BENNY's RANTS: iPhone 4 intial Annoyances

The new iPhone 4 just released for sales 2 days ago had already received 3 major complains from users.

The "DEATH GRIP"

If one hold the phone covering the lower-left corner - it will cause poorer 3G reception and a drop in voice signals, sometimes disappear. This may make the handset especially hard to use for left-handed owners.

If you have watch the keynote, no wonder Steve Job was holding the phone in a strange way. He was then blaming the reception on the poor WiFi signals !!

Because the iPhone 4 uses a new antenna design integrated into the edge, and covering part of the edge kills reception, concern has been raised that the flaw is inherent and could require a hardware revision.

The company's suggested solution ? Move your hand position, or get a case which covers that part of the phone, thus breaking contact.

These are some of Steve Job's and Apple reply to this issue :
- Nope. Just don't hold it that way.
- To the question " Normally there aren't limits to how you hold a phone" -- Steve reply- Sure there are -- every phone has these areas of sensitivity, depending on the location of the antenna. Some phones even ship with labels warning customers to not cover certain areas with their hands.
- Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.

Example of an email between a user and Steve :

Spencer Webb of AntennaSys (an "antenna design" firm) says the antennas in the new iPhone are on the sides of the phone, which means that, yes, there's potential for your hands to block energy. He went further saying "if you put your phone somewhere away from you and use a Bluetooth headset, none of it really matters anyway."

What a unbelievable response . So what's the ideal way of holding your phone? One should hold it at the top ???

And to buy the Apple case or some other 3rd party cases so that the sides of the phone is covered ?? Apple should give their bumper cases for free now.
No wonder during the keynote , Steve recommend to purchase the bumper case. This is the first time Apple is releasing a case for its iPhone during launching ; so I am guessing that Apple already knows this problem but it was not highlighted by Steve then.

I remembered very clearly in the keynote presentation, Steve had said the new iPhone has an awesome new antenna and he was describing how great the new design was being at the sides of the phone ?? There was a great applause for him when he highlighted this point. Now it looks like the antenna wasn't designed primarily to get better reception. Possibly it was so designed because the iPhone's internal components was so cram , there wasn't any room inside for an antenna.
Steve Jobs always likes to say he's trying to make perfect products, and now Apple fans are querying why that doesn't that also include perfect RF reception and perfect network quality.

A user experience - interesting : read his report at www.insanelygreatmac.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUMn7CEAtmw&feature=PlayList&p=5CE6CBD04F725A5A&playnext_from=PL

User from Macrumours.com :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ixIHyEPO5g&feature=player_embedded#!

How about this proposed solution ?? - just covering the bottom edges with tape

YELLOW spots and discoloration at bottom edges

Some owners are also reporting discolored screens, blotching , tinted yellow in spots, typically towards the bottom corners. At AppleInsider forum, one person claims that the problem may be related to a chemical called Organofunctional Silane Z-6011, used to bond glass layers together. Units may be shipping so quickly after finishing production, the person suggests, that the Z-6011 has not completely evaporated. Apparently, all you need to do is wait a few more days & use the screen normally to allow the adhesive to dry and the yellow spots should disappear after a day or two of active use.

I was thinking about this explanation and would like to ask : " Such an evaporation inside a closed and sealed environment if occur , how will it affect the electronics ? Will it cause some other issues? "

Volume buttons wrongly switched

Some units of the iPhone 4s are coming off the assembly line with reversed volume buttons. The '–' increases the volume, while the '+' makes the sound quieter. Report at http://9to5mac.com/node/18548

Well to conclude , nothing is perfect. We just hope the newer batches of phones will have these issues resolved. In spite of these annoyances, market analyst had forecasted Apple will be selling more iPhones than it has in the past. In the first few days , 600,000 units already sold and by this weekend the figure is forecasted to hit 1.5 million units.

iPhone 4 photo shots around the world showing the "crazy" sales