Apple Formula Blamed For Faulty Signal Strength – Software Fix Coming Soon
Apple says they were surprised when the read reports of reception problems, and immediately began investigating them. Here is what they have learned. To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones. But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design. Apple says they have discovered the cause of the dramatic drop in bars, and that a future software update within a few weeks that will fix the issue. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.
Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they dont know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place. To fix this, we are adopting AT&Ts recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhones bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.
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