Apple, stop pointing fingers and just admit your antenna design is poor
By this point, I am going to assume that most people are aware of the antenna design flaw in Apple’s iPhone 4. If you haven’t been following the story, Apple did the right thing, and told customers that they could either get a full refund, or a free phone case which will prevent skin-to-antenna contact.
However, Apple is now trying to downplay their mistake by claiming that other phones also suffer from the same issue. While it is true that other phones will have their signal reduced when their internal antenna is covered, the iPhone loses signal when you simply put one finger on the device (see: video below). This problem cannot be recreated with other phones.
The most recent phone that Apple claims has this problem is the Droid X. They posted a video that shows someone holding the phone and the signal bars dropping. However, compare these two videos:
iPhone Antenna Problem:
Droid X (this is the video that Apple made):
Look at how the person in the Droid X video is holding their phone. I have owned a cell phone for the past 8 years, and I have never held a cell phone that way. Cnet seems to agree that the way the person is holding their Droid is a bit ridiculous. When I talk on my Droid now (I have the original Droid, not the Droid X), I hold the sides of the phone when I am talking (the side of the phone is where the iPhone’s antenna is). If I am really busy but decide to answer my phone, I hold the phone with my shoulder.
I would like to note that the reason Apple has to hold the Droid X in this crazy way is because it has two antennas, one that is in the center of the phone near the bottom, and the other that is at the top (source: PCmag.com). However, in the iPhone video, the signal drops to 0 bars with the touch of ONE finger.
Putting all of our commonsense about how people hold cell phones aside, let us side with Apple, and agree that it looks like the Droid X has a signal problem. Now we are at the next interesting point. People have been posting several videos that show that even though their bar icon does in fact drop to 0 bars when they hold the phone in this ridiculous manner, they STILL don’t drop the call. Furthermore, when they hang up the call, their phone shows that it does in fact have bars. See this clip:
So at the end of the day, here is where we are at:
- Apple originally claimed that there was a problem with the algorithm that displayed the signal strength. They released iOS 4.0.1 to fix this issue.
- Ars Technica reports that this update doesn’t fix the fact that the signal drops when holding the side of the phone.
- Consumer Reports posted this article confirming that the problem is real, and withheld their recommendation of the phone.
- Apple did the right thing, and told customers that they can return their phones for a full refund, or they can get a free case that prevents skin from coming into contact with the external antenna. (source: Engadget)
- Apple then tried to downplay the issue by posting videos of other phones having similar problems. However, in some of these videos (see: video posted above), the problem is no where near as serious, and Apple looks ridiculous.
- Apple never officially admits that their antenna design was a poor design.
