UPDATE: Steve Jobs: iPhone 4 may be recalled (?)
(Update 0025hrs 28061020) As it turns out the Daily Mail has removed the news piece without any explanation. the tweet the article referred to to belongs to one of the many fake Steve Jobs Twitter account out there. In this case, it was from ceoSteveJobs.
But with unhappy customers growing in numbers by the day, can Apple afford not to recall the flawed iPhone 4?
(Update 0126hrs 28061020) Another short update. Found found a screencap of the earlier report on Flickr.
“We may have to recall the new iPhone. This I did not expect.”
Steve Jobs revealed via Twitter that the recently launched iPhone 4 may be recalled barely a week into its debut, UK’s Daily Mail Online reported.
The is probably the first time we’ve heard Apple recall a product and if it is indeed true, this would definitely be the first time an iPhone is being recalled.
The culprit? You’ve guessed it, the externally antenna that we’ve talking about here, here and here.
Could this mean that there will be delays for subsequent shipments of the iPhone 4 to other countries? Most likely. Would it affect sales of the iPhone 4? Probably but maybe not.
Experts agree: External antenna not that good
It turns out, external antennas are not that revolutionary after all and they could be more problematic than internal ones. At least, this is what one antenna expert from Denmark is saying.
Professor Gert Frølund Pedersen from Aalborg University’s Institute for Electronic Systems saw Steve’s presentation at WWDC10 and says that the design of the antenna as a part of the phone’s frame is really not anything new. In fact numerous phones in the past have used a similar design. The professor is currently leading an international research team to develop a more effective mobile antenna technology
What’s different with the iPhone 4 is that the installation of the external antenna is flawed and it is causing reception problems when the phone is held in a certain way.
There are now claims that Apple will be releasing a patch to solve the issue but we’re wondering if a software patch can really solve the problem?
We don’t think so.
This is because the root cause of the reception degradation is direct physical contact with the iPhone 4’s antenna. The professor explains: “the human tissue will in any event, have an inhibitory effect…Touch means that a larger portion of the antenna energy turns into heat and lost. This makes the antenna less efficient to send and receive radio signal.”
Researchers at Aalborg University is quick to point that found that if mobile phones are held tightly generally where the antenna is located can cause reduction in reception by more than 90%.
You’re holding it wrong Apple
Who’s holding it wrong now Steve?
Click for larger image.
[source]
Serious design flaw on the iPhone 4
We thought that it’s really weird for the iPhone 4 WiFi to stop working during the FaceTime demo at WWDC10. At that time Jobs claimed that the over 500 wireless APs in the conference hall was causing problems for the iPhone 4, resulting in the botched up demo.
We thought that it was very unlikely that the WiFi routers were to blame for the failed demo. We noted that there could be something seriously wrong with the external antenna on the iPhone 4 when it comes to WiFi performance. It turns out WiFi performance is not the only thing the iPhone 4 is having problems with.
Many early iPhone 4 owners experiencing a dropped calls and a major drop is signal reception when handling the phone. All of these early iPhone 4 users have their fingers pointed directly at the “revolutionary” external stainless steel antenna.
We didn’t realize it at first but it has now become obvious to us. Is the antenna design on the iPhone 4 majorly flawed? We are inclined to believe that it definitely is. The logic behind this is simple, if you we’re to hold any antenna, be it TV, radio or even handphones, you are bound to experience signal degradation. To overcome this, product designers add some form of insulation around the antenna to minimize short circuiting the antennae with can cause interference and signal degradation. Could the exposed antenna design on the iPhone 4 be the root cause of all this?
Without a unit to test for ourselves, for now we can only speculate, but we have a very strong feeling that it is indeed the case.
WiMAX-Inside roadtest complete, results on Monday
We have just completed our road test with the upcoming Intel based WiMAX embedded laptop that is going to be introduced by P1 next week. These new range of what P1 calls, WiMAX-Inside laptops is said to be able to deliver a simillar level of convenience offered by WiFi but with the advantages of better performance and coverage of WiMAX all without the need for external dongles.
To find out if what P1 says is true or not, we acquired a test WiMAX laptop and took it on “end to end” LRT ride and the a long drive along LDP highway. The test results are interesting and we have a lot to share in terms of ease of use, connectivity, download speeds and power consumption.
Watch this space on Monday to read all about it.
UPDATE: Our road test post is up, read all about it here.