iPhone 4 reception: Apple's promised fix
The company claims there is no actual reception problem, but that a software flaw incorrectly shows signal strength
Responding to numerous complaints and criticisms about poor cell signal reception on the iPhone 4, Apple has issued a letter on its Web site saying that the fault is due not to hardware design, but to the algorithm used to calculate the display of bars for signal strength.
The problem, which has been widely reported since the phone's debut last month, appears to be a loss of signal strength when certain areas of the external antenna are gripped in the human hand. At the same time, however, many users have also reported better signal strength with the iPhone 4 than previously, with some able to make calls in places that had previously had no signal.
[ Stay up on tech news and reviews from your smartphone at infoworldmobile.com. | Get the best iPhone and iPad apps for pros with InfoWorld's business iPhone and iPad apps finder. | See which smartphone is right for you in our mobile "deathmatch" calculator. ]
Those conflicting reports of both signal loss and signal improvement prompted Apple to investigate the problem. The company says the main problem is how the iPhone reports the current signal strength, the result of a "totally wrong" formula that displays a stronger signal than actually exists. "For example," says Apple, "we sometimes display four bars when we should be displaying as few as two bars."
But Apple also admits that how people hold the iPhone can affect its signal reception; all phones suffer from a certain amount of signal loss when gripped in certain ways, including previous models of the iPhone, the company said. In the case of the iPhone 4, that signal loss appeared to be greater than it actually was because of the software flaw. Thus, an iPhone 4 that showed four or five bars of signal strength didn't actually have that strong of a signal in tre first place, and when a user held the iPhone in certain ways, the iPhone lost a bit more signal strength, and the faulty signal-strength display calculation would then recalculate the display, appearing to the user as a drop from, say, four bars to one, when in fact the actual drop should have displayed as from two bars to one.
To fix the issue, Apple will release a software patch within the next few weeks using a new formula based on one recommended by AT&T. While obviously this won't change the strength of the signal, it will apparently better reflect the actual reception. In additions, the first three bars will be taller, which will help their visibility. The patch will be available for the iPhone 3G and 3GS as well, since Apple says the problem dates back to the original iPhone.
Despite Apple's promise, there are lingering questions. If the issue is really only one of the accuracy of the displayed bars, then what explains the related performance problems some users have encountered? The only explanation I can come up with is that the iPhone's software somehow looks to the signal strength as a way of throttling data--and thus, when it sees no strength, it throttles data to zero. That seems counter-intuitive to me, but as a non-engineer, perhaps I'm missing something.
But it's a good thing Apple has addressed this issue, especially in light of the legal action that has been launched on many fronts. Whether or not the company's answer is satisfactory will of course depend on if the patch actually fixes users' problems. And for that, we'll have to wait.
