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Not a happy iPhone 4 customer

andy — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 17:30:11 +0000

So I went to the Apple Genius Bar today with my iPhone 4 issues. It was a fairly unsatisfactory experience, especially compared to when I took my iPhone 3G back when dust* started appearing on the screen and they replaced it without question.

Before my Genius Bar appointment I compared the performance of my iPhone 4 with the others in the shop. There was only one iPhone on O2, so that was the only one I could really test.

From what I could tell my phone is not atypical, the one in store that I tested behaved exactly the same, huge drop off of signal and download performance when held lightly in my left hand. I took my 3G with me as well, it suffered no such problem held the same way.

Read on for the gory details of what followed.

So I had my Genius Bar appointment, the guy I spoke to plugged it in to get the diagnostics dump, which showed zero dropped calls. This isn’t a surprise because I’ve only made about 3 calls since I got the phone, I use it mainly for apps, browsing, texting etc

He told me that there wasn’t a problem with reception in the iPhone 4. I asked about the press release and the upcoming update. He told me that it would fix the problem and that the problem was only that the signal strength was reported wrongly.

I explained that it wasn’t just the signal bars that were at issue, that in my testing download speeds drop by 90% or more.

I asked if I could try a Bumper case to see if it would solve the issue. He found me one and I fitted it to the my phone.

Sure enough with the Bumper in place I could not trigger the massive drop in signal/performance. I demonstrated this all to him and that the Bumper solved the issue.

He refused to consider giving me a free Bumper and asked if I’d like to talk to the manager about it, I said yes. He was very quick to get the Bumper back off me before he went off to get the manager !

The manager was nice enough, but we spent 10 minutes going round and round same argument.

He kept pointing out that all phones suffer a drop in signal when you hold them (which is no doubt true). I kept pointing out that I wasn’t attempting to compare it to just any other phone, but to Apple’s own 3G which doesn’t suffer a 90% drop in performance in the same circumstances.

He kept saying they couldn’t consider 3rd party speed test results, he just kept banging out about there being no dropped calls (which is a bit like BT explaining to you that everything is ok if your phone still works but your ADSL speed has dropped through the floor). I kept explaining that I use the phone mainly for data and that I had demonstrated the issue just as easily with Safari as with the speed test apps.

He kept saying to wait for the update. I kept saying that the Apple press release says nothing about fixing the actual issue and just says that they are going to tweak the signal bars.

He kept saying that I couldn’t know what was in the update (which is true of course). I kept saying that if Apple were going to fix more that just the bar reporting then why didn’t they say so in the PR.

He kept saying that he didn’t see a need to give me a free Bumper as there was no antenna problem to fix. He also said that there hadn’t been a message from on high banning free Bumpers, he just didn’t feel that they needed to give any out.

He also said several times that if I wasn’t happy with the phone I could contact Apple Store Online (where I bought it) and ask for a refund.

But of course that is the one thing I don’t really want to have to do. Given the choice between going back to my old, slow, low res screen, crappy camera iPhone 3 and sticking with the excellent iPhone 4 that has serious reception issues in some circumstance, I’m going to pick the iPhone 4 every time I’m afraid.

Ironically I really quite like Bumper, had it not been for the reception issue and I had gone into the store today I probably would have bought one. I never wanted a case on my 3G, but the iPhone 4 feels in more need of protection and the Bumper isn’t really a case in the tradition meaning anyway.

And yes, I realise that I have probably gone beyond the range of rationality when it comes to the whole issue. I was surprised with the outcome today, I fully expected them to see that the Bumper resolved the issue as far as I was concerned and would have handed one over** to make me happy.

If Apple had just given me a Bumper today I would have gone away as a reasonably contented customer who had had his problem with their otherwise excellent product resolved. As it is they just sent me away pissed off and angry.

I’m sure everyone is through bored with me going on about this, so I shall try and shut up about it and wait to see what the software update brings. And no doubt next time I’m in an Apple store I’ll probably cave in an buy a Bumper

* I later discovered that this is perfectly normal for a 3G/3GS that spends a lot of time in your jeans pocket, they aren’t as well sealed as they first appear

** I realise that I don’t have any legal right to expect them to hand over a free Bumper and that if I’m not happy my recourse is to return the phone for a refund

Is my iPhone 4 faulty or is Apple’s PR complete bollocks ?

andy — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:54:10 +0000

Apple have come out with a formal response to the alleged iPhone 4 reception issues.

And of course John Gruber has come up with a brilliant translation of it.

Here is my take on it as an iPhone 4 owner.

I’d been hoping (and really expected) that there was going to be a real fix to this. As such I had been avoiding testing the issue too much, until now…

Updated: I did some more testing that shows the problem doesn’t occur in very, very good 3G signal areas, see the end of the article.

See what happened when I took my iPhone 4 to the Genius Bar.

Testing

I’ve just done some proper testing of it, comparing my 4 vs my 3G. I did it in a reasonable 3G signal, both phones (when sat by themselves without me holding them) holding 5 bars for long periods, occasionally dropping to 4 bars.

Either Apple’s press release is complete bollocks or my iPhone 4 is faulty.

With both phones sat without being touched the download speed, using a couple of different test tools, varies between 1,500k to 2,800k. It does vary quite a bit, which you would think would make testing difficult.

And it would, if there wasn’t such a dramatic drop in performance when the problem is triggered. When I just lightly touch the iSpot (can’t believe that isn’t what Gizmodo et al are calling it) the download performance drops to 50k-200k.

I get no such drops when I touch, hold or cup my 3G. Any drop that you get is well within the general variability of what you get when not handling either phone.

I really don’t give a toss what the signal bars indicate, it is the data throughput that matters and with my iSpot covered it is a ~10th of what it should be on my iPhone 4. For those that are curious when the spot is covered the bars quickly drop to minimum and it typically drops from 3G to GPRS.

Holding

And as to “hold it differently” ! I am a right handed person, but despite what the various reports seem to suggest, that doesn’t mean I hold my phone in my right hand. When I make calls I hold it in the left hand, when I am using the screen with two hands I hold it in my left and tap with my right. Only when I am using it one handed and using the screen do I hold it right handed.

When held right handed I can avoid touching the iSpot (though it is more natural for me to hold it touching the spot). When I am holding it left handed I can see no way, that I personally, can sensibly avoid touching the iSpot. I want to nestle the left hand corner down in the crease of my palm because it is the most comfortable and secure way that it fits in my hand. Even if I don’t tuck the phone into the crease of my palm, I find it very hard to hold the phone securely without touching the spot.

I find it bizarre that this issue was missed and also that Apple don’t seem to think that it is something worth fixing. Unless my phone is somehow atypical and that they don’t all behave the same way ?

Wanting

So I guess I am destined for a Genius bar appointment, where I require the outcome to either* be that they demonstrate that my phone is faulty and replace it or give me a free Bumper.

Assuming my phone is not atypical (which at this point seems unlikely), this is such a shame because other than this (very key) issue my iPhone 4 is just a stunning bit of kit.

I’m not angry about this, just very puzzled, again assuming that my phone is “normal”.

* there is I guess a third option of me rejecting the phone as not fit for purpose, but I really don’t want to consider that option at the moment

More Testing

I have my appointment with the Apple Store Genius Bar tomorrow. I’m the sort of geek who likes to know as much about a problem I am having with a product before I go back to the supplier and complain.

The fact that I didn’t know for sure how good the 3G signal I was testing with was bugging me, so I went out and did some more testing. I parked up 150 metres from the O2 3G tower that I was using for testing from home, I made sure I didn’t get too close as I’m well aware that too much signal strength can be just as bad as too little SNR.

The results were very interesting.

With the best 3G signal you could hope for I cannot trigger the 90%+ loss in performance on the iPhone 4. I can still trigger a drop in performance by touching the spot, but this time it is only the same 10%-30% drop that you get when you shield both edges of the iPhone 3G (and to be honest the 10%-30% drop could easily just been the variability of the 3G signal, impossible to tell without running dozens of speed tests and doing some stats).

So that would probably explain why some people don’t see the problem, if they were in very, very good 3G areas they may well never notice the issue.

However that doesn’t change the fact that the iPhone 4 still takes far less interference to trigger the drop in performance. On the 3G I have to shield both edges throughly to get the drop in the perfect signal location, on the iPhone 4 it still only takes a tiny touch of the spot (in normal use I would never trigger the issue on the 3G).

The end result is that in the perfect signal area, when held in my left hand the iPhone 4 and the 3G manage about the same download speeds (because the iPhone 4 loses its speed advantage due to the spot issue). On

uploads in the perfect location the iPhone 4 is comfortably faster.

All of which is great news for iPhone 4 users who hold the phone in their left hand and spend all their time in perfect 3G reception locations. Unfortunately that doesn’t match real life, I rarely find myself in locations with 3G reception as good as the “perfect location”.

It doesn’t change the fact that in good but not perfect locations in my testing, in my hand, my iPhone 4 drops down to 50k-100k speeds when my 3G in the same situation stays rock solid at 1500k-2000k.

I’m still holding out hope that my iPhone 4 is in some way atypical and can therefore be replace by one that has less of an issue with being touched, I’ll find out one way or another tomorrow. Unless of course the Apple store at Kingston has very, very good 3G coverage…