Over the past week, there’s been much Internet hysteria surrounding the new iPhone 4 and apparent issues with its antenna.
To summarize:
There’s a stainless steel band that runs around the phone, serving as the mounting point for all other parts. It’s also the antenna. Two antennas actually, which are bridged at a point in the lower left corner of the ring.
Thus, the ‘Death Grip’ — when holding the phone in a way that covers the black gap in the lower left corner of the steel band, signal strength will drop and may even disconnect if it was already low to begin with. Basically, covering the black gap bridges the two antennas together (humans are conductors), detuning them.
On one hand, some call the design defective:
When asked, Apple offered a very simple solution: Hold it in a different way. No, that’s not the solution. Those are lame excuses for bad industrial design and engineering decision. Good can’t limit the user expression, much less obligate him to act in a certain way.
On the other, reception with external antenna has been proven to be much better than it was on the 3Gs, as long as it is held correctly. Tech site AnandTech did an extensive review and concluded:
From my day of testing, I’ve determined that the iPhone 4 performs much better than the 3GS in situations where signal is very low, at -113 dBm (1 bar). With my bumper case on, I made it further into dead zones than ever before, and into marginal areas that would always drop calls without any problems at all.
So, is it a compromise by Apple, going with a design that improved performance and packaging but at a risk? Or is it a flaw, not worth the benefits because it limits user expression (or Steve Jobs, like totes owes us free covers)?
Reaction on the Internet is pretty much all over the place, most of it not worth reading. In my opinion, just hold it correctly (hold a knife by the handle, don’t cover the words you’re reading when holding a book). But the best feature of the iPhone is this: you don’t have to buy one if you don’t like it.
- Charles Brian Quinn