Today, Motorola ran a full page ad in The New York Times for its upcoming ‘Droid X’ smartphone, which includes the copy:
And most importantly, it comes with a double antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere to make crystal clear calls.
MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Jobs, the ball is now in your court.
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forget it. i’ll just carry my MacBook around in my pocket
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Leave it to one of these also-rans to perpetuate the notion that this is even an issue. It’s only how the software is displaying the reception!! When I hold mine in the “wrong” way whilst on a call, I can get the bars to drop all the way down. The call, however, still sounds crystal-clear. Sheesh.
Thanks Google. Resetting my default search to Bing right after clicking “submit.”
Yup, larger screen with stretched out pixels so you can see your private data just flow away to any malicious app developer.
Yup, I will take two with my anti-freeze!
LOL. Motorola: 1, Apple: 0.
Why Apple didn’t use double antenna design I don’t understand. Apple could have easily used two antennas as the back of the iPhone is made of glass. Didn’t anyone test these phones before shipping at Apple.
“MOST IMPORTANTLY…”
…rriiiiiggghhhttt.
Can’t wait to see how the upgrade to Flash over the air works out.
And man, they are really, REALLY pushing these to spek-checking geeks, aren’t they?
I guess they haven’t gotten the memo yet… The vast majority of consumers just want something that is easy to use and don’t care about HDMI ports on their PHONES…
Coming July 15?
Looks like the big selling advantage for Droid X will disappear BEFORE the phone is even released.
Sick burn, freetards. It would suck if videos of Motorola products being compromised the exact same way existed on the internet.
This will maybe persuade a couple people to bite. Just a couple more people who will instantly regret the decision and/or be in line to buy the iPhone 5.
motorola along with engadget, gizmodo and probably google are behind this whole antenna non-Issue. I have 2 iphone 4’s and yes the bars will decrease if I’m in a low signal area but the call is not affected. When I’m in a strong signal area it doesn’t matter how I hold it bars stay the same. It’s all about the initial signal strength from the tower. It’s no big deal plus I get better cell coverage with the IPhone 4 than I’ve ever had on my 3GS. The IPhone 4 cell coverage is better than any other smartphone.
Yes, I want you to hold it between your legs.
it’s not just signal reception problem. the worst case on exterior antenna design could harm your health. exterior installation design is not new at all. there were many companies tried before. I don’t know how Apple will bring up the health (more certainly tumor or cancel) near the future. actually, believe or not, Apple iPhone is the most harmful device in the market.
…and this is exactly why the FUD is started in the first place…so that all the incompetent loser “competitors” (NOT) can have what to put down in Apple products that are burying them so deep in shit that they have to re- invent their reason for existing…
Motorla, isn’t that the walkie talkie company that ventured into the consumer electronics world with a “spectacular” piece of short lived crap called razor? The sam piece of crap that knocked them clean out of the phone business?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2
Apple’s iPhone 4: Thoroughly Reviewed
The Real Story on iPhone 4’s Antenna
“…how you hold the phone makes a huge difference across every smartphone – and we’ve tested thoroughly in 5 different positions….”
“… It’s difficult to be exact about the data, since signal is very sensitive to direction, ambient conditions, and cell breathing. To generate these numbers, I measured at least 6 times and took the average. The results are pretty self explanatory. Inside a case, the iPhone 4 performs slightly better than the Nexus One. However, attenuation gets measurably worse depending how you hold the phone. Squeezing it really tightly, you can drop as much as 24 dBm. Holding it naturally, I measured an average of 20 dBm.
The drop in signal from cupping the device with a case on is purely a function of us being “ugly bags of mostly water.” A material which happens to be pretty good at attenuating RF – thus increasing path loss between the handset and cellular base station. There’s nothing Apple nor anyone else can do to get around physics, plain and simple. It’s something which demonstrably affects every phone’s cellular reception.
Add in an external antenna you’re essentially forced to touch and bridge to another adjacent antenna while holding, and the signal attenuation is even worse. 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 …”
and, in agreement with my humble findings:
“The Antenna is Improved
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…”
“Can’t wait to see how the upgrade to Flash over the air works out.”
Hopefully they all get bricked like the EVO did this week.
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I’m far far more annoyed with WiFi on the iPad than this crap.
OMG! The ignorance! Just because your bars go down doesn’t mean you are absolutely going to lose your call, and if you don’t that there isn’t a problem. The hardest part of the call is the connection, once that’s secured you have a lot more fault tolerance with your signal. The second biggest problem is the tower hand off. Once you are on a call you can actually go to some places where you were previously unable to originate one (poor signal area, not suggesting an area where no signal exists) and not get dropped. There is data out there that does show that there is a corresponding signal loss when “death grip” interference is displayed. Just because you do not experience it, it does not mean that it does not occur for other people.
Apple just launched 1.7 million phones and is ignoring a blatant issue and seemingly going so far as being trite about how you should hold it. Other sources are suggesting that Apple store employees have been aware for awhile about the problem and now the competition is going to be heavily touting it.
I cannot say this enough, with all the fanfare surrounding this launch, HAVING to buy a bumper so you do not lose bars is an EPIC FAIL for Apple. Even if they include it free of charge it’s still a fail, because NOT ALL PEOPLE BUY CASES FOR THEIR PHONES. I don’t have one for mine and I do not wish to purchase one. A screen protector, sure, but I do not have a personal need for a case.
I really wish all the apologists would take their collective heads out of the sand and send a HUGE backlash toward Apple and make them aware that the faithful are not happy. But I guess that would make you have to admit that Apple made a mistake and that would fly in the face of the “Steve Jobs as God” theory. I have to hand it a bit to MDN, as big of a FANBOY site this is, they will still take Apple and Steve Jobs to task if they see something wrong. Don’t believe it? Just look up in the archives!
With all the problems circulating around the iPhone, whether real or imagined, I cannot see myself purchasing one anytime soon. With 1.7 million phones sold I guess SJ doesn’t really need my business, but he is opening the door for the competition and if anybody learned from the PC wars with Microsoft it’s perception vs. reality. If the perception changes on the iPhone and Apple from quality innovators to arrogant engineers the reality will be Android gaining more ground regardless whether or not Verizon gets the iPhone.
I notice the drop in bars on my Motorola phone 15 years ago, when I touch the antenna.
Why don’t you losers just return your new iPhone 4?
@Jimithy
I don’t care about the bars – when I hold my iPhone 4 in my left hand, not particularly tight, the bars drop out completely and the call drops. This is at home where I don’t have a very strong signal, but not a very bad one either. Likely you’ve been testing with a strong signal. That’s great – try testing in a more marginal area. I really hope that this is a matter of some phones being different physically, causing the problem for some. I doubt it.
In every other respect the phone is outstanding. And yes, I plan to get a case on the phone as soon as the one that I want is available. So for me, the dropped call problem will likely go away. Latest reports indicate that the iPhone 4 works in an outstanding manner in weak signal areas – considerably better than the 3Gs. Unless your hand bridges the two antennas…
My take – Apple chose this antenna design because, along with other improvements, it really does help with sensitivity. It would be excellent – IF Apple had coated the steel with a non-conductive layer. With no case/bumper needed, the superior signal sensitivity would be a knockout advantage. Now it’s overshadowed in the media by the very real bad effects of holding the phone in the most natural manner if the 3G signal strength is weak. I’ve seen lots of denial on this and other blogs, but that won’t wash. And telling people to put on a piece of tape or a case is BS. Yes, that will work, but the problem is that this very real need was not revealed by Apple. Any moderately realistic testing would have revealed this problem. So Apple now looks pretty bad – they have a fabulous phone with a very glaring physical design problem. And they’re denying the problem! No, no, no! That’s not the way to deal with this sort of problem.
I believe Apple’s best course right now is some honesty and transparency and take strong action to get control over the issue. Apple needs to do two things: first, give away their bumpers, or charge a nominal fee ($1). Nah, give them away – they or another case is required to make the phone work correctly (as any sane person would expect), should be included in the price of the phone. Second, quickly figure out how to coat that transparent stainless steel with a transparent nonconductive layer that is rugged – believe that can be done. Then offer to exchange, for free, the original iPhone 4 for a model with the coating. The returned phones can go through the refurbishment process with new coated frames, be used as trade-ins for future defective phones. Quite expensive, this whole process. But well worth it for the public relations benefit. It’s a vicious smart phone war out there, and competitors are drooling over this issue. Market share is the big issue.
As for those bumpers … it just looks suspicious that for the first Time Apple is selling, at some obscene profit, a “case” for their new iPhone model, one that just happens to fix a glaring design defect. The real motivation may have had to do with the vulnerability of damaging the glass when dropping the phone, and Apple providing a way to relieve peoples’ anxiety. But now that people realize they need to put a case on the phone, it looks like a money grab – seriously, another $30 for a little plastic and rubber frame around the phone?
One big problem here is the inability to manufacture the phones fast enough to meet demand. Having to manufacture a whole bunch of replacements adds to the problem – although once exchanges start, the returns could be refurbished and provided as exchange phones a few weeks later.
I expect my case to come in within about a week or so and will see if it works. Yes, I expect some signal loss if I grip the phone hard on the bottom half. If the problem is reduced enough that I don’t lose calls from home, then I’ll be happy. If not, then I’ll reluctantly be forced to return this beautiful phone. Very reluctantly.
JRoy:
and when you find out that your case solves your case don’t forget to let us all know…
@breeze
I sure will! That won’t, however, solve Apple’s image problem. They’ll have to deal with it. Just hope they deal with it effectively and decisively to maintain their excellent brand reputation.
I have one of these iPhones in my hand. There is no problem with the antena or reception. None. If anything, it works better than the previews models I had. This is just the competition futilely attempting to compete.
Christ Almighty, that is an ugly phone!
Ahhh in typical mac-fanboy fashion you only cherry pick stuff from articles, leaving out stuff that you don’t wanna see, the same article also stated that:
“When I first saw the iPhone 4’s design spelled out watching the keynote online, I immediately assumed that Apple was going to apply an insulative coating atop the stainless steel. Perhaps even use diamond vapor deposition (like they did with the glass screen atop the iPhone 3GS) to insulate the stainless steel from users. We now know rather definitively that this isn’t the case. Of course, the result is that anything conductive which bridges the gap in the bottom left couples the antennas together, detuning the precisely engineered antennas. It’s a problem of impedance matching with the body as an antenna, and the additional antenna that becomes part of the equation when you touch the bottom left.”
and…
“The drop in signal from holding the phone with your left hand arguably remains a problem. Changing the bars visualization may indeed help mask it, and to be fair the phone works fine all the way down to -113 dBm, but it will persist – software updates can change physics as much as they can change hardware design. At the end of the day, Apple should add an insulative coating to the stainless steel band, or subsidize bumper cases. It’s that simple.”
Since no one reads the NY times any more, no one saw that ad.