

Senior Apple engineer told Jobs antenna could fail - borism
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-15/apple-engineer-said-to-have-told-jobs-last-year-about-iphone-antenna-flaw.html

======
hop
Of course this was brought up. Apple generally does a 10-3-1 design process -
10 different fully working prototypes are made and they let the designers go
crazy. From that they further develop 3, then go with the best one. I've been
in some of these meetings as an external contractor and no detail is left out
- we made custom screws for them and did about 50 different design iterations
for one application.

Surely they had different antenna designs in the process - internal and
external. I think the pros outweighed the cons in the decision: Higher
reception signal than any internal antenna and a dual use, high strength steel
case exterior. The one caveat being that if you cover the lower left, the
signal will drop a bit, 10-20dB max. I agree with that logic and as a
consumer, if Apple offered both an internal and external antenna iPhone, I
sure as hell would go with the external - iPhone 4 reception
(unscientifically) is far better in my office than my old 3G and the steel
won't dent or crack like 2 black plastic ones I returned.

Now putting glass on the back... the jury is still out on that one.

~~~
glhaynes
That's what's so frustrating about this whole situation... most people seem to
be getting much better wireless performance from the 4 than any previous
iPhone.

But, Apple's a company selling devices to the public, and they have to factor
in the way "the public" works. And the public knows all about this issue at
this point (that the issue exists, that is — not the details of the issue)...
and that could have been foreseen. So even if the design is "the best"
according to Apple's particularly chosen set of engineering tradeoffs, it
still seems apparent they should've used some sort of coating or something.

~~~
melling
Can anyone provide technical articles discussing the iPhone 4's antenna? How
it compares to other phones, for example.

There are too many anecdotal stories. Personally, I'd like to see the issue
quantified.

~~~
scotje
<http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2>

Edit: Here's a pertinent quote from that article...

"So, an entire day and more than a quarter tank of gas later, here are the
results. Holding the iPhone 4 without a case, in your left hand, crossing the
black strip can result in a worst case drop of 24 dB in signal. As we'll show
in a second, how you hold the phone makes a huge difference across every
smartphone - and we've tested thoroughly in 5 different positions.

Now, there are two vastly different possibilities for what happens to the bar
visualization after you drop 24 dB. I happen to live less than one block from
an AT&T UMTS tower (it's across the street, literally), and have exceptionally
strong signal in all of my house - it's part of why I chose to live here,
actually. Signal is above -65 dBm in every single room, in most cases it's at
-51 dBm. When I incur that worst case drop of 24 dB from squeezing the phone,
I fall down to -83 dBm, which is still visualized as 5 bars.

However, in locales that have less signal, but where iOS still displays 5
bars, the drop of 24 dB is visualized much differently. For example, at
another test location, signal without holding the phone is -89 dBm, which is
still displayed as 5 bars. Cup the phone, and you'll fall all the way to -113
dBm. All the bars dramatically disappear one after the other, people think
they've dramatically lost all the signal, and you know the rest."

~~~
wisty
The problem isn't that the signal drops. The problem is that Apple fudged the
bars, to make "5 bars" show in more locations.

This fudging means that in a few cases, squeezing the phone will lose all the
bars, not just 1 or 2.

Now, they don't deserve to be beat up over their antenna design - they get
better signals than the old iPhones, even if you hold them wrong. They do
deserve to be beat up for fudging the bar calculations.

I guess that's karma - dishonest behavior highlighted a minor design flaw, and
now everyone is hung-up over the minor design flaw.

~~~
Tamerlin
"I guess that's karma - dishonest behavior highlighted a minor design flaw,
and now everyone is hung-up over the minor design flaw."

The same thing happened to Intel with the Pentium 5 FDIV bug. By denying it,
Intel turned a trivial bug into a major PR fiasco. Don't forget, it required a
floating point division with TWELVE significant digits to trigger the bug.

The only reason that it became a huge PR fiasco is that when a scientific
researcher ran into it, Intel tried to hide it.

------
dedward
I don't recall ever being involved in any project that didn't have risks, and
where someone predicted problems - and occasionally the wrong decision is made
and they end up right. Especially in RF.

------
mikecane
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture:

A good apology has three parts: 1. “I’m sorry”; 2. “It was my fault” and 3.
“How do I make it right”. The last part tells about your sincerity.
[http://teamrich.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/pausch-last-
lecture...](http://teamrich.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/pausch-last-lecture/)

Apple has to hit all of that, with #3 being; "Here is how we are going to make
this right."

You can argue all you want about the technical aspects of this, but a few days
ago, my _local news_ led with a three-minute report about Consumer Reports and
the iPhone. This is a Richter-scale sized PR disaster.

------
angstrom
They should just offer a generic case/bumper or $10 rebate towards the sale of
a range of cases with proof of purchase. Brand image restored, the world
continues spinning.

~~~
jonknee
Releasing a beautiful product that needs a plastic cover to function properly
(without this being made known at launch) is no way to restore brand image.
That's actually a great way to become a laughing stock and make the early
adopters feel like chumps. I think that woud actually be worse than doing
nothing--it admits fault.

Apple has never hosted a press conference like this, I doubt it will be for
something as simple as a free bumper.

~~~
redrobot5050
Critics have always and easily posited that Apple makes shiny devices that are
easily scratched up in your pocket or through day to day use. Critics have
always pointed out the need for a case to "properly use" an Apple
product...going as far back as the original 5GB Firewire only, Mac only iPod.

~~~
gmac
I disagree. I've had my iPhone 3G for 2 years and always carried it in my
pocket. I keep keys and coins (and anything else scratchy) in a different
pocket. The phone is completely unscratched (apart from tiny and unimportant
scratches on the plastic back from being placed on hard surfaces).

Every iPhone case I've seen has looked ugly and clumsy to me. The 'bumpers'
are better than most, but there's no way I'd be prepared to use one, even if
it were free.

------
something
Anyone else find it ridiculous that Chuck Schumer feels the need to weigh in
on this?

------
Tichy
So I guess at least one antenna engineer at Apple might be able to keep his
job.

~~~
borism
but will they fire Jobs?

------
sdh
"The company also said that a software error, dating to the June 2007 release
of the first iPhone, has resulted in overstated signal strength, leading users
to believe they had better reception than they did. Apple said on July 2 that
a software fix will be released “within a few weeks.”"

Bug or feature?

------
rimantas
Poor Apple. Every phone suffers from similar problem (admittedly to the lesser
degree), but now Apple will be forced to find the solution nobody was looking
before, just because all this attention. That would be double annoying to
them, especially because iPhone 4 _has_ better reception.

------
lallysingh
Would a little clearcoat have been that hard?

~~~
bradleyland
Well, the hardness of the clearcoat would certainly impact the durability of
that solution. Specifically, if the clearcoat were too hard, it would have a
tendency to chip. Too soft and it might show marks from impact or wear off
with the use of a case. It's a harder problem than it seems.

------
known
Is there any <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistle_blower> protection in
corporate environment?

------
jimfl
_a design chosen by Apple executives_

Ding!

------
jcapote
It feels like the external antenna was just a gimmick to sell phones because a
new screen + another camera isn't enough to warrant a new phone. I have never
had reception issues with the dozens of internal-antenna phones I've owned.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

------
coliveira
This is just noise created by the media. 2 months from now everybody will be
happily using the iPhone without changes, as I do now. For example, about
consumer reports... What was the last time you read that publication to decide
what phone to buy? Most people wouldn't care less.

~~~
billturner
I think the magazine is more widely read than you think. Their mobile phone
coverage is actually quite good, and very in-depth - including quite a bit of
consumer polling along with their own testing.

~~~
coliveira
I am not questioning the quality of the magazine, just saying that only a
small number of people read it. 99% of the customers just look at the phone,
think it is cool, and buy it.

Moreover, even if you read the magazine and see the negative recommendation, I
doubt you wouldn't buy the iPhone just because of that.

