a phone ( and it was very good) I still made the jump from it ANC verizon to AT&T and the iPhone….frankly, it is awesome. It is in a case, dropping less than the BB, and well worth the wait. It just seems to be “in” to pile on Apple..call me a fanboy, but the iPhone is the best, most useful communication tool made.
A couple of comments
1. Steve referenced the number of complaints called into AppleCare as how they were measuring user dissatisfaction. I urge everyone who has this issue to call AppleCare and describe your experience. They seemed genuinely interested in feedback.
2. One of the better real world tests I’ve seen is where someone has tested his coworker’s iPhone4′s. All were tested in the same exact location. They were held by the tester, held by the owner, and a copper wire was used to short the antenna gap. 5 out of 13 iphone4′s exhibited the death grip. Of the 5, all had been bought on opening day. He needs to sample more phones to be statistically relevant, but I thought it was an interesting trend that no one has been tracking.
@Fred – You hit the nail on the head. It is frustrating to read the posts here from people who happen to have strong signals or naturally hold their phone so the gap is not closed. It is a big deal if you have the problem and Apple continues to be condescending. Other phones may have problems, but not this problem. I’ve owned other phones.
I enjoy reading Andy’s columns and listening to him on MBW, but I think he’s wrong here. His anecdotal experience does not mean others aren’t having problems.
Apple’s response is most infuriating. I have been a loyal customer and I feel cheated out of what I had to spend on a case. It wasn’t much money, but I thought Apple was different. This is how Microsoft makes me feel when I have to re-activate the software I paid for, again. I wasn’t expecting this from Apple.
If you don’t have the problem, it’s the best phone ever. If you do, you’d better not mind using a case. I never did use one and I’d prefer not to, but the alternative is dropped calls and lost data connections before I remember that I have to change my natural grip. I forget every time I pick it up.
@Richard Gaywood — Why don’t they put the notch at the top where nobody would touch it? Maybe because the FCC mandates that the antenna be as far away from the user’s head as possible? No offense, but I can’t believe the amount of crackpot advice and speculation that has surrounded this whole issue. Everybody seems to think that Apple just slapped this thing together without any real testing or thought.
As an iPhone 4 user, I can’t help but shake my head at how this issue has been covered by the majority of the media. I have had no real problems with mine, and I doubt I ever would have noticed the “weak spot” if people hadn’t made a big deal out of it. Apple has sold 3 million of these things, and if they were as fundamentally flawed as people were implying, customers would be returning them in droves. That’s just not happening. I sympathize with people who are having real problems with reception, but they are a very small minority. Apple’s handling of the issue did start out a bit rough, but the press conference and free case solution are pretty much perfect as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never used a case with any of my phones, but I’ll give the bumper a try if it’s free.
Iphone 4 has the best antenna design yet but it drops more calls then the 3GS.?????
All phones have this problem so there is no problem???
That test lab is stupid. No actually uses a phone in there so why test there.
@MJK – sounds like maybe you don’t really understand the test lab. It’s not ‘stupid’ and some of the labs do include human subjects, yes.
They said yesterday that they consider the slightly higher drop rate compared to the 3GS to be a unacceptable – they said they are working to understand why and see what can be done about it.
Andy,
Can you tell us what’s up with the TWiT network, and why have they seemed to have lost their MINNDS.
Leo says the phone is awful, drops calls all the time, accuses Apple of making a bumper because they knew of the problem – which he also says they didn’t know about because they didn’t test it enoguh – and he still hasn’t returned his phone.
The Today in Tech hosts spend an awful lot of time saying how distasteful they think Steve Jobs thinks this is, and how even though it’s a problem for a very small percentage of users that the phone is fundamentally defective.
They seem to not like Steve’s attitude –no – Steve . And that STRONGLY colors the “reporting” on huim on TwiT.
Is it because he once gave Leo the “gas face”?
And MacBreak weekly had a guy who kept saying “Mac OS X is the best operating system, but since Apple doesn’t care about it, they should open source it so I can buy cheap PC hardware to work on it.” I guess he doesn’t relaize that his beloved OS is one of Apple’s core business – AND if they “open sourced” it the same people workign on ubuntu will introduce they stuff he doesn’t like into revisions.
He can’t have his cake, have it open sourced, and eat it too.
TWiT has gone INSANE.
They seem much more like a “coffee clutch” or non critical thinking idiots/echo-chamber more than tech reporters.
And the stance on Jason Chen is inane. They’re all disappointed that the case against him ISN’T going to be used as a precedent for blogger’s rights. [sic.]
Next they’ll says Steve Jobs invented the Internet before he voted against it.
What happened?
I’m serious, and I’d love to get a reply.