
Apple’s Antenna Design and Test Labs - ujeezy
http://www.apple.com/antenna/testing-lab.html
======
raimondious
After getting called out for having an issue every cell phone has, Apple did a
photo shoot of a testing facility that every other cell phone manufacturer
also has and used it as marketing.

~~~
edash
Your comment reminds me of the Mad Men episode where they create a Lucky
Strike ad campaign. The ad team offers up the slogan "It's Toasted" and the
Lucky team replies that all cigarettes are toasted.

"It's Toasted" became the Lucky Strike slogan despite their protests and was a
huge success. This wasn't entirely fiction of course, it was based on a true
story.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Strike>

See also: David Ogilvy's Shell campaign

[http://www.copywriting1.com/2007/10/famous-david-ogilvy-
tv-a...](http://www.copywriting1.com/2007/10/famous-david-ogilvy-tv-ad.html)

And Claude Hopkins' Schlitz campaign

[http://www.copywriting1.com/2007/10/claude-hopkins-
schlitz-b...](http://www.copywriting1.com/2007/10/claude-hopkins-schlitz-beer-
ad.html)

~~~
patio11
We were talking about a similar thing at the Software Industry Conference
today: apparently, telling people vacuously true things matters in some
circumstances. For example, giving reasons using the word "because" causes
compliance to requests: asking to cut in line at the copier works some of the
time, asking to cut in line "because I'm in a rush" works more, but asking to
cut in line at the copier "because I need to make copies" works almost as much
(i.e. much better than having no explanation)!

------
johns
I think we've found the problem. The guy in the chair is only testing the
phone with his right hand.

------
MikeCapone
They certainly don't kid around when they finally decide to answer bad PR.

~~~
ugh
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but so far this seems to be
some excellent crisis communication.

I’m actually surprised by that. I always thought of Apple as a fairly
undynamic one trick pony when it comes to PR. (The secrecy, suspense, big
event and hype cycle.) I should have noticed something when they released
their “Thoughts on Music” or “Thoughts on Flash” letters.

(— edit: wow. The top story right now on HN is not some article lamenting
Apple’s reaction, it’s cool pictures of Apple’s testing facilities. This is
fucking brilliant PR ;)

~~~
GrandMasterBirt
Will this be the next "intel inside" ploy? Except this time its "Apple's grab
for your money inside"? Or "Steve Job's awesomeness inside"?

What was the quote? "The only thing worse than being talked about all the
time, is not being talked about all the time". Because bad press can be turned
into awesome press.

------
dzuc
John Cage visits an anechoic chamber: 'Cage entered the chamber expecting to
hear silence, but as he wrote later, he "heard two sounds, one high and one
low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the
high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in
circulation." Cage had gone to a place where he expected there to be no sound,
and yet sound was nevertheless discernible. He stated "until I die there will
be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about
the future of music."' - <http://goo.gl/mFI5>

~~~
Anechoic
Just as an FYI, an RF anechoic chamber is not the same as an acoustic anechoic
chamber. One is designed for free-field testing of RF signals, the other for
free-field testing of acoustic signals.

------
Osiris
The one thing they never talked about is the difference between the iPhone 4's
external antenna (exposed) and the internal antennas in most phones.

Testing a various websites shows that while most phones drop signal, the
iPhone 4's signal dropped significantly more because the antenna is exposed
and your skin comes in direct contact with the antenna rather than just in
close proximity.

With the bumper "fixing" the problem, wouldn't putting the antenna inside the
case essentially create the same fix by putting non-conductive material
between the user and the antenna?

~~~
Terretta
Dropped more (-24 dB vs -17 dB), and yet picks up signal in significantly more
areas and is significantly more sensitive (-121 dB vs -113 db).

I like the innovative external antenna (Anandtech calls the design tradeoff
"ballsy") and I like holding more calls in more places. I'm willing to hold it
"right" in exchange.

~~~
axod
Surely the solution though is to improve signal strength _everywhere_ so it
isn't an issue. Other (admittedly smaller) countries don't have any issues
with cellphone coverage.

~~~
pohl
A solution with no tradeoffs...wonder why nobody thought of it before.

~~~
axod
... because the US telecoms companies suck?

------
callmeed
I like how the $100M testing labs include a rubber band and some sticks to
hold the phone.

~~~
jdawg
Yeah, I was thinking that too. Maybe Apple should make a $50M lab for
designing parts for phone testing. That would work!

------
mortenjorck
Fascinating. To my non-radio-engineer eyes the patterns look like acoustic
dampers—is it an illusion that they resemble the foam wall inserts in a
recording studio, and these are actually composed of a different material to
affect megahertz radio waves?

Furthermore, how are they _supposed_ to affect those waves, and to what end?

~~~
CamperBob
Wavelengths at RF frequencies and sound frequencies aren't very different;
sound travels about 1/300000 as fast as EM radiation, but typical frequencies
differ by about the same ratio.

In the RF chamber the foam inserts are impregnated with conductive material,
sort of like antistatic IC foam.

The surfaces are designed to present maximal absorption area to any wavefronts
within the room, and they're made all spiky and angular to disperse the
reflections that do occur, not unlike the way a Stealth aircraft works. The
goal, again in both the acoustical and RF test chambers, is to eliminate
standing waves to the greatest extent possible, across the whole frequency
range of interest. If you have standing waves, the measurements you make will
have unwanted dependencies on the physical location of the transmitting and
receiving antennas.

Play a sinewave through your speakers and you'll probably find large
variations in loudness as you move around the room. The whole idea behind
these expensive test chambers is to avoid that effect. They are also usually
shielded to keep external sounds/EM fields out, but this is actually a
secondary consideration for most users.

Edit: another reason for shielding the room, obviously, is so the company can
operate things like base-station emulators without running afoul of the law.

~~~
pvg
_sound travels about 1/300000 as fast as EM radiation_

Not going to nitpick about the wavelengths but you're off by a factor of about
3 here.

~~~
CamperBob
True; meters/sec versus feet/sec.

------
Aaronontheweb
This looks like something out of a James Bond movie villian's hideout - all it
needs is a self-destruct sequence announced over the PA system by some lackey
with a monotone voice who inexplicably sits through the entire process while
paitiently waiting to be engulfed in flames by the resulting explosion.

Sorry, I've had a lot of caffeine today.

~~~
Groxx
They've certainly got the spike-pit nailed.

~~~
Aaronontheweb
They need sharks.

------
sh1mmer
100% high-tech except for the rubber bands to hold the phones to stuff.

Edit: point being that sometimes simple things are the best inventions.

------
vecter
I found the base antenna site (<http://www.apple.com/antenna/>) pretty
enlightening.

~~~
growt
So if this not just FUD. I wonder why all these companies obviously put the
antenna in the wrong place. If your hand affects the signal strength through
the case, you shouldn't put the antenna at the bottom of the phone, because
that is where you hold it.

Also: "bars" is not a scientific unit.

~~~
CamperBob
_Also: "bars" is not a scientific unit._

Well, sure it is, if you're measuring the pressure of hot air.

~~~
Yaggo
Doesn't have to be hot.

------
growt
So, from a scientific point of view, the conclusion is: their model of the
real world is wrong.

It wouldn't suprise me, I've never seen so many blue spikes in one place ;)

------
tzs
How rigid and tough are those spikes? If you fell off the walkway while
walking out to the test platform in the first picture, would it likely cause
serious injury to you, or would it just crush a bunch of spikes and get you in
trouble with your boss?

~~~
chrisa
Spikes in RF labs are generally a soft foam, so you would probably just crush
a bunch of spikes. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anechoic_chamber> for
more information about these kinds of rooms

------
sgt
I have an HTC Hero and it also drops quite a few calls, but somehow I've just
learned to live with it.

~~~
borism
that's because HTC Hero is not some incredibly magical life changing device!

------
elblanco
In other words, this is where Jobs generates and amplifies his reality
distortion field.

~~~
commieneko
Ho ho ho. This chamber is a mere shadow of the facility that they test "The
Field" in. Enter "The Pit" and you are standing in a three dimensional cross
section of a high level, multi-dimensional reality disorter. Foam covered
rotating tesseracts line the constantly phasing containment vessel. What ever
you do, never approach the perimeter when in operation lest you be turned
inside out in the most horrible manner imaginable and your quarks
redistributed evenly throughout the cosmos as a slight fluctuation in the
universal gravitational constant...

------
samaparicio
Better title: "Apple's insanely cool PR response"

------
mattdawson
My first reaction when I saw these pictures was "Holy crap! Apple went and
built a danger room![1]"

I can't be the only person who had this thought.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Room>

------
jimbobimbo
I was in one of the cell network provider's testing lab a few times. They also
do things like RF testing before putting the device on sale, but their lab
doesn't look any similar to that. They have a bunch of Faraday cages (think of
labs with sheet metal walls) and lots of RF emulation equipment - phone's
getting connected through the RF port on the back; RF emulators take care of
simulating any bad RF conditions that you could possibly imagine. So, their
labs don't look that fancy at all. Still they manage to have devices that
could be held any way you want.

------
pinchyfingers
I don't see how this helps their situation. This just adds weight to the idea
that they willfully ignored the problem and shipped the phone with full
knowledge of the antenna problems.

~~~
tyler_ball
Not necessarily. As they've shown, lots of phones do this. They shipped the
phone with the problems because that's what everybody else does.

~~~
wvenable
I hardly call it problems. It's just how the devices work.

------
gnok
Does anyone know what material is used in making those cone-like pokey things?
My immediate guess would be that its some form of dense foam to damp waves;
but what exactly are they?

~~~
danudey
The video said something about carbon-infused foam.

------
vegashacker
Before clicking the link I was about to post a pedantic "please change to a
headline that doesn't editorialize", but after a second of looking at the
pictures...holy crap! That is (objectively) insanely cool! :)

------
adelevie
Feature: Antenna tested in state of the art lab Benefit: The antenna works

------
JustinSeriously
That is an alien-looking world.

It gets more exciting if you mute it and put on Liberi Fatali in the
background.

------
Emore
I bet you the money in my pocket that this lab was _not_ called "Antenna
design and test lab" prior to the press conference; part of the brilliance in
this deflection of attention is most certainly found it the naming itself of
this awesome place.

~~~
volodia
It was probably just called the 'anechoic chamber', which is the correct
technical term.

------
heresy
Do the people with this problem have different physiological properties in
their hands? Such as more conductivity..

No matter how I hold any of my iPhones, reported signal strength is the same.

Anyone else experiencing this?

------
bprater
How can they make such a massive investment in this type of thing and end up
with such a big 'oops'? It must be heartbreaking for the antenna engineers.

~~~
YooLi
What would it take to convince you that it isn't a "Big 'oops'"? [Serious
question]

I just checked my EVO manual and it specifically says where not to touch the
phone (upper left). The difference seems to be that people learned where not
to touch the iPhone and then made a huge deal about it as if it was something
new.

~~~
compay
I'd be convinced if I actually held one in my hand and could either reproduce
or not reproduce the problem.

I find it crazy how many people leap to either attack or defend Apple without
having ever used one of the things.

~~~
datasink
A co-worker just showed me his new iPhone 4 this afternoon. I joked with him
that he had interesting timing, and tried to show him the antenna issue. I've
never used an iPhone 4, so I figured it would be easy to replicate the issue.
It wasn't, and the reception at my office is terrible. I was able to drop a
bar off by cupping most of the phone in both hands, but couldn't kill the
signal completely. I think my co-worker installed the software update already,
so perhaps this is partially why.

I have an iPhone 3GS and have put off upgrading because of the signal issue. I
figured there was some media hype, but wouldn't have figured I'd be unable to
replicate the issue.

------
kwyjibo
Why can't they leave the Blackberry and all the other mobile phones out of the
game?

------
mx12
You think that they could use something other than rubber bands to hold the
phones!

~~~
YooLi
:) This reminds me of the million-dollar zero gravity pens vs. just using a
pencil.

~~~
StuffMaster
Urban legend.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen>

------
veeti
Is it just me or the video is really out of focus?

~~~
shajith
It looks like they used a low DoF lens (or similar post-processing effect) for
most of the shots.

~~~
veeti
That's what I thought - and the cinematography, IMO, is pretty bad. Half of
the time the subjects seem to be blurry.

------
netmau5
Seeing a giant 10-story, foam-padded test facility doesn't exactly seem like
real world use to me, but then again I know nothing about proper cell phone
testing procedures.

~~~
YooLi
This is like equating the use of a wind-tunnel in airplane design to not
'real-world' use. Should all airplanes be tested by being built and then just
taken for a flight?

~~~
whatusername
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2zqTYgcpfg> Why build them first. // I've
never understood that ad - it always screams "we don't take proper care" to
me..

~~~
winthrowe
I don't necessarily think it's a good ad, but I can understand it. EDS became
the name on my dad's check for several years at Canadian National Railways,
when they did their large windows 98 rollouts, y2k fixes and certification,
and windows 2000 rollouts. I can see the metaphor of building/repairing the
plane in flight.

------
scotty79
Too bad they tested iPhone 4 while wearing their rubber lab gloves.

------
matthew-wegner
No "wall of PR", my ass.

------
nonfiction
why didn't they just test it out in public...where it would normally be used.

~~~
absconditus
"Testing performance in the field.

Apple engineers tested iPhone 4 in a variety of scenarios, environments, and
conditions in order to gauge performance. They spent thousands of hours in
cities in the U.S. and throughout the world testing iPhone 4 call quality,
dropped-call performance, call origination and termination, and in-service
time. They tested iPhone 4 while stationary, at high and low speeds, and in
urban, dense urban, and highway environments. In low-coverage areas and good-
coverage areas, during peak and off-peak hours iPhone 4 was field-tested in
nearly every possible coverage scenario across different vendor and carrier
equipment all over the world."

------
armandososa
\-- Here's where Professor Steve sits down in his wheelchair and uses this
helmet that amplifies his reality distortion abilities. We call it "Manzana".

~~~
milod
The cake is a lie

------
growt
Apple's insanely cool - but useless - antenna testing lab.

~~~
Locke1689
Ah. So where did you get your degree in electrical engineering or physics? I
just want to know where you get such a degree without ever having learned
about anechoic chambers.

~~~
growt
see:

"huge antenna lab" + "antenna sucks" = "lab is useless"

just basic math, no degree needed (although I have one ;))

------
againstyou
most of the time i can see only robots holding the iphone.

------
csomar
The fact that Apple is giving free cases
([http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/apple-to-give-away-
free-b...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/apple-to-give-away-free-bumpers-
to-iphone-4-users/)) means that the iPhone antenna has a bad design.

So they spent million of $ to improve the antenna and forgot this little
detail? Where are the testers?

~~~
jey
I'm not taking sides on whether or not this is a design flaw, but once you
have a PR debacle you pretty much _have_ to take some action to deal with it.
Imagine if Toyota was just saying "actually no, the 'acceleration problem'
with our cars is not statistically significant in comparison to other cars
after controlling for demographic variables like the age of the driver".

~~~
Terretta
And it was certainly curious how the "in depth" LA Times article (saying the
Toyota problem was real) neglected to mention that all the cases they covered
in the article--and listed ages for right in the article--were senior
citizens...

------
mithaler
Wait... what? The fact that they thoroughly tested it and _still_ had as big a
problem as they did is supposed to make us think they're more competent?

------
Mafiaboy
Well, whatever the critics say about apple,their products are very reliable
unlike other.

------
Maven911
Wow...that is so impressive (not) I have seen tons of these anechoic chambers
used by antenna manufacturers...Apple and their amazing marketing gimmics...

------
maxogden
Here's a screenshot in case they remove it: <http://imgur.com/bc5FO.png>

------
paran
This lab looks really cool....but the timing of this page being seeded makes
me believe its little more than a PR stunt! :) kudos apple fr givin us the
iphone 3g/3gs/4...but the antennae problem was just too embarrassing for u
guys!

------
keltex
This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. It's hard to
overstate my satisfaction. Apple Computer We do what we must because we can.

~~~
Empact
No offense, but could we leave the tangential joke and meme-reference comments
to reddit?

~~~
milod
No offense, but I find the humor in this reference far more insightful than
the majority of the other offhand comments in this thread (that have many up-
votes). The satire here is relevant and appropriate in my opinion, not
tangential. I understand HN tends to frown on offhand comments (as it
generally should), but knee-jerk downvoting humor without considering the
context will make HN a dull boy. Voting up or down shouldn't be based on
whether you agree or disagree with the comment, but whether the comment has
merit. downvotes welcome

------
thefool
This is so silly. There's a feynman quote where he was talking about how at
MIT they had this really fancy test facility, but it never produced any
results, because the people running the tests were in another room an never
saw anything happen.

Then at Princeton, where they were in the same room, the machine (which was
much less fancy) produced much more information because people saw what was
going on as it was running.

Seems to me that this could easily be something of the case. Fancy test
facility with no grounding in anything.

Furthermore isn't it kinda more embarrassing when, instead of admitting there
was a problem, they just say that the phone was tested. It seems to imply that
the issue is intentional.

~~~
mechanical_fish
The difference here is that the guys at Princeton weren't clueless
linkbaiters, or folks who think that the fundamental unit of RF signal
strength is "the bar". The Princeton physicists were physicists. They did
science. They took actual data, made actual scientific arguments backed by
that data, and published them.

The subtext of Apple's PR here is: You want to have an argument about RF
engineering and the complexities and tradeoffs involved? Bring it. Apple's
engineering team stands by its work. But you better be prepared to argue like
an engineer, not a gossip columnist.

~~~
thefool
I think you missed my point.

First off what I'm saying is that while fancy pictures of high end lab
equipment might look impressive, it doesn't mean that it is the best way to
design things, even when the people doing it are really good.

Secondly, while I understand that the intent of this is to tell people
something along the lines of, "We didn't give you a defective device, we
really did a great job testing it first, look at our facility", it can easily
be spun as, "well you can't have done that good a job because even with all
this fancy equipment you still released a product that has a design issue"

