Dave Miller, a very smart electrical engineer from New Zealand who is lucky enough to spend his days doing private research on gravity, has a theory about how Apple is handling the antenna problems on its iPhone 4 that have been getting so much attention in the blogosphere and even in the general press. You can read Dave’s thoughts here. For those who don’t want to go all the way to New Zealand, the gist of Dave’s argument is that Apple has a serious problem that it will try to allay by adopting AT&T’s recommended algorithm for assigning numbers of signal bars on the phone display, which Apple admits not having used to date.
Neither Dave nor I know anything about this AT&T algorithm but he supposes it might change the game a bit by representing absolute signal strength instead of Apple’s present algorithm, which appears to represent the strength of a signal within a Reality Distortion Field.
By going back to basics Dave thinks Apple can regain the upper hand in this public relations tussle.
It’s a well-reasoned argument, but the problem I see with it is that Dave is in New Zealand and AT&T isn’t. Dave thinks AT&T is a phone company, while I think it is a marketer of voice and data services with the emphasis on marketer.
As a marketer, AT&T’s longtime slogan was “more bars in more places,” which seems to me would work equally well (perhaps even better) for Hooters, but that’s for another column.
How do they get those “more bars in more places?” Did AT&T spend more than Verizon did building their wireless network? No. Do their cell towers transmit at higher power than those of other companies? No. Or do they simply make their phones — with the exception of the iPhone, the same phones used by the other networks — show more bars for the same signal?
Bingo.
I’ve been told by a couple of mobile phone manufacturers that AT&T is guilty of a little bar inflation, so to speak. It’s the most reliable way to get “more bars in more places.”
Now this is just something I’ve been told. I haven’t bought or borrowed a mess of comparable mobile phones and measured it myself. But these people had no reason to lie to me, either. So I’ll just throw this out as an idea why Apple adopting AT&T’s signal bar algorithm to somehow effectively reduce the number of bars might not be such a plausible idea.
As for Apple’s antenna problem, maybe that’s why my wife’s iPhone 4 sounds so tinny and why it drops so many calls. It’s a stunning handheld computer, but not a good phone.
Thanks for your comments, Bob.
How hard would it be to change the spin to “more talk with less bars”?
Meanwhile there’s no need to wait for Steve’s next move. Send the phone back. Or just don’t hold the phone that way.
It still sounds tinny.
“tinny” is very strange, does not sound like data loss.
One commenter suggested a vocoder change. That’s very unlikely.
These tests will help narrow down the culprit:
* Does it sound tinny wherever she uses it, even with a good signal?
* Does it sound tinny with an external mic?
* Does another iPhone 4 sound tinny from your home?
BTW, I know that AT&T is not a phone company!
“Tinny” as in talking into a set of tin cans tied to a string?
D–b A–
Excellent article. I for one live in San Francisco and hated AT&T. I simply cannot understand why someone would keep an iphone in this city. I recall vividly a friend wrecking his car and asking two people to call a cab. I literally had to drive several blocks for anyone to get a signal and stay put to keep it. Then I can’t count the number of times I saw five bars and the call simply would not connect.
Today, I lie to my girlfriend and say the call dropped as I hang up and start texting because I simply cannot piece together the snippets of garble…add in a thick accent and you have a murder scene.
AT&T is simply a joke here, period. You think people won’t remember this when you pull 4G out and things get better? Just look at Sprint…today.
What AT&T has REALLY done is changed people from voice callers to texters. They can handle a lot more text messages with fewer cell towers.
I think you just hit the jackpot, Stephen. This you can see clearly from New Zealand. Here in the 0’th world, texting is what most people do. And we’ve been doing it for years. It’s much cheaper and much more convenient.
And guess what: when you hold the iPhone 4 “properly”, with both thumbs dancing over the screen, you won’t have any dropouts, nor will you have to worry about getting brain cancer.
nor will the NSA have to decipher your voice
🙂
Come on. NSA only does that sort of thing when Republicans run the Gummint.
NSA is the REAL government, everything else just shadow puppets.
Yes the nsa gets all the feed first and then it goes either on or off. I ave a 9 month paper trail with ATT and finally got them to buy my contract back, I could not make or send calls from my own home. I tought it illegal to charge for a service they did not provide and was about to take action when I was released. I want to figure out why Steve Jobs choose ATT as a provider and not just low self esteem that connecting his ‘phone’ with a big image public company was good business. I feel there must be something under the reason that they can charge for service that they do not and do not intend to provide. ATT is criminal so what makes the iphone better than the droid?
What does the National Secuity Agency have to do with AT&T wireless?
I think the “hate AT&T” meme will be null and void once Apple sells an Iphone that works on Verizon. Then people can compare the two phones and realize its not the network but the phone that they should hate. But being Apple it will me changed to I hate “AT&T and Verizon”
No. This is all AT&T.
Lots of people – myself included – use our iPhones outside the USA, on networks other than AT&T, and they work perfectly.
In 3 years of use, first on the iPhone 2G, then on the 3GS, I have never had a call drop in Thailand. In the USA… well, it basically doesn’t work. I go on 2 week stints to the SF bay area, and reception problems are simply terrible. On AT&T and T-mobile (I tried both).
In Thailand I also get anywhere from 1Mbps to 5Mbps for 3G data. And tethering is enabled by the official iPhone carrier here (True Move).
Also using iPhone overseas (EU, ME and Asia/AP) for a couple years now. No reception issues and better than the blackberry I used to carry. Just switched to iPhone 4 while here in Japan and it has been perfect up to this point. I don’t expect it to be any worse than the 3GS when I return to the East Coast.
I find the speaker quality much better than the 3GS in terms of distortion when at the highest volume. Haven’t heard any comments on the mic but I’ll ask some of my callers.
I’m also using VoIP apps which are a step up from cellular voice. I have been surprised during my travels that even when using them over 3G, the voice quality is better than a standard cell call. Many of these services have unlimited US calling. Might be worth looking into.
The whole idea of 4 or 5 bars representing a digital signal is dumb to begin with. A hold over from the analog days. I’m glad that the iPhone 4 has made this an important topic that now everyone is thinking about.
I could see Apple moving away from the bars all together in the future. Replacing it with a symbol that represents if you are connected or not. Then put a buried setting for us geeks so we can the actual signal strength Db numbers.
And when Apples current fix comes out the “death grip” will go away. Even though it doesn’t actually change the reception. It just get the paranoids out their off their back.
I’d also like to know what Cringley’s source for data on AT&T’s tower strength versus others and who’s spent more money on their network. It’s easy to say things without proof to back it up. C’mon Mr. Cringley’s your normally so good about giving us the hard cold data.
Mobile carriers typically don’t own their towers. They lease space on them — on the SAME towers for the most part. This puts AT&T and Verizon typically on the same tower. Transmitter output from those towers is LIMITED BY FCC REGULATION. If AT&T wanted to boost the power they couldn’t, nor would they probably want to since the point is to balance the load between many towers (smaller cells can support more total users). How, then, does Verizon from my experience driving all over the country get a consistently better signal than AT&T? More towers, simple as that. And more towers mean a higher investment. THAT’s why I said AT&T didn’t pay more than Verizon and isn’t running its radios at a higher power. I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer about that but I thought this was common knowledge.
I noticed AT&T recently changed their advertising to say they cover 97% of Americans rather than 97% of America. When visiting my parents in rural North Carolina, we lose AT&T coverage as soon as we leave Interstate 85. On Lake Gaston, in sight of the phone tower, my sister gets perfect coverage on her Verizon Blackberry while I get zilch on my AT&T iPhone. There is some population density minimum below which AT&T does not even pretend to cover.
There’s nothing dumb about using bars to indicate signal strength. Signal strength fluctuates for a variety of reasons, if I’m in a location that shows one or two bars I know there’s a chance that I’ll lose signal during my call unless I move to a location with stronger reception. And I assume 3G gets faster data rates with more bars, although I could be mistaken.
I’ve always been bemused by the bars on the phone and have never taken them seriously. Fundamentally, you’ve got two signal strengths to worry about – what signal strength the phone sees for the signal sent from the tower, and what signal strength the tower sees for the signal sent by the phone. Typically, one is much higher than the other. Typically, the receiver in the tower can deal with much lower received signal strength. Also, in the connection protocols there’s information shared between the tower and phone about each other’s signal strength so that they can adjust their transmit power and/or receiver gain. So what are the bars supposed to be reporting?
Regarding radio waves … all “signals” are analog, not digital. It is only the encoding that is digital.
I think the correct term is multilevel digital (not binary). The signal to noise and the sinnal to ghost ratios need to be good enough to tell one level from another. To the extent that they are reduces the error rate.
No, Casy is correct.
I was speculating this myself.. interesting to hear you have legitimate sources(?). So now that they’ve flippantly exposed AT&T with little short-term benefit what happens? Doesn’t this just multiply their problems with AT&T mad at them as well? Is the Apple kool-aid really that strong?
At this point, with AT&T losing its U.S. iPhone exclusive in January, Apple doesn’t care what AT&T thinks.
Dang! Just when I was finally getting over my iPhone envy and starting to accept my Verizon Wireless Motorola Droid, too! Now I wonder if the VZW policy of not allowing simultaneous voice and data will also be lifted.
David-
That limit can’t be lifted, it’s a limitation of CDMA. But if you think about it, it all makes sense. Verizon is busting out Long Term Evolution (LTE) on November 15th in selected markets. LTE (8-12mbits) is basically Wifi (similar to WiMax). When this goes in place it WILL get rid of the data/talk limitation for verizon. And wouldn’t you know it, Apple will intro a phone in January on Verizon at that time…hmmmm. Makes sense to me!
-SS
In the UK, unlike in the US, phone companies don’t differentiate based on the quality of their networks. When I’m in the states, I’m surprised how often the lack of dropped calls is directly referred to in advertising.
How bad is the iPhone 4 in the rest of the world?
Maybe we should only see the bars display as a method for finding a better local position to get a good signal, rather than the quality of the network in a given place.
They should implement a simpler, more Apple like interface to signal strength where the phone simply displays Signal/ No Signal. Done. Who cares how many bars inbetween
Umm… No.
Your wife’s iPhone 4 sounds tinny because it has a crappy speaker on it, and it drops calls because your area is poorly serviced by AT&T’s network.
Signal strength has nothing to do with how it sounds. This is a digital network we’re talking about here, cell phone calls haven’t been analog for 10 years. The older analog networks were shut off completely about 5 years ago.
Here’s the dirty secret: BARS DON’T MEASURE ANYTHING USEFUL. Seriously. They have historically been a measure of signal strength, meaning that you get higher bars when there’s a stronger signal. The problem is that a stronger signal *doesn’t help you make a phone call*. You can still get full, strong, signal, but none of it will be actually usable. There’s several types of problems that can happen.
The actual amount of useable signal is the difference between the signal strength and the noise floor. In CDMA networks, this is called EC/I0, not sure what they call it in GSM. Basically, the noise floor is the amount of noise blocking your signal from getting through. Noise can be loud and caused by a lot of things. In GSM, the most common thing is “multipath” interference.
A signal from a radio tower is omnidirectional. It goes out in all directions, like a sphere. Multi-path happens when the signal comes to you from two different paths, due to reflecting off walls and metal and whatnot. Because the signal traveled different paths, it traveled different distances, and so took longer one way than another way. On old analog TV sets, this same problem caused “ghosting” to happen, as the same signal arrived slightly delayed. This causes an interference pattern which is basically noise, and it “raises the noise floor”. Multi-path interference can knock your usable signal from 100% down to 0% in an instant, and it can happen by moving as little as six feet in any direction. This is why they don’t display the usable signal as the bars. Nobody would like to see the signal bars dancing around every time you moved around anywhere, which they most certainly would do.
Also, ever notice how the bars suddenly drop the instant you make a call? That’s because the bars when you’re not on a call are basically a total guess. They’re showing signal strength only. Sometimes they use an estimated signal to noise ratio to try to make them more accurate, but this is still a guess when no data is moving around. But when you’re actually on a call, digital information is passing between the phone and the tower more or less constantly. The error rate can actually be measured, and so the bars displayed can be much more accurate, instantly. The bars when you’re not on a call are basically a *guess*, when you’re on a call, they’re real.
That error rate information is actually used by the handset to adjust the signal transmit power levels and such, in order to improve the connection and reduce the error rates. So when you first make a call, you’ll notice the bars drop significantly, then improve as the call progresses for a minute or so.
There’s also lots of other things that can happen. Calls can be handed off from one tower to another when you’re in motion. This is probably the number one reason for signal drops, since now you’re not only getting all sorts of multipath issues, but you’re actively transferring the call signals between towers, the towers have to synchronize effectively, your phone has to handle the tradeoff and change radio signals, etc, etc. Frankly, it’s somewhat amazing this stuff works at all.
The reason AT&T sucks in your area is simply that they haven’t invested in the infrastructure. They have a limited supply of funds, so they tend to spend it where there are the most subscribers. The most used towers take precedence, basically. Key markets. And even then, sometimes demand outpaces them (New York and all of California are prime examples of this).
BTW, the iPhone 4 problem is a *hardware problem*. Don’t buy into Apple’s lies here. The metal case is electrically connected to the antenna (or “ground”), and touching it in the right spot causes signal attenuation in exactly the same way that touching your old rabbit ears antenna make your analog TV stations come in better or worse. In this case, it happens to be worse, to the tune of about 24 dB of signal. This often will make it drop your call completely. There is no software fix for this. There never will be a software fix for this. Instead, they’re just going to make it show you lower bars a) so you won’t complain about it as much and b) so you’ll blame AT&T instead of Apple. That’s their goal here.
Great post… that explains a lot about why cell phones suck.
I’m curious if there is anywhere that AT&T works well. I live in L.A. and, at least the people I know with iPhones, no one seems happy with AT&T’s service.
Let’s face it, the only way you’re going to make a reliable call with good fidelity from most cell phones is if you can use Skype over a wi-fi connection.
AT&T works well in many areas, mainly where there’s decent competition for carriers. Memphis, TN, for example, has excellent coverage by AT&T. No dropped calls, high speeds, etc. This is mainly because the userbase is smaller, and that’s because Verizon and T-Mobile and Sprint all have huge customer bases there as well, so not everybody is on the same network.
AT&T works well in the Portland, OR metro area. Lot’s of iPhones here and I don’t know of anyone who even looks at their bars. Good reception is a given. We also have Clear (4G WiMax) here and my iPhone consistantly gives me better download speeds from home. WiMax beats the iPhone at the office though.
Skype is the only savior. I just can’t reliably get or make a call on iPhone without them. However ATT does offer a solution similar to T-Mobile’s wifi / cell phone highbred which hands off calls to the cell tower or your wifi router. It’s called ATT Mirocell. And you have to pay ATT about $150 bucks for it. Here is how it works:
You pay ATT for service that sucks and doesn’t work.
You pay for and bring your own Internet service and router.
You pay an additional 150 for the ‘Microcell’ from ATT.
BUT YOU DON’T ACTUALLY GET TO USE IT TILL APPROVED.
The conditions are:
AT&T must know which accounts / cell phone numbers are using it.
No large offices, only 4 users allowed at a time.
You cannot unplug and move the microcell, it must stay at the same location (e911 regulations perhaps?).
You promise not to improve cell phone service for anyone else like your neighbors etc.
Sounds great, huh?
Thank you for the informative breakdown. I’ve always wondered why the bars drop suddenly when making a call, and then creep back up. I’m in San Diego and ATT has never worked right or at all in my home. Step outside and its ‘ok’ dropping all the time with full bars.
As far as iPhone4’s hardware problem. I believe this is a cell phone problem in general. iPhone4’s issues can be duplicated on virtually any phone just by holding its antenna. However, its just merely more obvious with iPhone4 as the antenna is on the outside and that little gap can easily be touched with a bare finger. Just cover the lower half of the iPhone 3G or grasp the rubber dingy on flip phone and the same thing happens.
My problems are solely with ATT. All my phones (flips, candy bars, and iPhones) have always sucked on ATT. I’ve left them and only returned to sore disappointment because of the iPhone’s alluring features. Damn them!
Thanks for all this useful info but the crappy speaker on my wife’s iPhone 4 sounds fine — great in fact. Her iPhone 4 sounds tinny TO THE PEOPLE SHE IS CALLING. It’s strictly an outbound problem. Other iPhone 4 users have reported to me their callers saying the same thing. Maybe some phones are better than Mrs. Cringely’s but not all.
That would be a codec that they are using to in code here voice like g722 can sound tinny to a lot of people
Bob, why are you yelling at us? :'(
crappy mic?
The 4 has a new noise-cancelling system, with a 2nd mic away from the main one. As a rough approximation, the phone subtracts the 2nd mic’s sounds from the first’s. If Mrs. holds the phone’s main mic close to her mouth, the ambient noise, which would be about the same at both, subtracts out, while her voice, louder at the main mic, gets cut proportionately less.
As typical for noise-cancelling like this, if she holds her phone so that both mics get about the same volume from her mouth, it’ll sound hollow or tinny: especially the lower frequencies will be cancelled. (Less chance for them to hit the two mics at different phases.) I’ve had trouble being heard when using the iPhone as a “speakerphone,” perhaps for that reason. I assume this is a kink that Apple will work out when there’s not a clear difference in the two channels’ content, or when the proximity sensors find no head nearby. (They need some work, too, for an unrelated issue.)
Dunno how it’d work with a headset mic, bluetooth or wired. At worst, Apple might turn off the noise-cancelling; at best it might work reeeely well.
I will just add that the signal-to-interference conditions are completely different on the forward channel (what Mrs Cringely hears) vs the return channel (what others hear Mrs Cringely say). So there are really three different measures:
When you’re not on a call, you monitor and measure the strength of a “pilot” channel transmitted by the tower. This is necessarily a strong signal, because it has to reach everyone in the cell.
When you’re on a call, you and the cell do the error rate dance to always use the lowest possible signal in each direction. There are all kinds of network engineering issues that are different in each direction. The return channel is the hard one to get right. It’s quite possible AT&T has sacrificed the return channel to make room for more download capacity.
Now I’m wondering if we won’t see two different indications when you’re on a call? They would have to be simple. I predict two light, like traffic lights, showing green, orange or red.
Another possibility for data would be to show achievable data rates (in each direction) as a fraction of the full rate. A little pie with a piece cut out.
“They have a limited supply of funds, so they tend to spend it where there are the most subscribers.”
then pray tell, why is signal strength horrible in San Francisco STILL? Not enough subscribers? I disagree. Why is t-mobile here even better than AT&T? They are both GSM…could it be that AT&T got shanked when they bought spectrum that doesn’t penetrate walls?
I wonder if 4G will level the playing field?
“Calls can be handed off from one tower to another when you’re in motion. This is probably the number one reason for signal drops, since now you’re not only getting all sorts of multipath issues, but you’re actively transferring the call signals between towers, the towers have to synchronize effectively, your phone has to handle the tradeoff and change radio signals, etc, etc.”
Otto provides a great explanation above, but leaves out one important detail.
GSM uses what is called SOFT handoff, where, as you transition between two towers, the first tower drops you BEFORE the second tower picks you up. There is then a very short window during which your phone and the second tower negotiate a connection.
CDMA uses HARD handoff, where the connection to the second tower is negotiated and settled before the first tower drops the connection. This allows for rather more time to handle things.
I suspect that at least part of the ATT vs Verizon difference comes down to this technical fact. The question then is why results are different in other GSM countries. This could be (I have no idea, and I don’t know if anyone else has the numbers) because the US runs their towers at higher capacity (more users/tower) or at lower density. The point is that, even at the same tower density, chances are Verizon would do better in this respect than ATT.
——————-
As for iphone antenna issues, seriously, people, who the heck HOLDS a phone these days? Why not just use a BT headset? It’s vastly more convenient, keeps oil off your phone screen, keeps your hands free — and there is the whole driving aspect.
I’m not criticizing you for using your hands, I’m just telling you that you really should try using a headset full time. It’s like you are welcome to eat your food using your hands, but try a knife and fork for a few meals and you’ll find it really does improve the dining experience.
Complaints that bars and signal strength aren’t important in a digital radio system, because you either have a connection or you don’t, are extremely simplistic. There might have been some justification for that view on 2G networks, but 3G is different.
Better signal (read Otto’s post on this above) means a lower error rate. Transmitted speech is time-sliced into chunks, encoded and sent over the air. While it’s true that any particular encoded slice of a conversation either gets through or doesn’t, if you have a worse signal to noise ratio fewer will get through and the conversation will sound broken and difficult to listen to. Furthermore on a broadband 3G network better signal to noise equals more bandwidth for your data connection.
Therefore in theory the number of bars should indicate the quality of voice connection you will get and also the data bandwidth available. Whether or not the formulae used to calculate them mean this indication is accurate or useful is another question, but the concept is sound.
There are other factors to consider for voice quality though. The quality of the codec is very important, different phones sometimes support different codecs and this can affect their relative sound quality. For example on 2G networks the carriers responded to increased load on their networks by moving to ‘half rate’ codecs with lower bandwidth requirements but poorer voice quality. I haven’t worked in Telecoms for a while so I don’t know, but it’s possible modern phones switch to lower bandwidth codecs if there’s poor signal. This means that even though it’s a digital network, you get analogue-style effects such as degradation of voice quality with poorer signal.
wouldn’t it be nice if the network used progressively better redundancy and error correction as the reported error rates in a call worsened. I guess that would impact the number of concurrent calls on a cell but they’d at least be calls of better quality!!
In Israel we don’t have this problem. At least I never heard somebody complained about it. May be it’s becouse we have higher density of cellular antennas. It’s a very small country.
The iPhone 4 antenna isn’t that flawed. Ask the people who HAVE done some meaningful (though not definitive) testing:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2
MOD PARENT UP
This is a very well written, and informative link.
Great write up. Thanks for linking!
“It’s a stunning handheld computer, but not a good phone.”
I’m no Apple hater, but doesn’t that describe every iPhone made so far?
Just for what it’s worth, I live in Rochester, NY, and AT&T’s network is fine here. I switched from Verizon to AT&T (Treo to iPhone), and saw no noticeable difference in call quality, dropped calls, etc. Interestingly, I’d have to say that my wireless network performance is more better and more reliable than my landline via TimeWarner cable.
Alan, you can’t use “more” as an intensifier with “better”. “Better” by itself is fine. I hope this friendly reminder wasn’t too annoying.
There is not always a correlation between signal strength and number of bars. I was once told by an engineer at a cellular provider that “bars” is a parameter that the tower can actually send out to the phone – to tell the phone how many “bars” it has.
My iPhone is only “not a good phone” when I’m in the USA.
To address l.a.guy, I’m half way between NYC and Philly (suburbia!) and have been on Cingular/AT&T for a long time. Generally I don’t have any problems with calls on my iPhone 3G, though there is one spot where I know I’ll lose calls. When I’m in NYC I don’t call much, but I usually don’t have any problem with data.
Don’t know, though; maybe if I had exposure to another network I would think worse of AT&T. But around here people complain about Verizon as much as AT&T.
Mrs. Cringely’s iPhone 4 is much worse as a phone than was her old iPhone 3G that died an ignoble death from Fallon’s squirt gun (NOT covered under Apple’s warranty).
Last summer we travelled 9,000 miles in our RV with phones from both AT&T and Verizon and the Verizon coverage outside of urban areas was vastly better. If you don’t travel outside urban areas this may not matter, though as Stephen explained, above, there are parts of San Francisco that are remarkably rural when it comes to phone coverage.
On this summer’s Startup Tour we have service from AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint and I’ll be reporting on the comparative performance of all four as we travel.
What did you do with the 3GS phone? I have a friend who fixes iPhones. If you don’t want it fixed he would be interested in buying it for parts.
So how is your verizon phone’s coverage outside the usa? Part of the reason why I have at&t & an iphone is because it uses GSM. But yea at&t does not spend enough on rural towers because they are maximizing their profit at the expense of customer coverage quality. Fortunately for at&t veriozon’s customer service is horrible.
I want an iphone4 with android 2.2 that works on veriozon’s network with a contract though a european carrier.
It is not only about the signal strength at the antenna. The software in the communications chipset plays a part too.
I don’t have any access to an iPhone 4. But for the same weak signal strength, my Samsung Galaxy S works, while iPhone 3GS won’t.
At my home, iPhone 3GS can show 2 bars on standby, but disconnects from the network when I try to use it (e.g. go to the App Store). At exactly the same location, Samsung Galaxy S shows 0 bar but can still stream youtube videos non stop.
https://www.wengyee.com/tiki-index.php?page=Singtel-Iphone
I spent 7 months to “fight” with my telco. They keep dragging their feet on improving their network at my location. Finally, I took them to court, and they negotiated settlement by exchanging my iPhone 3GS to Samsung Galaxy S. Have been using the Samsung phone for 2 weeks without any drop call problem.
Kiat-
I’m curious, did you try more than one iphone 3GS? I have found that no matter who the carrier is, the phone’s radio is King. If you get a phone with a bad radio in it or just slightly ‘off phase’ then it can make you hate your carrier. When I switched to Verizon I bought an HTC Incredible which had a bad radio…how could I tell? Verizon sounds horrible. I switched it out and I could not be happier with the voice quality.
Who are you all, you’re off your rockers, you just now discovered that the cell phone provider ATT drops calls?
Are you all for real what we need is a independent test not “opinion” like of some dufus who works for Consumer Reports saying calls were dropped when he was home in Westchester, Come ON! DO A REAL TEST OR SHUT UP
You’re mean! ~:-O
ATT LuvR~
There was a report done by Consumer Reports which gave city-by-city rankings. Verizon came out on top, followed by T-Mobile. Sprint was in dead last in almost every city but AT&T actually came in last in a few.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/january/electronics-computers/cell-phone-service/overview/cell-phone-service-ov.htm
-ss
Rogers (originally the sole network for iPhone in Canada) had similar network issues as ATT, at least in the province of Ontario. Recently I moved to a location within the city limits of Canada’s largest city and found I had no signal whatsoever in my house. After a great deal of prodding, Rogers let me out of my contract and I switched to Bell. Since then I’ve had far fewer issues with reception and dropped calls–despite the fact that, as Cringley pointed out, Rogers and Bell often have their transmitters on the same tower.
My theory is that this is because Bell’s GSM network is new and has little traffic, whereas with Rogers, traffic issues would often force my connection from the nearest tower to one further afield. In a few weeks I’ll be getting an iPhone 4, which hopefully will be at least as good as my old 3G.
What a great topic! Bob, publish this column as a Dummies Guide to Cellular Phones and you’re made! I certainly learned more from this one column than a myriad others on the subject 🙂
OK, I like Apple computers but I don’t have an iPhone – Instead I have an HTC Legend. A colleague at work let me play with his new iPhone 4G. I was keen to see what all the fuss was about and … (Ta-Da! Dramatic drum roll) … I’m left handed …
Well what an anti-climax, it seemed fine to me. Didn’t notice any noticeable signal difference by changing hands! I’m in the UK and it was on our O2 network – the original UK iPhone service – plenty of reliable signal-bars (which I now know means very little!) but it worked fine.
Back at home O2 is weak whereas Vodafone – with a tower at the bottom of my hill (!) – lovely and strong. So that’s *my* network. A set of bars might be a complete lie but I assume they are at very least, relative, on the same equipment.
One thing I notice though is that a super-duper 3G, HDSPA and-all-that-jazz phone (HTC Legend) gets less signal bars than my old GSM phone (LG Pop). No doubt I need a “part two” column to explain this, but it’s very clear in reality. Also, I guess I should note that my HTC is made of aluminium whereas the LG is plastic. However an even older Sony 3G phone suffered the same signal drop and had to be placed half-way up the stairs to maintain a reliable signal!
I think what I’m getting at is that we, as consumers, should be given a better and more informed choice. It’s no good being sold the Earth, signing up on-line for a long mobile-phone contract only to find the peerless gadget you chose is dropping calls or tinny or best in urban areas rather than rural…
It’s a place where the marketing men and women should defer to engineers.
(P.S – Ironically as I wrote that one of the automatically served-up ads in the right column was for some kind of case to: “Improve iPhone 4 Antenna Performance” !!! Could be the answer everyone has been waiting for!)
This is a symptom of a larger problem. It doesn’t matter if you’re AT&T, Apple, or any other major corporation. Corporations (and those who head them, invest in them, etc.) are so lustful for egregious profits that they take the easiest path to gaining them. This means that marketing and PR have become inflated in importance while the value of actual, hard work, turning out a quality product, service, etc. has been degraded. This says a lot about the declining quality of our education and the decline in American values- namely our work ethic- which was previously regarded as among the best anywhere. The status quo is NOT sustainable. This is a shame.
Kent, it’s a shame that people who care about morals are so often cannon fodder for people with axes to grind, people who often use technical mumbo-jumbo to distract us from the (lack of) relevance or their purpose.
I.e., assuming you’re not yourself trying to make Apple look bad by playing a hand-wringer, you’ve been used. After truth, the second casualty in war is integrity.
Directly to your concern, Apple is following industry standards by showing 5 bars when the signal is so strong that stronger would not make voice any clearer or data any faster. Different manufacturers use a somewhat similar figure, but for all, this figure may well be only 0.01% as strong as you’d get standing next to the cell tower that none of us want in our back yard. From the top, there’s almost a billion-to-one range of signals that are very- to somewhat-usable.
One of the linked sites shows an independent field estimate of how Apple shows bars for different signal strengths versus a competitor phone. Both max out at a similar level, and both drop down to zero at a similar, unusable level. Between, both add bars at approximately the same rate — Apple adds a bar when the signal strength slightly more than doubles. As above, that gets to 5 bars well short of the fry-your-eyeballs level that you could be exposed to.
And the technical evaluations linked are actually fairly similar in saying this. The “grade inflation” that is implied here and that bothers you, is simply not in the facts.
Anyway, per Groucho’s “who are you gonna believe? Me, or your lying eyes?,” people care about call quality, not bars. As somebody who’s used three of the majors and whose wife uses the fourth, I can tell you: each carrier has pockets in our major metro area (San Francisco) where a call is simply not possible. Most now have detailed coverage maps that you can look up and confirm: no coverage. while there are good reasons to want better coverage and service from AT&T, singling them out as the sole sinner is purely politics.
The reason I’m so hard on Cringely’s link is that he makes a “speculation” that Apple will soon start reporting bars honestly, without (1) saying what Apple might actually do differently, or even (2) what “honestly” would mean. He drops further into the snark by speculating that Jobs would dishonestly tout “how their phones work flawlessly all the way down to one bar.” At that point, I went back to see: yes, that’s where the whole piece was going.
Apple took some design chances with the iPhone 4, and as all the tech evaluations show, it gets better reception than its predecessors, maybe better than its competitors, as long as it’s not purposefully held (the “death grip”) in a way that blocks or alters the antenna’s electrical properties. (Some users, like myself, haven’t found signals impaired even inadvertently held to cover the antenna; others have.) Go back and check the links; they say that.
Further, Apple intentionally changed the radio’s logic to link up not necessarily the strongest signal, but the one that would deliver the best call. It is obvious that all these changes were made to deliver a superior end-user experience. You wouldn’t know that if you just listened to the outrage.
The Yelpers have taken over the discussion, claiming it is “unacceptable” to lose so much signal by a particular way of holding it; that users were foolish to accept being controlled by Jobs. Of course, this is not terribly different from Callaway making a different golf club design and proposing a different grip & swing, or BMW’s instruction manual telling you how to shift gears for best mileage, but to people who want to make Apple look demonic (and kill sales by saying buyers are foolish for buying into the Reality Distortion Field), all these assertions are the means to that end.
So the Republic is not about to collapse in a cesspool of immorality because Apple now has a phone that can go from having a good connection, to no connection, just by holding it a normal way. And these anti-Apple assertions have been around for years; they happen to have a new justification this week, helped no doubt by there finally being competitive offerings from Google that partisans want to boost. The truth will eventually out about how appropriate any given phone is for any type of customer.
You can direct your efforts at something truly horrendous to your values, such as the de-funding of public education in almost all the states, practically guaranteed to lower standards of everything in the country. Or the way that blogs serve as mouthpieces for some corporate interests in ways that are hard for ordinary citizens to catch because we don’t have the context for their roles that we had with the old media.
I’ve been using the iPhone (3G) since it was released in Japan and have never had a problem with either voice or data (except in the subway – which is to be expected). SoftBank has been a great host for the iPhone. All of these stories about how bad the phone is for voice clearly come down to it being about the 3G network it’s on.
If the problems with the iPhone 4 come down to the number of bars displayed, then there will be no difference in quality here in Japan. If the problem is with the way it’s held, then there will be a huge uproar about it here in Japan.
Hmmm. I’ve only heard about this being a problem on ATT’s network.
Forget the technical details…I’m interested in the drama that will ensue as Verizon leverages this debacle in their advertising. I think Verizon fired their first volley with the new campaign, “The Most Powerful Transmitter is You”.
If Verizon plays their cards right, this could turn into a total disaster for AT&T, and maybe Apple, although I doubt the latter. Verizon wants the iPhone too much to insult Apple very much.
Dunno how seriously VZ actually wants the iPhone, but they’re more than smart enough to know that dissing competitors is crummy marketing. Emphasize what you’re good at, and how it matters to your customer.
And besides, as you can tell from the vitriol around this issue, there are plenty of unpaid assassins quite happy to do it for you, for whom you bear no responsibility.
Win-win.
Remember the movie “Spinal Tap” ? Whereas other amps max out at 10, ours goes to 11. When you’ve got 10 and need just a little bit more, well we’ve got 11.
It the same with bars: 4 bars, 5 bars, 100 bars . . . a google bars . . . why not?
In Canada, the volume on our phones goes up to 11.
It’s Gray Powell’s fault! 😉
One thing never changes — as an early adopter, you get to experience both the good and the bad, for any product.
I imagine Apple’s and Foxconn’s procurement departments are currently lining up a supply of coating materials for subsequent iPhone 4s.
early adopter? get real.
This article would have been better if it were just a link to Dave Miller’s original… but then there wouldn’t have been any scope for snide remarks about how people outside the US don’t know shit about marketing. Then again, being good at something which places hype above substance is hardly something to be proud of.
Cellphones are just sophisticated walkie talkies. Don’t expect too much of them.
I work in the RF fields business and thus am a techno-weenie on RF signal strengths. I don’t work in the cell phone or communications business and thus have been guessing about what goes on in the phones. It is my belief that cell phones use the received signal strength for several reasons. They measure received power in some sort of quantitative sense. I’ve seen on TV a photo of some phone where that information is directly available to the owner, in units of power called “dBm” of signal strength. dBm is a direct measure of RF power at the phone’s receiver. I’ve separately read a blog from some apparently knowledgeable person that said for the iPhone, the minimum usable signal has a strength of -113 dBm. And also that Apple’s visible signal strength bars do not linearly reflect the dBm signal strength but rather exaggerate the weaker signals.
That said, I think the signal strength measurement goes to at least three locations in the phone: the bar display, the variable transmitter power circuitry, and the receiver lock/disconnect circuitry (my speculations). The bar display has been the focus of much of the printed material on the web, but that is a misdirection: if your phone works, nobody ever looks at that display anyway. What really counts is if the phone works, and apparently some ways of holding it cause grief. The question of why Apple never noticed this to be a problem apparently is because it depends on how close your hand gets to the antenna; when they had external disguises on the phones when the phones were seeded to Apple employees, the hands/fingers would not touch the antenna. Also, I bet Cupertino has one of the strongest cell phone networks in the world, so they may never have been in a weak signal zone to catch the problem. The adaptive power adjustment is a means to save battery power and no talk has been focused on whether this is an issue or not. The matter of lock/unlock/disconnecting or never connecting phones with a weak signal can be adjusted to a small degree, but it is there to avoid running with a low signal/noise ratio with cell tower handoff disruptions and other disruptions, I suspect (if there is such a circuit).
There is a separate issue about how good the antenna is at translating a given electric field strength out of the air into dBm at the receiver input. That may be what Apple has been talking about when they talk about “the best antenna we have ever made”. And that may be true, but putting your hand across the antennas mucks up the signal much like playing with you TV’s rabbit ears antenna, sometimes in a positive direction and more often in a negative direction. I read a blog somewhere that even a piece of cellophane tape is enough to noticeably remove the effect of your hand. I would hope that could be a key to the solution.
Also, there is another effect at these frequencies. That is, because of wavelength issues and reflections from objects around you, moving the phone only a few inches can make a surprising difference in signal strength. That is why some WiFi routers have dual or multiple antennas, with circuitry inside to select the best signal from the several antennas. I have read that some phone manufacturers are considering or even using the multiple antenna method to circumvent the “standing wave” issues of this sort.
I’m waiting for Apple to resolve the technical issues, and also to give a better technical answer to their generally technically aware users and owners. (I think the Apple phone users can handle news items with a bit of technically oriented answers.) Some their news statements have been misdirecting at best, and containing little or no usable information for the technically oriented reader.
In any event, Apple by now should know the issues far better than me, and I hope they can quickly get a solution that will meet their customers’ needs.
You really should pay more attention to their “More bars more places slogan.” It’s typical marketing doublespeak. I don’t remember the wording of the asterisk, but to the effect: “considered globally.” So, they’re saying you have more coverage across the world, not more bars where you’re standing.
Steve Gibson suggested that the bars were not accurate recently: “Simply stated, Apple’s “5-bars” cellular signal strength display is not showing the full range of possible, or even typical, received cellular signal strength. It is only showing the BOTTOM END of the full range of possible reception strength.”
See
http://steve.grc.com/2010/06/26/iphone-4-external-antenna-problem/
Hmmm, Michael, there’s roughly a billion-to-one difference between a barely-usable signal and one that’s about as strong as a phone will encounter.
Portion out the bars equally, and it’d take a signal 64X as strong to go from zero to 1 bar; 64X stronger to 2, etc.
Three, four and five bars would all give you all the signal you want, or could use. Four or five bars wouldn’t make your calls clearer or your downloads faster. What would the use of *that* be?
So Apple, like all the other competitors I’m aware of, ramps up to five bars when it gets a signal that’s as good as it needs to be “perfect.”
The issue is that the intentional “death grip,” or *some* individuals’ way of holding the phone, can cause the actual signal to drop preciptiously. The iPhone4 antenna is designed to get a better signal (check this article’s links; they all say that) but it is MORE susceptible to degradation. Especially, to intentional degradation that allows Yelp-mentality people to scream, “UNACCEPTABLE!!! APPLE SUX!!!”
Unmentioned is that many of us, holding the phone naturally (and in my left hand, since I’m a rightie who often takes notes on calls), can make calls where before, we couldn’t.
The clever antenna trick helped reception and helped shrink the phone, both good, but I guess nobody will say it was Apple’s best design choice ever. Users who think it might be a problem should watch out and be prepared to exercise the money-back guarantee.
But the smear campaign on this is deafening. Sources like Gizmodo, with axes to grind; lots of eternal anti-Apple people picking up on the issue. Many sources, such as linked from here, document the issue and conclude, “meh.” And then, lots of opinionators pick a side and pretend they know what they’re talking about.
[…] original here: I, Cringely » Blog Archive » So Steve Jobs walks into a bar … Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: below-which, does-not, even-pretend, gaston, get-zilch, […]
I was the sysadmin for the Usenet gateway in Intel’s corporate HQ, supporting the executive staff, when the Pentium ‘flaw’ issue blew up all over Usenet. As an AAPL stockholder this whole issue is giving me a very unpleasant feeling of deja vu. Especially Jobs’, er, Apple’s refusal to give away or discount those $29 ‘bumper’ cases. Come on, they probably cost $1.29 to make, tops.
Bob, didn’t you read Apple’s press release? It said the AT&T algorithm they are going to use will show fewer bars not more bars.
@WaltFrench – don’t worry, as you say, the market will decide, not people who write to techno-blogs. The simple fact is that any RF device is subject to interference and attenuation. We tend not to notice most of the time because there is sufficient signal. While Apple has not handled this well (denial is not a great way to defend yourself), the practical implications of the death grip (for any phone) are minimized by the fact that as soon as voice quality degrades, people shift their stance and/or device. What the iPhone 4 does differently, is allow exploitation of signal attenuation by making is easier to occlude the antenna as its on the outside. The Nexus One doesn’t appreciate big hands either. Will this have a significant effect on people who appreciate the user experience of an iPhone 4 vs and HTC Evo? Unlikely – but that doesn’t mean that Apple should not take the matter seriously. Recalibrating the signal strength display is a Band-Aid solution for a vulnerability that is essentially a design compromise.
P.S. How come I get the Mobile Theme accessing this site on a laptop (selecting the conventional layout doesn’t stick…)?
Nice article. I love how you can always find the one detail from somewhere behind the curtain and let us all pay attention to it.
I do have to take issue with one point, though. The iPhone is NOT a computer, fine or otherwise. It is an appliance. If it were a computer, I would be able to load whatever software I chose, not what Apple wanted me to be able to buy (from them) for it. I would be able to load open source or 2rd party software on it and make it do what I need or want, even if I wrote it myself.
Tom: I see your point there. However I think I agree it’s a fine computer in that it runs a thin version of OS X and runs applications for various uses. A computer by definition – an O/S plus applications? As an appliance I might think of “White Goods” (don’t know what my friends in the US call this) and by these I mean refrigerators, freezers, dish-washers. “Brown Goods” are TVs, Hi-Fi’s (marginalised now I realise!) I worked in electrical retail as a lad.
My Legend is certainly a phone, first and foremost, but I regard it as a connected computer too. Isn’t this what a “smartphone” is meant to be?
As for Apple’s stringent rules over application development … Well that’s why I have an Android phone! 😀
I always thought the more bars thing was due to AT&T’s choice of representing the signal with 5 bar indicators instead of other carrier’s four. So it’s totally meaningless. My morning commute previously passed by one of their “More Bars” signs, where I always got dropped. Perfect!
[…] Cringely wrote an article about this article. In the discussion that followed, Bob reminded us that “with AT&T losing its U.S. […]
If AT&T’s service is so poor, why don’t you people just cancel your service and stop paying? They would never get an early termination fee from me. I would say you are not providing the service I contracted for, therefore I refuse to pay for it. Simple. Bye. Or return the d*** phone if it doesn’t work. If apple doesn’t agree, just dispute the credit card charge, as service not rendered, merchant refuses to correct.
Or you can keep whining and paying for nothing, like suckers.
If AT&T’s service is so poor, why don’t you people just cancel your service and stop paying? They would never get an early termination fee from me. I would say you are not providing the service I contracted for, therefore I refuse to pay for it. Simple. Bye. Or return the d*** phone if it doesn’t work. If apple doesn’t agree, just dispute the credit card charge, as service not rendered, merchant refuses to correct.
Or you can keep whining and paying for nothing, like suckers.
ESR has an interesting point about all this antenna mess.
Consumerreports.org just published:
Lab tests: Why Consumer Reports can’t recommend the iPhone 4
This means that Apple cannot ignore the antenna problem.
you need to read consumer reports test and go to the dollar store and get some duct tape.
Yep,
I subscribe online and viewed the CR video.
Don’t always agree with CR for long term reliability- I would take an “overpriced” Kirby Vaccum (20 years and still working fine) over a top rated Hoover Wind Tunnel (five years and kerrrr plop) any day.
However, with respect to immediate rather than future performance,
duct tape (or left lower corner touch avoidance) it is.
“DT-LLCTA”.
Do the make thin invisible duct tape?
CR subscriber since 1973.
I have until August 6 to return my iPhone 4. I think there is a “re-stocking fee”. My SpeedTest.net numbers are great at home where I use WiFi. At work I have to use 3G and the results are unpredictable and all over the map: sometimes 1.3mbs and sometimes 0mbs – and every kind of reading in between. I do my test on the same spot everytime: the iPhone 4 laying on my desk about 3 feet from my keyboard.
Sounds like you have a different 3G problem that can’t be fixed with a bumper case. If other AT&T 3G phones work fine in the same test, you should ask them to exchange it for another iPhone 4. If that one passes your test, you’ll be in the same position as everyone else with an iPhone 4: just need a bumber case in weak 3G signal areas. Consumer Reports is completely correct except for their conclusion. The 3GS is not a better phone just because it doesn’t need a bumper case. That’s a personal decision based on all things considered.
i consider it was a bit rushed, and not noted some options that not many people talk about. Everyone knows that the majority new smartphones have web, so why present that primary operate at its bear minimum. Scroll up scroll down zoom in zoom out. Actually? which new cellphone doesnt do that? How bout talk about how the textual content rearranges itsself. Also the texting, very poor review. Why didnt you mention you can use the mic and text along with your voice? Neglected ALOT of different extra important features
Isn’t most of the phone issues with the iPhone due to the network and not the phone itself?
Whatever happened to Verizon offering the iPhone on their network? I thought this was definitely going to happen and happen before the end of the year. Now I am not so sure?
Does anyone have any information about that?
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Also, there are several advertisers using your forum. Don’t you weed it out from time to time?
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