Apple Releases Statement Addressing iPhone 4 Reception

ByMike Moffit

This morning, Apple released an official statement addressing issues surrounding the iPhone 4’s antenna and reception. Many early-adopters of Apple’s latest flagship device have noticed less than desirable reception when gripping the phone in a certain manner. Isolated to the lower left portion of the device, holding the phone in an alarmingly normal position can result in abrupt and significant signal loss for some users.

In an official letter to iPhone 4 owners, Apple has admitted that the issue is real and that they are actively working on a software fix. Apple claims the issue is rooted in an improperly calculated algorithm which correlates directly to the number of signal bars displayed by the phone. Due to an erroneous calculation, the iPhone 4 displays more bars than actually exist in some areas of weaker service.

The letter mentions that a software update is currently in the works, and should be released sometime within the coming weeks. While this update will correct the amount of bars displayed in weaker service areas, Apple has oddly omitted any information relating directly to the phone’s hardware and design. Apple claims this reception problem also persists in the iPhone 3G and 3Gs models and that both devices will be included in the update.

In an effort to quell anxiety surrounding the issue, the letter mentions that signal loss is normal in any mobile phone when gripped in a certain way. While this statement undoubtably carries a defensive tone, Apple remains objective by clarifying their return policy for anyone who is unsatisfied with the new phone.

While this issue is not universal, it has affected a substantial number of iPhone users. Even if Apple’s fix doesn’t fully resolve the technical issues surrounding the phone’s antenna, it will at least provide users with a more accurate depiction of signal strength. The letter in its entirety can be found here. If you’re an iPhone 4 user experiencing this problem please feel free to comment and share your thoughts below.

Similar Posts

  • A Mac Virus? Not so fast.

    The blogosphere has been abuzz with claims that the first Mac virus or trojan has been identified in the wild. It’s been reported…

  • Jerome York, member of Apple’s Board of Directors and often described as a “turnaround master,” has died at 71. Apple memorialized him on…

  • Verizon iPhone 4 Pre-Orders Begin Tomorrow

    As announced last month, tomorrow marks the first opportunity for existing Verizon Wireless customers to pre-order the iPhone 4. The phone, which sees…

  • Aperture 2

    On Tuesday, Apple released Aperture 2. This is a dramatic (and some might say overdue) update to the popular image management and editing…

  • Apple Announces Sessions for WWDC 2006

    Continuing our coverage of WWDC: Apple has officially announced the sessions for this year’s World Wide Developer Conference. They’ve got presentation, hands-on, lab,…

  • Apple Releases Safari 5

    With Apple’s announcement of the revolutionary iPhone 4 yesterday, it would be easy to overlook the release of Safari 5 that coincided with it. While certainly not as glamorous as Apple’s latest device, the newest version of Safari does bring some changes that will give it a serious leg up in the browser wars.

    Performance is easily the biggest deciding factor when choosing a browser, and Apple has upgraded Safari with a faster “Nitro” engine to keep themselves ahead of the game. Apple claims Safari 5 will run JavaScript 30 percent faster than Safari 4, 3 percent faster than Chrome 5.0 and more than twice as fast as Firefox 3.6.

    In addition to significant speed boosts, Safari 5 also includes the Safari Reader. This utility automatically detects if you are browsing a page with an article on it, and allows you to view it in a continuous and clutter-free manner. To enable Safari Reader, simply navigate to an applicable page and click the Reader icon in the Smart Address Field. Upon doing so, onscreen controls, similar to those seen when viewing a PDF, will appear and let you email, print, and zoom. Safari Reader even saves text settings so font size is the same if you revisit the page.

    Though not apparent by simply glancing at the UI, Safari 5 also includes a robust set of HTML5 tweaks under the hood. The new browser brings over a dozen new features including full-screen mode and closed captioning for HTML5 video as well as HTML5 geolocation. To view some examples of the HTML5 web standard in action, check out Apple’s showcase of demos here.

    Other more subtle refinements include DNS prefetching and improved catching. DNS prefetching means that if you are viewing a web page with links, Safari detects them and looks them up behind the scenes. When you click a link, the page loads faster as a result. A web cache is essentially an index of pages previously viewed. Since Safari 5’s cache has been expanded, more pages fit into it and load faster upon being revisited.

    Appending the aforementioned features are other upgrades such as a smarter address field, integrated Bing search, hardware acceleration for Windows and an improved web inspector. Safari 5 is available today, and is a free download for Mac + PC. Download it here.