Apple dithers while customers burn about iPhone 4 reception problems

Independent tests by engineers confirm signal strength problems with the iPhone 4. Still unanswered: Why other people are delivering contradictory reports that the iPhone 4 is actually a better phone than its predecessors, and what Apple is going to do about the problem.

Anandtech, a site for detailed hardware analysis and news, measured reception of the iPhone 4 under various conditions. They confirmed what we've been seeing in anecdotal reports from large numbers of angry iPhone customers: When you hold the phone in a way that your hand touches the lower left edge, signal strength drops precipitously.

The reason: The antenna that runs along the entire edge of the device is actually two antennas: A smaller one for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS, and a larger cellular radio antenna for voice and data. Touch your hand to the point where the two antennas meet, and the phone's radio reception attenuates.

That's the whole problem in a nutshell.

Anandtech tested the iPhone 4 under four conditions:

Describing the problem

1) Cupping tightly - This is the absolute worst case and involves squeezing the phone very tightly, like people are doing online in videos demonstrating all the bars going away. I squeeze the phone hard and make sure my palms are sweaty as well. You'd never hold the phone this way because it's physically painful.

2) Holding naturally, comfortably - This is just how one would hold the phone typically in a relaxed way. Not squeezing it to purposefully reduce signal, but making contact with the fingers and not an open palm.

3) Resting atop an open, flat palm.

4) Holding naturally, but inside a case - In this situation the Bumper for iPhone 4, an Otter Box for the 3GS, and a comparable generic case for the Nexus One.

5) Pinching the top and bottom - Our baseline, virtually no attenuation. Held only to keep the exact position constant. It's not reported since this is considered ideal.

Anandtech's findings

The iPhone cupped tightly delivered the worst results, 24.6 dB signal attenuation. Attenuation was better holding the phone naturally, 19.6 dB. Holding naturally in a case is the best - 7.2.

The 3Gs had attenuation, but was better than the iPhone 4 across the board. The Nexus One also does better across the board than the iPhone 4 -- except when being held inside the case, when the iPhone 4 does better.

The fact of the matter is that either the most sensitive region of the antenna should have an insulative coating, or everyone should use a case. For a company that uses style heavily as a selling point, the latter isn't an option. And the former would require an unprecedented admission of fault on Apple's part.

Another iPhone 4 analysis was performed by Richard Gaywood, who describes himself as "fractionally more than Just Another Internet Dude on this subject. I have a Ph.D in wireless network planning techniques from Cardiff University, and I have worked for Keima, a company writing commercial software that helps cellular operators design their networks for optimum performance."

Gaywood performed similar tests to Anandtech's, and got similar results.

Fantastic device, lousy phone

He says: "Taking my Objective Scientist Dude hat off now, I’d say that iPhone 4 is a fantastic device but a lousy phone. Placing calls from my office, my home, and my neighbourhood whilst walking my dogs, I’ve had 14 dropped calls in a little over two hours of talk time. I would have expect at most one dropped call per few hours of usage with my iPhone 3G."

Gaywood adds, "Finally, I certainly think that Steve Jobs’s personal response, telling a customer to hold the phone differently, was a disgrace."

So that proves it, right? The iPhone 4 is a crappy phone, a step backward from the previous generation of iPhone.

Not so fast.

Or is it a better phone?

Anandtech says:

From my day of testing, I've determined that the iPhone 4 performs much better than the 3GS in situations where signal is very low, at -113 dBm (1 bar). Previously, dropping this low all but guaranteed that calls would drop, fail to be placed, and data would no longer be transacted at all. I can honestly say that I've never held onto so many calls and data simultaneously on 1 bar at -113 dBm as I have with the iPhone 4, so it's readily apparent that the new baseband hardware is much more sensitive compared to what was in the 3GS. The difference is that reception is massively better on the iPhone 4 in actual use.

With my bumper case on, I made it further into dead zones than ever before, and into marginal areas that would always drop calls without any problems at all. It's amazing really to experience the difference in sensitivity the iPhone 4 brings compared to the 3GS, and issues from holding the phone aside, reception is absolutely definitely improved. I felt like I was going places no iPhone had ever gone before. There's no doubt in my mind this iPhone gets the best cellular reception yet, even though measured signal is lower than the 3GS.

The author adds: "If you add a bumper case to the iPhone 4, the signal strength drop from holding the device is on par if not better than other phones."

While many consumers are reporting service problems, and are spitting mad about it -- two Maryland residents have sued -- early reviewers reported better calling quality. These include Computerworld reviewer Michael deAgonia, InformationWeek's Eric Zeman, TechRepublic's Jason Hiner, and even Brian Lam, editor of Gizmodo, which was one of the earliest, loudest voices exposing the antenna problem.

Ignore the bars

Conclusion: The iPhone is definitely worse than other phones -- except for when it's better.

Confused yet?

Understanding the problem is further complicated by the fact that most people just look at the number of bars they receive as a measure and predictor of call quality. But bars are a lousy measurement, they're just not standardized. Manufacturers can configure the bars to display any way they want, and can change that configuration between devices. On the iPhone 4, more than half of the possible signal strength readings are reported as five bars, Anandtech said. This is sort of like a college class where more than half the students get an A grade -- nice for the students, but doesn't tell you much about how well the class is doing.

Gaywood explains the problem: "The magic formula is basically made up by the design engineers as they see fit, and it can vary from phone to phone and even between software releases on the same phone. If someone is kicking it old school and getting five bars at your house with their Motorola RAZR and you’re getting three on your Nokia 8210, that doesn’t mean their phone is better than yours. It might just mean that Motorola’s designers made their bars work differently, or it might not."

He adds: "[T]he signal strength bars are almost meaningless and should not be relied on." Signal-to-noise ration (SNR) is a better measure. A phone might be getting a strong signal, but have lousy SNR, which would lead to lousy call quality.

Much ado about something

Incidentally, this also explains what’s going on when you have a strong signal, attempt to make a call, and can’t connect. The bars only indicate how well your phone can listen to the cell tower. They don’t tell you anything about how well the tower can receive your phone, but that’s a pretty important part of making a call. Similarly, the phone doesn’t know anything about what’s going on in the cell provider’s network past the tower; if you’re on a really busy cell it might not have any spare outgoing circuits to direct your call to, so even if the radio is working fine, you might still not be able to get through. If you’re on AT&T it’s probably all of the above at the same time of course.

The way the iPhone displays bars explains why iPhone signal dropoffs appear so mysterious and abrupt to many consumers, Anandtech says. At one test location "signal without holding the phone is -89 dBm, which is still displayed as 5 bars. Cup the phone, and you'll fall all the way to -113 dBm. All the bars dramatically disappear one after the other, people think they've dramatically lost all the signal, and you know the rest."

One thing is clear: My blog Monday blog, where I said the iPhone 4 reception problems are much ado about nothing, is just plain wrong. This is a big deal. Even if many people are experiencing better calling quality with the iPhone 4, many others are having a lot of problems and they're spitting mad about it.

And Apple's response to the problem is unacceptable. The only things they've said so far are that the problem is common to many phones, and that people should just get cases if they experience troubles -- which Apple is happy to sell, for an additional $29. This lack of responsiveness just makes Apple look callous and unfeeling to the concerns of their customers, and lets Apple's critics and rumormongers control the discussion.

Apple needs to step up and fix this problem for its customers.

Mitch Wagner is a freelance technology journalist and social media strategist.