Engadget: iPhone4 Reception Problems Explained By Apple – Sort Of
Apple says the reception problems have to do with the phones mis-reporting the strength of radio connections, not that their antenna is poorly engineered. Engadget suggests this doesn’t really explain the dropped calls and other reported problems.
“Whoa, Apple just admitted that there’s an issue with the iPhone 4’s reception, but it might not be what you think:
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 don’t 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.”