Steve Jobs may be doing his best to sidestep the issue (see update below), but the plain truth is that a lot of users are frustrated by the iPhone’s antenna problem, which causes the handset to lose signal bars if the handset is held in the “wrong” way.
Don’t touch that case!
In areas with weak signal, touching the external antenna band at the bottom left side of the iPhone can cause the loss of voice and data connection, and the independent Consumer Reports website has confirmed this issue and decided that they can’t recommend the phone as a result.
Here’s their blog post on the matter:
We reached this conclusion after testing all three of our iPhone 4s (purchased at three separate retailers in the New York area) in the controlled environment of CU’s radio frequency (RF) isolation chamber. In this room, which is impervious to outside radio signals, our test engineers connected the phones to our base-station emulator, a device that simulates carrier cell towers. We also tested several other AT&T phones the same way, including the iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre. None of those phones had the signal-loss problems of the iPhone 4.
Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4′s signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that “mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength.”
The site did, however, offer an economical if not stylish solution, and that was to break out the gaffa tape (or ‘duct tape’ if you’re on the other side of the pond) and slap it over the problem area.
It sure seems a dreadful bodge to be slapping sticky tape on a £600 phone, but we guess that’s got to be better than dropping vital calls.