Jul 03
Finally, the truth about the iPhone 4 antenna →
The above graphic, from this article by Richard Gaywood (and based on this excellent, clear analysis by Anandtech) explains, in a way even complete morons would understand, why the “death grip” problem of iPhone 4 seems to affect some people but not others.
Apple has also finally issued an official statement about it (you’re better off reading it on Daring Fireball than the original on Apple’s website).
The basic facts are:
- Touching the lower-left corner of iPhone 4 does reduce signal strength by up to 24 dB, compared with about 10 dB on phones with internal antennas.
- The iPhone 4 antenna is much better at lower signal strengths, and testing shows that even with a 24 dB reduction of signal strength, transmission is still better than on iPhone 3GS, and about the same as other smartphones.
- The number of “bars” shown in the top-left corner of the display is extremely misleading. The update to iOS 4 to be released soon will probably improve this a bit, but of course won’t change anything about the radio performance of the phone.
So it turns out that it is an issue, albeit ultimately insignificant. Yet Apple has handled the whole thing very poorly, which is actually a bigger problem than the antenna itself. I mean, how often do you see John Gruber pissed at Steve Jobs?
