Exclusive Report--iPhone 4 Antenna Cover-Up Exposed

Well, I finally bit the bullet over the weekend and upgraded my iPhone 3Gs to iOS 4.2 and in doing so discovered an insidious cover-up by Apple Inc.

Apple was handed a major setback when Consumer Reports announced that it can’t recommend iPhone 4 due to its widely publicized reception problems. Users discovered that the reception problems were caused by a defective outer antenna design that wraps around the edge of the iPhone 4. When making contact with the antenna with your hand (as you normally would when making a call) reception degrades and calls drop.  Apple refused to acknowledge that the antenna was to blame.

Apple came back with a claim that reception issues were caused by false signal strength being reported on iPhones.  According to them, the algorithm that calculates cell phone signal strength is incorrect, falsely showing two more bars of signal than what is actually being received. So Apple altered the algorithm in a software update so that iPhones would now report "true" signal strength.

 
Consumer Reports questioned Apple’s claim that the problem is due to incorrect display of signal strength. They doubted the problem could be fixed with an iPhone software update. It added that "AT&T Inc, the exclusive mobile phone carrier for the iPhone 4, and whose network is often blamed for reception problems, was not necessarily the main culprit".

Ok, so after my upgrade to iOS 4.2, I can confirm what Consumer Reports is saying is true.  My iPhone 3Gs is now showing three bars of signal strength, two bars less than I normally get at home.  I find it curious that I’ve been with AT&T since they were called Bellsouth Mobility and then later Cingular, that I’ve always gotten five bars at home. Even with a variety of different cell phones by manufacturers including Motorola, Sony-Ericsson and Samsung.  Were the algorithms wrong on all those phones as well? Have I been going through life deceived into thinking I had five bars when all this time I only had three?
 
Apple is covering up the fact the iPhone 4 antenna design is just plain defective by making it seem like the phone isn’t getting full signal strength, and simulating weak signal reception with a software update.

 “They need to provide an actual fix — not a bumper fix — so that the product performs as it should,” said Ashok Kumar at Rodman & Renshaw. “Apple should have taken a higher road when addressing the design flaw, instead of taking the hard-line stance that they did.”

Apple has never admitted that the antenna design of the iPhone 4 is flawed. The company adamantly told users they are holding the phone wrong and agreed to give free cases to users to fix the issue. I don't know about you, but I don't like being told that I don't know how to hold a cell phone.

In this day and age it should come as no surprise that Apple has been sued by iPhone customers in at least three complaints related to antenna problems.

Apple has also not helped itself by deleting threads in its discussion forums pointing to the Consumer Reports article.

And finally to add insult to injury:  Mark Papermaster, the executive responsible for the innovative and problematic antenna design on the iPhone 4 "resigned".

But was Papermaster's hasty exit related to the antenna woes of iPhone 4?  Tell me if you've heard this before: “actions speak louder than words.” 

Some top public relations experts, believe that "Apple will be forced to do a recall of this product."

What do you think? I’d love to hear your comments.

iPhone 3G & 3Gs Owners--Should You Upgrade to iOS4?

There have been a host of complaints stemming from Apple’s new operating system for the iPhone 3G and 3Gs known as iOS4. Released on June 21, 2010,  I’ve been reluctant to upgrade my 3Gs after my phone was “bricked” by an earlier OS update.  For those who have never experienced the horror and agony of a bricked phone, just imagine the iPhone as expensive paper weight.  It won’t boot up, you can’t make or receive calls, can’t text or e-mail—everything gone and you’re completely cut off from the outside world. This is what is displayed on your iPhone after you update the OS and it fails:

Fortunately I still had a land line I could use for emergencies. After spending nearly an hour with Apple Tech Support to no avail, an appointment was made for me at the closest Apple Store to have my phone restored. The restore went without a hitch, but the phone was wiped completely clean, all the contacts, e-mails, Safari favorites—gone!  The geek that I am, I backed up my iPhone regularly with iTunes on my PC.  When I got home I was able to restore all my settings and contacts from the backup.  Whew!  Let that be a lesson to everyone—always back up your iPhone!

Let’s take a look at some of the problems that have been reported by courageous iPhone owners.

Synchronization Issues With Exchange?

“Complaints are starting to mount from iOS 4 users that are having a difficult time synchronizing their iDevice with their Exchange environments. The bug in question prevents iOS 4 from synchronizing email, calendar, or contact data from a users Exchange server to an iOS 4 device." – Andrew Munchbach

Blurry Photos?

 “iOS 4 has been available to the masses for only three hours, but we’ve already received a rash of bug complaints from early adopters. According to several of our readers, all photos synced to their device through iPhoto have been down-sampled so much that they’re now very, very blurry. We’ve tested this out on a few devices and have noticed the same thing.” –Michael Bettiol

"False" Multi-Tasking?

“Writer Jared Newman does give some praise where it’s due: Yes, you can now listen to Pandora while you check your email. But “some of the iPhone's elegance is lost, and the advantages you'd gain from true multitasking aren't there either.”

By "true" multitasking, he means that with a few exceptions (primarily music apps, VoIP and GPS), the iPhone doesn’t really let you run applications in the background. Rather, it freezes them, waiting for you to return. (And many apps don’t even do that yet; they start back from the beginning and reload when you return to them.) This isn’t multitasking, it’s simply pausing one thing to do another. As Newman notes, even the iPhone’s built-in YouTube app isn’t multitask-capable: You can’t buffer a video in the background and do something else while the movie loads. Downloads freeze unless you’re staring at that spinning wheel.

Newman’s complaint about inelegance is even more spot-on. You get around iOS 4’s running apps by double-clicking the home button to pull up your running apps, then scrolling through a list of every app you’ve started since you turned on your phone? Seriously: Every app is represented here, including text messaging, the phone dialer, and the camera. If your phone has been in use for awhile, this list can be daunting, and manually closing out of apps you’re not actually using is a headache. Multitasking should make it faster to get from one app to another. Apple's way slows you down and requires extra work from the user.

I’m hopeful that Apple will iron the kinks out of this system — just as I hope developers will get on the stick and update their apps so that multitasking is actually useful — but I remain strikingly disappointed that Apple released such a half-baked update in the first place.” –Christopher Null

And here are some other complaints: 

• Update deletes all contacts, and backups will not restore them  
• MMS no longer works  
• Push notifications not functioning  
• Update fails and device reboots endlessly

In all fairness to Apple, some iOS4 updates have gone smoothly.  No errors in downloading the OS and absolutely no problems with the install.  All data and contact information still intact.

How was your experience with upgrading to iOS4? And for those of you who haven’t upgraded—will you take that roll of the dice?  I’m already "brick shy" so I’ll be holding out for iOS4.1.