TechRiot | News & Reviews

News about antenna:

When well this whole antenna affair die down? Being an opportune chance to damage Apple’s reputation, those conspiracy theorists out there were bound to say that Apple knew about it all along and went along with its release anyway. Then there was the leaked ‘job advert’ asking for antenna engineers a day before the iPhone’s release, then Apple said all the smartphones have the same problem and now there’s rumours Apple have known about the problem for a whopping two … [visit site to read more]

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As we reported recently, after their iPhone 4 press conference Apple dragged other smartphone manufactures such as Research in Motion, HTC, and Samsung into the antenna fiasco when they claimed that ‘grip of death’ issue was an industry wide problem.

Following the press conference, Apple put an antenna performance page on its website to demonstrate how a number of other handsets … [visit site to read more]

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Nokia claims it always prioritizes antenna performance over physical design, and we’ll take them at their word, but that apparently didn’t exempt one Espoo handset from Apple’s grip of doom. Here’s the Nokia N97 Mini going down for the count, from a full seven bars to two. Of course, Apple doesn’t mention whether calls or data drop when the handset’s held this way. Video after the break.

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Oh, Steve — you should’ve known better. You show up and remove a laptop from a manila envelope, and Earth’s most creative go and create a case fashioned out of one. You go and suggest that Eminem could “come out with a band-aid that goes over the corner” of your controversial iPhone 4, and well… this happens. You could wait for a free case, or you could buy six of these Antenna-aids for five bucks. The choice is obvious. Read the rest of this entry »

RIM and Nokia aren’t the only ones saying “WTF Steve!?” after last Friday’s press conference attempted to draw the competition into the Antennagate saga. Samsung has issued its own choice reaction about supposed problems with the Omnia 2, though this one is somewhat less sternly worded than the others:
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Yet more news on the iPhone 4 antenna fiasco; there’s been complaints, and fixes and independent tests but Apple themselves have been keeping quiet until now.

At a, some would say overdue, press conference Apple released pictures of its $100 million antenna testing centre consisting of 17 separate testing suites that test the iPhone antennae. The anechoic chambers are connected to sophisticated equipment that simulate cellular base stations, Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices and GPS … [visit site to read more]

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Apple’s Friday press conference may have left a bad taste in some rival handset manufacturer’s mouths, but not all of them are taking Cupertino’s derision of their devices seriously — HTC’s Droid Eris was arguably the most effected by the grip of doom, its bars dropping to zilch when held, but the Taiwanese company keeping any controversial opinions to itself for now. Instead, it’s sharing a simple percentage to help clear the air. Whereas Apple claimed over 0.55 percent of customers called AppleCare with reception-related complaints, HTC’s Eric Lin told Pocket-lint the Droid Eris technical support rate was 0.016 percent, nearly thirty-four times lower — though even with a seven-month head start, we have to wonder if the Eris sold close to three million by the time Verizon brought the axe down. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not surprising that after Apple finished explaining the iPhone 4 antenna issues to the press today, the company wanted to go one step further and say “yes, actually, we do test the hell out of these phones before we release them to the public.” Though Steve Jobs went over the lengthy and intensive kinds of radio evaluation that goes on at Apple’s headquarters, it didn’t seem to be enough for the folks in Cupertino. And that, we suspect, is why we were invited (along with a small group of other journalists) to take a brief tour of Apple’s Infinite Loop labs. Though we weren’t allowed to shoot video or take pictures, we can tell you about what we did — and what we didn’t — see and hear behind closed doors. Read the rest of this entry »

In case it wasn’t obvious enough from Apple‘s agitated response to our question during today’s iPhone 4 Q&A session in Cupertino, there’s no software fix in the pipeline for the antenna issues that are plaguing users today. A prior report in the New York Times seemed fairly confident that the troubles could (and would) be solved in the near term by a simple software update, but the company’s own Scott Forstall called said report “patently false.” So, there you have it — the only thing that’ll be fixed via software is how big your smallest bar of signal is. Beyond that, you’ll need to grab some Duct tape, a free case or a white glove if you’re looking to avoid attenuation entirely. Read the rest of this entry »

Nokia’s looking to ride the mojo of any negative fallout from today’s Apple press conference, slipping out a rather fascinating statement this afternoon. The gist of it is that Espoo’s keen on letting everyone know how much blood, sweat, and tears they’ve poured into perfecting their antenna design strategy over the years, going so far as to say that they “prioritize” it over the physical design of the phone if they need to in order to optimize its call performance — an opinion moderately different from the “we want to have our cake and eat it too” philosophy espoused by Jobs today. In closing, Nokia acknowledges that a “tight grip” can mess with the performance, though they say they’ve done a bunch of research on the ways their phones are typically held so that the antennas are placed optimally. Interestingly, there was a stink not long ago about the severe signal degradation some E71 users were seeing when they placed their hands on the lower rear of the phone — but you can’t win ‘em all, we suppose. Follow the break for the full statement. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple’s not really ready to say it’s sorry about the iPhone 4 antenna design, but it is willing to give all you darn squeaky wheels free cases for your trouble. Since Apple can’t build its own Bumpers fast enough, it will give you a few options and let you decide, then send it your way for free as long as you purchased the phone before September 30th. Not good enough for you? Well, if you already bought a bumper from Apple you’ll get a refund, and you can also return your phone for a full refund within 30 days as long as it’s unharmed.

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It’s fairly obvious that the howls around the web for Apple to address this antenna issue has gotten underneath the skin of one Steve Jobs, and in a fashion that’s very much unlike Apple (or AT&T, for that matter), the aforesaid CEO has actually handed out a bit of hard data surrounding dropped calls on the iPhone 4. According to Jobs, AT&T won’t reveal the exact amount of call drops for competitive reasons, but they did manage to push out a meaningful delta. As of today, they’ve noticed that the “iPhone 4 drops less than one additional call per 100 than the 3GS.” In other words, the iPhone 4 has actually been dropping more calls than the 3GS in the three weeks that the former has been on the market. Of course, Steve’s also playing up the fact that just a fraction of a percent of all buyers have bothered to call in about their bout with dropped calls (and why would you, knowing there’s no cure?), but it’s still interesting to finally get some cold, hard facts on this disaster. Even if it’s but a snippet. Read the rest of this entry »

According to financial publication Bloomberg, Steve Jobs was warned about the new antenna design as long as last year.

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Apple’s been pretty vague about what’s going to go down tomorrow at the press conference it’s holding in Cupertino, but we’re going to be there live, covering whatever it is they have in store for us. We have a feeling it’ll have at least something to do with that antenna issue you may or may not have heard about, so strap yourself into your seat, grab an orange soda, and keep it parked right at Engadget for the best, up-to-the-minute live coverage on the internet.

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Look, we get it. There’s a problem with the iPhone’s antenna. But was the open letter to Jobs calling for a “clearly written explanation of the cause of the reception problem” and a “public commitment to remedy it free-of-charge” really necessary? What, you don’t have better things to do? The full press release (and the Senator’s letter) is after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

As if we needed any more drama in this situation, Bloomberg has someone “familiar with the matter” that claims Apple’s own antenna expert, Ruben Caballero, told Apple management that the iPhone 4 antenna design could cause reception problems, dropped calls, and a serious engineering challenge. Caballero is a senior engineer for Apple with a large quantity of antenna patents under his belt, and while we certainly don’t know the whole story — perhaps his claims were somehow quelled by Apple’s own testing — it certainly adds a twist to this story if Steve Jobs and co. had been alerted to this very real problem during the design phase. The Bloomberg article also claims, from a different source, no less, that a carrier partner also raised antenna concerns before the release. Apple and Caballero naturally did not comment on this report. We’re not really sure about the real-world implications of all this behind-the-scenes drama, but we suppose we’ll see what Apple has to say for itself tomorrow. Read the rest of this entry »

Headline says it all folks. Obviously the company is going to be getting out in front of this antenna drama (finally). We’ve been invited and we’ll be there, presumably reporting live! It all happens at 10AM PT, Friday the 16th. Read the rest of this entry »

The controversy over the iPhone 4′s antenna issues continues to grow, particularly after Consumer Reports confirmed yesterday that every iPhone 4 suffers from signal attenuation when the phone is held with the lower left corner covered — a report that we confirmed with results from our own custom signal metering app. At this point, there’s no longer any question in our minds that the iPhone 4′s antenna can be made to lose signal by holding it “wrong” — and we definitely think it’s more than a little silly that simply holding the phone in your left hand has been nicknamed the “death grip.”

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It would seem that Apple can’t do anything right – according to Engadget they have taken to deleting comments from Consumer Reports after they failed to recommend the phone until the antenna issue is solved.

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…or can they? In case Apple has somehow managed to perfect the art of selective disremembrance across a wide population, here’s a refresher: Consumer Reports has thrown down the gauntlet, stating that it “can’t recommend” the iPhone 4 until the antenna issues are fixed, issues that its labs and ours have verified quite substantially. Apple apparently isn’t happy about that, and has taken to deleting threads about the Consumer Reports article from its support forums. Now, Apple deleting threads from its support forums is nothing new; outside of “regular” moderation, the company routinely deletes discussion of hardware flaws that it’s not ready to ‘fess up to, or just generally negative lines of thought about its products. Good thing the internet’s a big place, and if Apple’s not going to admit the antenna issue, there are plenty of ways to gripe about it. Feel free to express yourself in the comments below, for instance! Read the rest of this entry »

Although there’s never been any question that there’s something going on with the iPhone 4′s fancy new antenna system, we really haven’t seen any rigorous testing confirming that the issue is real, severe, and affects every phone. That just changed: Consumer Reports tested three iPhone 4s and several other AT&T phones in their RF isolation chamber that simulates varying levels of signal from every carrier, and found that the iPhone 4 was the only handset to suffer signal-loss issues. What’s more, CR directly says that its findings call Apple’s explanation of a miscalculated signal meter into question since the tests “indicate that AT&T’s network might not be the primary suspect.” CR found that simply putting duct tape over the bottom-left corner is enough to alleviate the issue — we’re guessing that’s Jony Ive’s worst nightmare — and says that while the iPhone 4 has the “sharpest display and best video camera” of any phone its tested, it simply can’t recommend the device until Apple comes up with a permanent and free fix to the antenna problem. Ouch.

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Can’t find an official iPhone 4 bumper? Driving yourself mad trying to give your new smartphone white glove treatment? Fret not, as a couple of case makers have outed new iPhone 4 clothing that’s meant to specifically dodge those naughty reception issues that seem to occur whenever your sweaty palm makes contact with that now infamous metal band. Element Case — the same folks responsible for the downright lust-worthy Joule stand for iPad — has just revealed their first iPhone 4 case, the Vapor (shown above). The company claims that its $79.95 enclosure provides an aircraft-grade, CNC’d aluminum frame lined with a shock-absorbent material, the latter of which “addresses iPhone 4 reception issues caused by direct hand to phone cradling.” For now, it’s up for pre-order (shipments are expected to start next week) in black / black and black / pink, with more colors to become available in the future. As for Ivyskin? It’s stepping things up even further by naming its product the “iPhone 4 Reception Case.” No need for subtly, we see. Hailed as the “world’s thinnest polycarbonate shell” for Apple’s latest iDevice, this here sleeve is the one to get if you’re look to minimize added bulk and not cover up any of Cupertino’s design cues. Best of all, this one retails for just $14.99 and ships with both front and back scratch-free body armors. Crazy that it has come to this, you know? Read the rest of this entry »